6o JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Why Wounded Ducks Disappear. 



By Frank T. Nobij;, Augusta, Me. 

 * In various publications, both scientific and secular, many dis- 

 cussions and queries have recently appeared regarding the remark- 

 able manner in which water fowl, when shot at and wounded, fre- 

 quently dive beneath the surface of the water and fail to rise again 

 to view. 



The theories ofttimes set forth in explanation of this well-known 

 characteristic of the Anatidse family are numerous, some of them 

 hardly tenalile, however, under the application of common natural 

 laws . 



The writer has observed the phenomenon frequently under both 

 ordinary and unusual circumstances, and has many times been 

 greatly amazed at the non-appearance after diving of an unquestion- 

 ably hard-hit duck, and this too at the time when the surface of the 

 water was so smooth as to eliminate the possibility of the bird break- 

 ing water ever so lightly for the purpose of taking breath without 

 detection. vSuch an experience, and it is a common one with all 

 duck shooters, impels one to draw the conclusion that the bird is 

 dead, but for some mysterious and unusual cause does not come to 

 the surface. 



It is simply impossible to make the body of a freshly killed duck 

 stay under water without artificial means, as all gunners of water 

 fowl know, also, that the length of time any bird can remain alive 

 underneath the surface is limited to a very few minutes. 



Now if the various accounts of these strange and unaccountable 

 disappearances of wounded water fowl (and I do not in the least 

 doubt their truthfulness) were carefully investigated, I am quite 

 sure it would be found that they occur in comparatively shallow 

 bodies of water, or where the bottom is within easy diving distance 

 from the surface, and taking that as an important condition, perhaps 

 the following from my own experience will help to explain and clear 

 away much that has heretofore looked more or less mysterious. 



On a bright, sunny afternoon late in September, I was lying in 

 a gunning float off Norris' Cove in a shallow part of that finest 



