88 EGGS TO DUCKLINGS. 
The ducklings have many enemies ready to prey 
upon them. At the sight of one, the duck sneaks off, 
drawing away her brood to a place of safety. Should 
the enemy approach too closely, she will flutter 
through the weeds or upon the surface of the water 
and endeavor to attract all attention to herself; if 
pushed she will fly a short distance, alight and work 
back toward her brood, which she knows has scattered 
and hidden at the first notes of her alarm call. Occa- 
sionally, she will pretend to have a broken wing or to 
be crippled, if the intruder be a human being, in order 
to draw him away; but acts differently toward an ani- 
mal or a bird of prey. 
Snakes are great enemies to young ducks, especially 
garter, bull and water moccasin snakes. Pickerel, 
pike, mascalonge, bass and catfish, as well as gars, of 
the fish family. Minks, opossums, skunks, weasels, 
foxes and wolves of the animals; while of the bird fam- 
ily the marsh harrier, which so closely beats the fields, 
drops many a duckling down to his mate whilst fly- 
ing over her nest; and the pigeon and sparrow hawks, 
short-eared and hoot owls, in fact, all the various 
hawks and owls which catch their prey upon the 
ground, as well as the shrikes, thin their numbers con- 
stantly. 
The food of the ducklings consists of frogbit, teal 
grass, duck and pond weeds, seeds of wild barley, rice, 
oats and rye; young and tender shoots of grasses and 
sedge, insects and their larva, tadpoles, small frogs, 
polliwogs, leeches, slugs, water snails and other foods 
to be obtained in marshy places without diving. 
