202 THE BIRDS OF ESSEX.
which are taken when the Decoys begin to be worked in October. It remains here
through the winter till the spring, and is obtained by. Wild-fowl shooters on the
coast."
Round Harwich, it is rare (Kerry). One was shot on Canvey Island on Dec.
19th, 1881 (Bird). Mr. Robert Page has a pair, taken in his Decoy at Marsh
House.
Wild Duck : Anas boscas.
A resident, breeding not uncommonly among the marshes near
the coast and in various private parks containing ornamental lakes,.
throughout the county. The resident birds are, however, enor-
mously recruited during winter by arrivals from elsewhere. The
immense numbers formerly taken in the Decoys on the coast have
been already alluded to (p. 70).
Dale, writing of Harwich in 1730, says (2. 404), " These are in winter time
abundantly caught in decoy-ponds, from whence they are carried to supply mar-
kets." Round Saffron Walden, Mr. Clarke says (24) it used to breed freely about
1845, and it is now by no means rare there, breeding in and around Audley End,
Shortgrove and Debden Parks. I saw a nest containing nine eggs built in the
crown of a huge oak growing beside the lake, in the latter, on April 27th, 1880. It
"breeds annually in several parts of the forest. A small party of them frequented
Connaught Water throughout the winters of 1883-84, and being left alone, became
very tame " (Buxton—47. 97). In the spring of 1883, Mr. William Cole saw a
Wild Duck and young on a pond near Connaught Water. In April, 1877, a nest
was built in the crown of a pollard willow-tree beside the river Roding at Stan-
ford Rivers, and a nest containing ten eggs was found in Navestock Park on May
14th, 1888. As regards its breeding on the coast, Mr. Fitch writes (41. i. 150) :
" I hear that upwards of fifty ' flappers ' have been seen in the ditches of South
Wick, Southminster Marshes, quite lately. They breed in this neighbourhood
much more rarely than formerly. In 1875 a nest of eggs was hatched here or my
home farm (Brick House, Maldon), but there has been no sign of one since. One
nest hatched off on Northey Island this year. I have seen quite fifty young ones,
in a day in the Canvey ' Fleets.' "
The Rev. W. Palin, in 1871, wrote as follows (Stifford and its Neighbourhood,