Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/543

Rh larger than Teal's down, and the fleck is not nearly so conspicuous or white. The eggs in the nest photographed were greenish, but in the second nest, off which I flushed the old duck, they were coloured like a Pheasant's. The solitary egg was of the latter type.

When the duck leaves the nest to feed—and she is then away for an hour or more at a time—she carefully covers the eggs with down. The duck which I saw swimming on the pool was the owner of the nest photographed, yet, although she had been absent for nearly an hour by the keeper's observation, the eggs were quite warm. In order to photograph the nest it was necessary to push the rushes over it to right and left, as well as to remove the covering of down.