WILD DUCK. 
407 
NAT A TORES. 
A NAT I DAL 
WILD DUCK. 
Anas boschas. 
PLATE CXIII. FIG. III. 
Though the larger proportion of the Wild Ducks that 
visit us in the winter months go farther north to breed, a 
number of them remain in this country, throughout which 
they are pretty widely spread,—several of them resorting 
wherever large tracts of undisturbed water or marshy 
ground, with here and there a pond or pool of water, are 
to be met with,—a single pair sometimes frequenting the 
banks of rivers and smaller streams of water, when the 
margins afford cover of reeds or rushes, amongst which 
to make their nests. 
We should scarcely expect to find the nest of the Wild 
Duck in a tree, and yet several instances have occurred 
in which it has chosen for itself a site thus elevated, and 
apparently uncongenial to its usual habits. Mr. Tuke has 
met with a nest of this species in the grounds of Castle 
Howard, in a large tree, twenty feet above the ground, 
and fifty yards from the edge of the water. Mr. Tunstall 
speaks of one at Etchingham, in Sussex, which was built 
in an oak-tree twenty-five feet above the ground, and con¬ 
tained nine eggs ; and Mr. Selby says that a Wild Duck 
laid its eggs in the nest of a crow, at least thirty feet from 
the ground. 
