The way in which a mother Duck, who has nested in a tree hole rather high up, brings her young family to the water is remarkable. As soon as they are dry after hatching, she carries them one by one in her bill down to the water’s edge. Each duckling as it is set down remains motionless as a stone on the ground, until the mother has brought the last baby to join the others, then the whole family begins to cackle and pipe, the young ones follow their mother into the water, swimming at once, and their duck life begins its ordinary course. Their usual diet consists of water plants, duckweed, sundew, the green parts of the water-nut and the seeds of water grasses. They let the water flow, filtering through their beaks as beseems a well brought up duck, and in this way allow many little water creatures, fish spawn and such like, to enter their crops. But they can also do mischief. At harvest time the duck visits the cut corn lying on the ground and the sheaves, picks out the corn and treads down the ears. Therefore--and also because it is so good for the table--it is worthy of a well-aimed shot. It is still very common in Hungary. * * * * * “Mallards manifest bird chivalry and courtesy to perfection--the drakes industriously finding mussels for their sober-coloured mates, not because these are not able to find for themselves but because the males consider it their place to do so. Stretching out their necks and ruffling all their feathers they softly call when they have a lucky find; up rushes the duck, nips fast hold of the gaper and swings it from side to side as a terrier shakes a rat: after wrenching it from the shell she washes it in the water of the runnel and swallows it. It is a matter of serious regret to many a sportsman and one entailing loss to the longshore shooter that the numbers of our common Wild Ducks or Mallards are each year becoming less. But for those bred in the Arctic regions--those the North Kent marshman calls “foreign flighters,” we should be in a bad way as to the Wild Duck.