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.

The quail is the smallest of the poultry tribe, and is a pretty little
bird, something like a partridge, but not so large. I dare say you have
sometimes seen quails alive in a poulterer's shop, where they are often
displayed in long narrow cages, and are sadly crowded together. The
quail is a migratory bird, except in those countries blessed with an
equable temperature, such as Italy, Portugal, etc., where it is to be
found in all seasons. In warm weather the quail visits our island, but
nearly all those sold in London are brought from France, where they are
caught in hundreds by means of a quail-pipe as it is called. This is a
little instrument