As to the _use_ we make of ducks, it is chiefly as an article of food the English duck is prized. But in the Northern regions, particularly in Iceland, there is a bird called the eider duck, which is much valued on account of the soft and beautiful down which grows upon its breast, and is used for pillows and counterpanes, being wonderfully light, warm and elastic. These birds, though naturally solitary creatures, assemble in crowds at the breeding season, and build their nests in the roofs of the houses. They tear away this soft down as a cradle for their young. But the people rob the nests when they are finished, not only once, but sometimes, cruelly enough, a second time. For the poor birds, finding the down gone, tear a second supply from their loving bosoms. If the plunder be attempted more than twice, the birds are said to forsake the spot entirely. The eider duck has a curious method of teaching her young ones to swim. A few days after they are hatched she carries them some distance from shore on her back. Then, making a sudden dive, she leaves the little ones afloat and obliged to exert their own powers. Re-appearing at a little distance, she entices them towards her, and thus they at once become good swimmers. Before concluding, I will relate an instance of the sagacity often displayed by the tame or domestic duck. It is told by a gentleman named Mr. Saul:-- "I have now a fine duck which was hatched under a hen, there being seven young ones produced at the time. When these ducks were about ten days old, five of them were taken away from beneath the hen by the rats, during the nighttime, the rats sucking them to death and leaving the body perfect. My duck, which escaped this danger, now alarms all the other ducks and the fowls in the most extraordinary manner, as soon as rats appear in the building in which they are confined, whether it be in the night or the morning. I was awakened by this duck about midnight, and as I feared the rats were making an attack, I got up immediately, went to the building, and found the ducks uninjured. I then returned to bed, supposing the rats had retreated. To my surprise, next morning, I found that two young ducks had been taken from beneath a hen and sucked to death, at a very short distance from where the older duck was sitting. On this account, I got a young rat dog, and kept it in the building, and when the rats approach, the duck will rouse the dog from sleep, and as soon as the dog starts up, the duck resettles herself." [Illustration: THE QUAIL.] THE QUAIL.