FOUR. NOTABLES 915 
protection, and I am in hopes that we may have a drum- 
mer, as well as a fifer and his family, in the orchard and 
near-by woods next spring. 
“There are many hollow willows near the upper pond 
like the ones in which the Wood Ducks used to nest. 
If these are left, the ducks will soon become attached to 
them, and, if they escape peril elsewhere, for this Duck’s 
greatest danger is in the vicinity of home, then we shall 
all have a chance, possibly, some day to see a sight that 
ever the Wise Men argue about, —the parent Duck bring- 
ing her young from the tree hole to take their first swim !”’ 
The boys promised to ask the question, and Tommy re- 
ported at the schoolhouse, the next Friday, that “grandpa 
thinks it would be just bully to have Wood Ducks again, 
and he’ll sit round the pond, with a shot-gun, all he’s 
able, to keep folks away. He says he’s seen the old ones 
yank the young, one by one, right out of the nest by the 
wing, and set ’em on the ground, and when they were all 
down, lead ’em to the water. And once, when the tree was 
close over the pond, the old bird flew down and set ’em 
right on the water. He says weasels and water-rats and 
snakes and snapping-turtles help kill off the ducklings, be- 
cause until they get big enough to fly they’ve got no way 
of lighting-out.”’ All of which goes to prove that Tommy 
Todd had inherited some of his keeness of eye in “ watching 
out”’ for the doings of wild things. 
“There are others that are classed with game-birds that 
will surely everywhere be stricken from the list some day, 
and put with those birds that we wish to cherish at all 
seasons, and for whom there should be no hunting, either 
fair or foul. 
