of my very limited dealings with the Wigeon may serve to illustrate.

When a species of bird or animal has been for many generations, perhaps for many hundred years, in the neighbourhood, within the view and under the partial care of Man, and yet cannot be made to lose its innate shyness, and to prefer the plenty and comfort of domestication to a wild and unrestrained mode of life, there is little hope that further attempts on our part will have any effect in bringing such creatures into closer intimacy with us. The Water-hen and the Pheasant are two sufficient instances among birds, the zebra appears to be one among quadrupeds. But if, in any untried race, we find an attached, confiding, and intelligent disposition, hopes of success may then be entertained, in spite of great apparent difficulties. One which would appear to be a bar to all reasonable hope of domestication, is the migratory instinct. But it is not so. The tame Duck is popularly and hitherto undoubtingly believed to be descended from the Mallard, which twice a-year crosses the northern seas. One or two species of Geese have been tempted to prefer the luxuries of home and the friendship of Man to their former periodical voyages through the clouds; and there cannot be a more settled quiet creature than the common Goose, which is said, with what probability we shall discuss hereafter, to be the offspring of some one or two of these restless varieties. It is not for want of means of escape that the dove-house Pigeon does not betake itself to its native rocks; for it is said occasionally to come in the morning from the Low Countries to the Norfolk coast to feed on certain crops, and return home in the afternoon; and an excursion across the Wash of Lincolnshire is merely an agreeable trip for exercise. Even the sheep is to this day a migratory animal. "In Spain the number of migratory sheep (Merinos) is calculated at ten millions. journey is usually more than 400 miles. to exert great vigilance over the flock

H

Their whole It is necessary during the last

three or four days, for the animals are eager to start away, and often great numbers of them make their escape.' The sheep of the patriarchs were probably not free from a similar roving disposition. And therefore the circumstance that a bird visits in the arctic circle, or now and then performs flights of 2000 or 3000 miles, is less opposed to the possibility of its being domiciled in our court-yards than if it haunted the very shrubbery before our windows, displaying at the same time a certain shyness, flightiness, suspiciousness of temper, well known to the observant naturalist, that coquets with the authority of Man, but will never yield to it. It may be said that such untameables are wise; that if we took them under our protection, it would only be to kill and eat them. But though we may devour the individuals, we multiply and perhaps preserve the species. Were the Turkey as wild and irreclaimable as the Bustard, it would soon be as rare and as likely to be obliterated from the list of existing species. What a pity, then, it is that we cannot, before it be too late, rescue, by domestication, some of those curious Australian birds and animals, whose extinction from the face of the earth Mr. Darwin, we may fear, so truly predicts in his "Voyage of the Beagle round the World." +

The Wigeon is a migratory bird, arriving here in the autumn. A friend, the owner of a decoy, sent me a couple that had just arrived. I cannot call them a pair,

* Youatt on Sheep, p. 151.

"A few years since this country abounded with wild animals; but now the Emu is banished to a long distance, and the kangaroo is become scarce; to both, the English greyhound has been highly destructive. It may be long before these animals are altogether exterminated, but their doom is fixed. The aborigines are always anxious to borrow the dogs from the farm houses; the use of them, the offal when an animal is killed, and some milk from the cows, are the peace-offerings of the settlers, who push farther and farther towards the interior. The thoughtless aboriginal, blinded by these trifling advantages, is delighted at the approach of the white man, who seems predestined to inherit the country of his children."-Journal, second Edition, page 441. See also Dr. Ernest Dieffenbach's Travels in New Zealand.

because, being taken from a large flock, they might possibly have no more acquaintance with each other than a gentleman in the pit of the Opera need have with any given lady in the boxes. After peeping into the hamper, we were going to turn them out into an inclosed yard to have a better view of them, when an acquaintance who was present suggested that they were not pinioned. The operation was performed. They each uttered one faint cry, looking at us imploringly with their large, clear, intelligent eyes. This was no hospitable reception. They were then put under a hen-coop on the lawn, within two or three yards of the living-room window, and supplied with corn and water. We were constantly looking at them, and shifting their coop to a fresh patch of grass. They did not then allow us to see them eat, but there is no doubt that in the night they made up for the partial abstinence of the day. After a week's confinement in this way, I thought it time to give them greater freedom, by inclosing a small square with wicker hurdles on an island that I wished to become their future haunt, and by removing them there. In a day or two the female had disappeared; but how? Some railway navvies at work close by were at first suspected, quite unjustly, I believe; but the hen Wigeon was never after seen or heard of. A few of the web-footed birds have the faculty of climbing up perpendicular surfaces, which would hardly be expected from their conformation, and it is most likely that the escape was thus effected. The horizontal twigs composing the hurdles would easily be laid hold of by her claws and bill. A fence of reeds placed uprightly confines water birds much more securely. Mr. Swainson quotes a feat of climbing performed by the Gargeney Duck, and Audubon relates the following still more curious instance.

"A dozen or more (young Wood Ducks) were placed in empty flour barrels, and covered over for some hours, with a view of taming them the sooner. Several of these barrels were placed in the yard, but whenever I went and

raised their lids, I found all the little ones hooked by their sharp claws to the very edge of their prison, and the instant that room was granted, they would tumble over and run in all directions. I afterwards frequently saw these young birds rise from the bottom to the brim of a cask by moving a few inches at a time up the side, and fixing foot after foot by means of their diminutive hooked claws, which, in passing over my hand, I found to have points almost as fine as those of a needle."-Ornithological Biography, vol. iii., p. 56.

The hen having thus scansorially evaded, it was cruel and useless (for breeding purposes) to retain the male bird in solitary confinement. He was, therefore, set at complete liberty; but instead of following the example of his companion-I cannot call her his mate-he appeared determined to make himself comfortable where he was, taking his corn with the Ducks, grazing fearlessly at short distances from the house, and courting quite as much as withdrawing from our notice. His favourite position during the day, when he seemed fond of dozing and sunning himself after he had had his fill of grass, was to bask on the turf before the dining-room window, close by the spot where he had been originally placed in the hen-coop. As the spring advanced he became uneasy, but by no means wild, whistling for a companion, without finding one to answer his call. In April or May he departed, a brook close at hand enabling him to do so. I fear that in his mutilated state the vain search for a partner ended only in capture or death.

From what I saw of these birds I must believe the Wigeon to be domesticable. The experience of other amateurs is concurrent. "The Wigeons that I turned out some weeks ago have made their reappearance; but it is only in the evening, and in the morning early, that they are to be seen."-H. O. N.

A fairer experiment would be, if possible, to procure birds bred in captivity, to keep them in a confined space (grass is necessary to their welfare) feeding them highly,

and giving them officious attention for two or three generations. Unfortunately instances of their increasing in captivity have hitherto been rare, Their appearance and

manners are extremely pleasing; their flesh is excellent. Although there is little fear of their being at present erased from the catalogue of living creatures, as there is for the Apteryx and the Bustard, there is great probability that they, and all other wild fowl will, before many years, become very much scarcer in England. Railroads, draining, and increased population, have already done something, and are daily doing more to diminish their numbers.* They will find a refuge in the swamps of the north, but it would be delightful, meanwhile, to provide some of them with a settled home amongst ourselves.

Several cases are known to me in which the domestication of the Wigeon has gone as far as the point here attained, but no further, except that the birds remained permanently contented in complete liberty. Wigeon that are taken prisoners seem to refuse to breed in captivity; but this is no more an argument against their intelligence, than it is against that of the Elephant. The surest way would be to obtain from Norway a young brood that had been hatched under a hen.

* At Winterton, in Norfolk, the variety of wild birds was such, in 1816, that, in the breeding season, you might kill from twenty to thirty different sorts in a day. Some I had never seen before. In many parts you could scarcely walk without treading on the eggs of Terns, Plovers, Redshanks, and almost every other kind of marsh bird. At certain times, in the winter, the fowl, on their passage from Holland to the south, dropped in here, and literally blackened the centre part of the lakes, called Horsea-broad and Higham-sounds, where they fancied themselves protected by the surrounding ice. I, however, went to this country again, in 1824, and found, that, owing to the drains for cultivation, and increase of the decoys, the quantity of birds was, and has for some years been, so much reduced, that I was obliged to alter the MS. of this statement from the present to the past time. My account would otherwise have proved a gross exaggeration. This shows how few years will put a sporting-book out of date!

"The fens are famous for the Ruffs and Reeves."-COLONEL HAWKER, pp. 374, 375. The Ruffs and Reeves are now (1848) of extreme rarity.