^"'igif^"^] McAtee, Recognition Marks. 231 



ducks and geese, is familiar with the practice of leaving the mates 

 of some of the birds behind to make them call better during the 

 day. He cannot have failed to observe also when coming back to 

 camp in the evening at what a distance these paired birds become 

 aware of each other's presence and give vociferous greetings. Ducks 

 in no matter how large a flock readily pick out their mates. Can 

 creatures possessed of such powers have any vital need for the 

 comparatively coarse distinctions, not of individuals but of their 

 species as a whole, which are termed recognition marks? 



The evidence is very confusing from the fact that the powers of 

 observation of these same birds, so keen in the case just described, 

 apparently become so dull in the presence of decoys, that the 

 extermination of species would result, were shooting not closely 

 regulated. Neither the one occurrence nor the other however is 

 evidence of the usefulness of recognition marks. Hence we may 

 well inquire: 



Why, if directive markings are so important in guiding birds 

 to flocks of their kind do so many birds among those reputed to 

 have well developed recognition marks, come freely to the crudest 

 forms of decoys? 



The writer was initiated into the mysteries of Shore-bird shoot- 

 ing by Mr. J. B. White, a life long hunter on Currituck Sound, N. C. 

 The decoys we used were merely rounded handfuls of water plants 

 (Potamogeton, Naias and the like) placed on pegs which held them 

 just above the water. Shore-birds of many species decoyed per- 

 fectly to these lumps and if not fired at, would linger among them 

 for some time, feeding in a perfectly normal manner. 



Wild ducks are tricked too by very primitive decoys. Old 

 battered ones, with no particular colors, or colors that were never 

 seen on fowls of sea or land, with broken bills, or missing heads 

 are familiar sights on many shooting grounds yet they serve the 

 purpose. Iron ducks with no paint, and wooden ducks, of thrice 

 normal size, which have been sculptured with an ax, are used with 

 great effect by the battery shooters of Currituck. The confiding 

 manner in which Ducks will cluster about a lost decoy, or lie among 

 a setting of decoys that is left out but not very frequently shot over, 

 to say the least, shows a disposition on the part of ducks not to 

 insist very strongly on the possession of certain spots or bands of 



