DUCKS' NESTS. 
169 
DUCKS’ NESTS. 
N the spring of the year I was walking in Kensington 
Gardens, and observing the number of broods of young 
ducks on the Round Pond was puzzled as to where 
the parent birds could have built their nests. It 
seemed impossible for them to have done so anywhere near 
the water’s edge as is usual in the wild state, for there was 
no cover and they would have been disturbed by the people 
frequenting the gardens, so the only place that I could think 
of was under the hedge surrounding the Palace Gardens, about 
sixty or seventy yards from the water. 
On enquiring of a keeper that came by, I learnt that a few 
birds built where I supposed, but great was my astonishment 
when he went on to say that most of them made their nests in 
the trees ! I had never heard of such a thing as wild ducks 
building in trees, and said, “ What trees ? ” To which he 
replied, “ In the elm trees that you see around.” He pointed 
out that many of them had been broken off short by the gales, 
saying that wherever there was a dwarfed tree of this kind, or 
where, on other trees, there was a favourable knot or tuft 
twenty feet or so from the ground, there a duck’s nest would 
always be found each year. 
I next asked him how the old duck got the young ones to the 
water, and was informed that directly they were hatched she 
simply kicked them out of the nest, letting them fall to the 
ground, she quacking all the time, and when they were all down 
she would descend, gather them under her wungs for a little time 
to warm them, then off she would start and they would follow 
her to the water. 
I was even more surprised at this and proceeded to cross 
question my informant who persisted in his statement adding 
that it was only two mornings ago he had stood under one of the 
trees to watch this apparently heartless performance, when one 
of the little creatures being hurt by the fall, and unable to follow 
its mother, he took it up and carried it to the water after her. 
The duckling, revived by the warmth of his hand at once swam 
away merrily with its fellow's. 
On my arrival at home I took down from the shelf a well- 
known Avork on Natural History in which I found it stated that 
ducks did in rare instances build in trees, but that it then exer- 
cised the ingenuity of the old bird to get the young ones to the 
Avater. Evidently the author did not knoAV hoAV this Avas done. 
Feeling an interest in this matter I AA'rote off to a friend aaRo is 
a close observer of nature to tell him Avhat I had heard about the 
ducks : he Avas incredulous, insisting that the ducks carried their 
young to the Avater in their mouths ; hoAvever, as he had never 
seen them do this I preferred the eAudence of the keeper at the 
gardens. 
The next time that I AA’as in the vicinity of the Round Pond I 
