THE DUCK. (Anas boschas.)
The common Duck is of two kinds, the wild and the tame, the latter being but the same species altered by domestication; the difference between them is very trifling, save that the colour of the Mallard, or male wild Duck, is constantly the same in all the individuals, whereas the Drakes, or tame ones, are varied in their plumage. The females do not share with the males in beauty of plumage: the admirable scarf of glossy green and blue, which surrounds the neck of Drakes and Mallards, being an exclusive prerogative of the male sex. There is also a curious and invariable peculiarity belonging to the males, which consists of a few curled feathers rising upon the rump.
Wild Ducks are caught by decoys in the fen countries, and in such prodigious numbers, that in only ten decoys in the neighbourhood of Wainfleet, as many as thirty-one thousand two hundred have been caught in one season. They do not always build their nests close to the water, but often at a considerable distance from it; in which case the female will take the young ones in her beak, or between her legs, to the water. They have sometimes been known to lay their eggs in a high tree, in a deserted magpie’s or crow’s nest; and an instance has been recorded of one being found at Etchingham, in Sussex, sitting upon nine eggs in an oak, at the height of twenty-five feet from the ground: the eggs were supported by some small twigs laid cross-ways.