By chance I very soon discovered their choicest breeding-place, not far from that dome-shaped, fir-crowned hill which was my principal landmark. This was a boggy place, thirty or forty acres in extent surrounded by trees and overgrown with marsh weeds and grasses, and in places with rushes. Cotton grass grew in the drier parts, and the tufts nodding in the wind looked at a distance like silvery white flowers. At one end of the marsh there were clumps of willow and alder, where the reed-bunting was breeding and the grasshopper warbler uttered his continuous whirring sound, which seemed to accord {213} with the singing of the wind in the pines. At the other end there was open water with patches of rushes growing in it; and here at the water's edge, shaded by a small fir, I composed myself on a bed of heather to watch the birds. The inquisitive moor-hens were the first to appear, uttering from time to time their sharp, loud protest. Their suspicion lessened by degrees, but was never wholly laid aside; and one bird, slyly leaving the water, made a wide circuit and approached me through the trees in order to get a better view of me. A sudden movement on my part, when he was only three yards from me, gave him a terrible fright. Mallards showed themselves at intervals, swimming into the open water, or rising a few yards above the rushes, then dropping out of sight again. Where the rushes grew thin and scattered, ducklings appeared, swimming one behind the other, busily engaged in snatching insects from the surface. By-and-by a pair of teal rose up, flew straight towards me, and dropped into the open water within eighteen yards of where I sat. They were greatly excited, and no sooner touched the water than they began calling loudly; then, from various points, others rose and hurried to join them, and in a few moments there were eleven, all disporting themselves on the water at that short distance. Teal are always tamer than ducks of other kinds, but the tameness of these Wolmer birds was astonishing and very delightful. For a few moments I imagined they were excited at my presence, but it very soon appeared that they were entirely absorbed {214} in their own affairs and cared nothing about me. What a wonderfully lively, passionate, variable, and even ridiculous little creature the teal is! Compared with his great relations--swans, geese, and the bigger ducks--he is like a monkey or squirrel among stately bovine animals. Now the teal have a world-wide range, being found in all climates, and are of many species; they are, moreover, variable in plumage, some species having an exceedingly rich and beautiful colouring; but wherever found, and however different in colour, they are much the same in disposition--they are loquacious, excitable, violent in their affections beyond other ducks, and, albeit highly intelligent, more fearless than other birds habitually persecuted by man. A sedate teal is as rare as a sober-coloured humming-bird.