IJFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WH.D FOWL. 55 



lectin!,'; hollow, how to swim and dive in the water or scurry away to 

 the nearest cover when they hear her warning call to hide. It is sur- 

 prising how soon they learn the art of concealment, how quickly they 

 obey the call, and how suddenly they vanish so completely that it is 

 about useless to hunt for them. In the meantime the devoted mother, 

 utterly regardless of self, uses every art known to her fertile brain to 

 attract attention to herself and away from her young, flopping along 

 the ground or water, as if hopelessly crippled, within a few yards, or 

 even feet, of her giant enemy, returning again and again to throw 

 herself at his feet beseechingly. Once I surprised a mother duck, far 

 from land, swimming across a bay with a brood of little ones close at 

 her heels; she would not desert them and my thoughtless boatman 

 fired at her; fortunately he missed her and fortunately for him he did 

 not shoot again or he would have measured his length overboard. 

 The old duck sometimes makes long journeys over land on foot with 

 her little brood. Judge J. N. Clark (1882) relates the following inci- 

 dent: 



One oi my neighbors, sittiug by a- window, had hia attention called to a brood of 

 young ducks running across tlie street. It was an old black duck and her young. 

 He saw them enter a cow yard, and in one corner she called her brood under her 

 wings and covered them. As he wont near she flew some 15 rods and watched his 

 movements, quacking her displeasure as he proceeded to capture her young ones. 

 He secured 10 of them, all the brood but 2. After Jie had examined all he cared to 

 he set them at liberty, ana together tliey started on a run tlirough Main street, con- 

 tinuing for 40 rods before they turned aside, a distance which they accomplished in- 

 side of five minutes; for tlie little things could run like squirrels. 



I once found a little one that had come to grief on its overland 

 journey; with one foot hopelessly entangled in some vines, it had fallen 

 into a wagon rut; it was still alive, but had been deserted by its 

 mother. I can imagine the consternation of the poor mother, who, 

 after exerting ever}' efl'ort to free it from its predicament, was finally 

 obliged to abandon it to save the rest of the brood. 



Phimages. — The downy young black duck resembles the young 

 mallard, but the color of the upper parts averages darker, much 

 darker in many cases, and it extends farther down on the sides of 

 the breast and flanks, often invading the belly; the under parts are 

 less yellowish; and the dusky stripes on the head are darker, more 

 pronounced, and more extensive. There is much individual variation 

 in the latter character in the 17 specimens in my collection; in all 

 there is a dusky stripe, of greater or less intensity, from the bill to 

 the eye and from the eye to the occiput; in most of them there is a 

 dusky rictal spot, and a dusky auricular spot, though in some the 

 former is lacking; in some these spots are joined in a stripe; and in 

 one very swarthy individual, in which even the lower parts are largely 

 tlusky, these two stripes are very broad and coalesce on the cheek. 

 15749—23 5 



