The ducklings, before they are twenty-four hours old, take to the water and go off with the mother. For the first week or so they keep hidden away amongst the rushes, &c, but afterwards appear on the open water, swimming about with the mother. They never return to the nest after once quitting it—not even to roost.
The drakes, as soon as their mates begin to sit, spend a good deal of their time at their "club"—a pool about half a mile away. They condescend to return to their families later on, when the latter are growing up, but they take no part in the sitting, nor in feeding the spouse on the nest, nor do they ever help to feed or look after the young. In short, they are not at all patterns of marital behaviour.
Although the pool at Sandford is private, and the ducks have never been molested, they are very shy, and would never allow me to get near enough with the camera to take a snap-shot of them on the water. They would rise while still sixty or eighty yards away, and, after flying round in wide circles for some minutes, alight on a distant part of the pool.
Since penning the foregoing notes I have heard from Col. Kenyon Slaney that the Tufted Duck still breeds at Hatton Grange, and has done so almost every year as far back as he can remember. The water there is but small, and only one, or perhaps two, pairs nest on it. Practically the Hatton birds belong to the Weston colony, although the founders appear to have settled first at Hatton, and thence to have colonized Weston.
