Feb. 18—Cold weather always seems to ät-freet ducks into the inland waters near towns, and the past week has given me some interesting moments in consequence: as an example I would mention my last visit to the Dabchicks—Mr. and Mrs. Podgy. As this pair have been very shy recently, I approached their pond by a circuitous route, screening myself behind grave-mounds etc. and was rewarded by hearing (long before I got a view) the thin piping, "Pip-pip-pip" which Mr. P. gives to reassure his nervous wife every time he goes three yards zway from the home reeds. By the time I was near enough to see the pair of them over the pond-bank, both were convinced there was something wrong and floated ¿long with heads anxiously raised: I kept still as a statue....but some tiny movement caused further suspi: and Mr. P. swung his body round with his back to his mate, so that, tail to tail, with questing eyes covering every direction, the pair of them lay motionless....knowing there was danger but unable to define it. Such changes take place in iHe flick of an eyelid, and are difficult to des-cribo: I cannot keep still as long zs a Little Grebe can, and I must have made some movement of head or hand: then, in a flash, the two birds dived—which was to be expected—but whet was not expected was that just as if the Grebes had pulled a trigger when they dived -.-.up got eight or ten ducks! They appeared, of course, from under the bank where I could not see them, and went whirling up into the sky. The utterly unexpected appearance of these ducks, coming simultaneously with the disappearance of the two "Podgies" took meso much by surprise that I forgot all about the field-glasses dangling round my neck; but the general brown colour (light at side of head) and lack of eny distinctive markings at a hasty glance made them Yellownibs (Anas zomoryncha); fine big ducks, long in the neck, and easily recognizable if they would not come popping up under my nose like a multiple "Jack-in-the-box. 1
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.