River and Pond Ducks 



chary. In the wet prairie lands and grass-grown, shallow waters 

 which they delight in, hunters find these birds the first to take 

 alarm — troublesomely vigilant, noisy chatterers, with a very small 

 bump of curiosity that discourages tolling or decoys ; nervous and 

 easily panicstricken. At the first crack of the gun they shoot 

 upward in a confused, struggling mass that gives all too good a 

 chance for a pot shot. If they had learned to scatter them- 

 selves in all directions, to dive under water or into the dense 

 sedges when alarmed, as some ducks do, there would be many 

 more pintails alive to-day; but usually they practise none of these 

 protections. There are men living who recall the times, never 

 to return, when ducks resorted literally by the million to the 

 Kankakee and the Calumet regions; and pintails in countless 

 multitudes swelled the hordes that thronged out of the north in 

 the autumn migration. In spite of their enormous fertility, their 

 strong, rapid flight, their swimming and diving powers, their 

 shyness and readiness to take alarm — in spite of the lavish pro- 

 tection that nature has given them, and of their economic value 

 to man — there are great tracts of country where these once abun- 

 dant game birds have been hunted to extinction. 



From the west and the north sportsmen follow the ducks 

 into the lower Mississippi Valley region and our southern sea- 

 board states, where the majority winter. Widgeons and black 

 ducks often associate with them there. The canvasback, the 

 redhead, the black duck, the teals, and the mallard, while 

 counted greater delicacies, by no means attract the exclusive 

 attention of the pot hunter when pintails are in sight. Given a 

 good cook and a young, f;it, tender duck, even Macaulay's school- 

 boy could tell the result. 



It is an amusing sight to see a flock of drakes feeding in 

 autumn, when they chiefly live apart by themselves. Tipping 

 the fore part of their bodies downward while, with their long 

 necks distended, they probe the muddy bottoms of the lake for 

 the vegetable matter and low animal forms they feed upon, their 

 long tails stand erect above the surface, like so many bulrushes 

 growing in the water. They seem able to stand on their 

 heads in this fashion indefinitely; a spasmodic working of their 

 feet in the air from time to time testifying only to the difficulty a 

 bird may be having to loosen some much desired root. 



From eight to twelve yellowish olive or pale greenish white 



1 10 



