WILD DUCKS 123 



Method of Henry Cook. Henry Cook, of Woodbury, 

 Long Island, New York, who has a fine collection of some 

 thirty kinds of wild ducks on a small pond, has adopted such 

 a method. Finding it hard to chase them out of the water, 

 especially the diving species, he has, at the north end of the 

 pond, a stone wall built out into the water, enclosing a very 

 small area of the pond, only enough to allow the couple of 

 hundred ducks he has to be all in the water at the same time. 

 There is a gate connecting with the pond. Before very cold 

 weather he begins feeding the ducks inside this enclosure. 

 When the pond begins to freeze he closes the gate when the 

 ducks are in to feed. Then he can wade out with rubber 

 boots and drive them all out of the water and into the poultry 

 house in the same yard, which faces south. No artificial heat 

 is used. The ducks are kept in a rather small apartment, 

 so that they will huddle together. On the floor it is well to 

 have litter or chaff so that they can protect their feet, which 

 are the vulnerable parts. In the morning, after the sun is 

 well up, he breaks and scoops out the ice which has formed 

 during the night in the small enclosure, and lets the ducks 

 have their swim during the day. When the weather is 

 moderate they are allowed to spend the night in the water, 

 the house being used only for emergency. In this way the 

 losses in wintering are small. Some such plans as these for 

 our northerly districts, with their great extremes of cold, are 

 doubtless correct. 



Delicate Species. Only a few kinds of ducks are unable 

 to endure low temperatures. Of our native North American 

 ducks the blue-winged teal seems to be the most delicate, 

 and the gadwall is rather tender, though with some shelter 

 it survives Northern winters. Sometimes they get through 

 the winter if they are housed at night, but they are apt to 

 die off merely from the cold. Mr. Cook finds that though 



