17 MAY 1884, Page 15

DISCOURTESY IN BIRDS.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

Sra,—A day or two ago, I saw the reverse of the picture as I -was walking in Kensington Gardens. A duck had not long hatched out a brood of eleven ducklings, which were swimming -on the Long Water. One of the bystanders threw some crumbs of breadto the young ones, upon which the duck savagely attacked one or two of the unoffending ducklings, seized them in her bill, and ducked them for several seconds under the water, or rather held them under the water, till she was obliged to come up to the surface to breathe, otherwise she must inevitably have drowned them. I can only conclude that she must have been hungry, to have ill-treated them in so unnatural a way.—I am,

P.8.—This " duck " reminds me of (and must surely be some distant connection of) the bird I saw down in a" bill of fare" at a restaurant in Paris, with this English translation annexed —viz., "Canard sanvage [trans.], savage duck " !