362 Wright, Black Duck Nesting at Boston. [jJi y 



Three days later there were but four ducklings, one having been 

 lost. And the following day the whole family had disappeared. 

 The explanation furnished me by an employee was that he was 

 told by a man, who himself observed the proceeding, that he had 

 seen at five o'clock in the morning the mother duck and young 

 travelling over the Garden lawns and crossing Beacon Street in 

 the direction of the Charles River Basin, which is just in the rear 

 of the houses. Such a walk by the brood would certainly not be 

 beyond their powers, taking their way through the extension of 

 Arlington Street to the esplanade bordering the basin. The act 

 of the mother was entirely consistent with her apparent purpose 

 the previous year, when she was intercepted and her ducklings 

 taken away to the city Zoo. Doubtless this brood of four, then 

 but a week old, perished on the open waters of the Basin, unable to 

 cope with their roughness when strong winds arise. Thus we have 

 an instance of a Black Duck, to a considerable extent domesticated 

 by living among men so that she nests confidingly where they 

 resort in large numbers, upon possessing her young apparently 

 urged by a desire to get them away to a less frequented place 

 under a mistaken idea about their relative safety, and so jeopard- 

 izing their lives. Four days later, May 30, the pair was again 

 on the Garden pond without their ducklings, but, as far as my 

 knowledge goes, they only continued to visit the pond for a day or 

 two and then absented themselves. In October and November 

 a pair of Black Ducks, presumably this same pair, was observed on 

 the Garden pond upon many of the days and were last seen visiting 

 their old haunt on November 24. 



When the spring of 1917 was opening and the ice began to break 

 on the ponds, so that merely a small area of open water had 

 appeared at one end of the Frog Pond, the pair of Black Ducks 

 — with scarcely a doubt the same pair which had nested on the 

 island in 1915 and 1916 — so closely watchful of conditions as to 

 discern this, once more appeared on the wing over the Garden 

 and, perceiving an unbroken surface of ice on the pond there, 

 continued their flight to the Common, where was the bit of open 

 water. This occurred on March 26. On the following day the 

 Garden pond came to be almost half free from ice, and, upon my 

 morning visit, the pair was found to be swimming and tipping 



