Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/541

Rh of these pretty birds swimming about. They are reputed to be very wild and wary, but, at Ellesmere, being carefully protected, they are unusually tame, and will often come within twenty yards of the observer. Like other diving Ducks, they sit low in the water. They are energetic divers; and the drake is a handsome bird, conspicuous at a distance, and easily distinguished by his white flanks and black back. The female is of a dark brown hue. Mr. Tower, who has observed the birds on the meres continuously for many years, tells me that, although the Tufted Duck visits Ellesmere regularly every winter in large numbers, not a single pair has ever been known to remain to breed. This is the more remarkable as there are so many suitable meres there, and they breed at Sandford only eight miles away.

Messrs. Coward and Oldham, in their new book on the 'Birds of Cheshire' (1900), also state that the Tufted Duck has not been known to breed in Cheshire, though suitable nesting places are abundant in that county.

At Sandford Pool, near Whitchurch, Salop, close to the Cheshire border, four pairs of Tufted Ducks came and nested in 1891, in the reedy marsh at the northern end, and they have continued to do so ever since. Strange to say, there have always been neither more nor less than four pairs, while—unlike the Weston Park birds—they have not become residents. They arrive each year early in March; nest towards the end of May; and leave, with the young, about the beginning of November. The young birds, which number about thirty each year, do not return to their native pool. There is no apparent reason why the birds should not winter here, and so become residents, as at Weston. We can only surmise that the hereditary instinct is so strong that, when the usual time of migration arrives, they feel impelled to depart, though they might just as well stay where they spent the summer. Although I have no proof to give, I fancy that the Ducks at Sandford only go away as far as Ellesmere, and join company with the crowds that are migrating just at that time. If so, the four pairs at Sandford are probably the same individuals year after year, whilst their progeny—instead of returning with them to Sandford—depart northwards with their Ellesmere companions.