ARTIFICIAL REARING OF WILD DUCKS 51 



the first day they are hatched until ready for adult fare, 

 on coarse yellow cornmeal alone, and the food I use most 

 exclusively for all adult wild fowl is corn — corn in the 

 whole grain, rarely the cracked form — and this fare I 

 have adopted after many years of experiment with vari- 

 ous mixtures of grain, wild duck feed, et hoc genus omne. 



"I should add that I do not confine any of the young 

 wild fowl, but let them go with the parent birds to forage 

 for themselves, and no doubt they greatly supplement 

 the ration I give them with the many kinds of insect life 

 and the seeds, leaves and roots of the various forms of 

 land and aquatic grasses and plants that abound in my 

 enclosures. The Canada goslings begin nibbling grass 

 certainly by the second day of their existence and do not 

 seem inclined to take to the water as early as the young 

 ducks and cygnets, which almost roll out of the egg 

 shell into the water and begin swimming on their natal 

 day. 



"The cygnets of the Black Australian swan as well as 

 the adults themselves are foragers par excellence in all 

 seasons, as the young of these erratic but wonderfully 

 prolific breeders are hatched out as often in midwinter as 

 in midsummer. The young black ducks seem to derive 

 a great amount of satisfaction as well as nutriment from 

 the ooze and mud of the banks and shallow bottoms, 

 which they industriously sift through their bills, while 

 the adults are almost omnivorous, eating all kinds of 

 roots, grasses, seeds, flies, insects, minnows, Crustacea, 

 etc. (I have opened the craws of those killed on our 

 marshes and found them full of periwinkles swallowed 

 whole.) Gourmands, these fellows, with wonderful pow- 

 ers of digestion." 



