WILDFOWL ON PRESERVED WATERS. 107 



well they learn, and quickly too, that mischief without warning 

 now lurks in every corner of the once peaceful home. And 

 quickly they adapt themselves to this change of affairs." * 



We think there can be no question at all that these 

 unexpected assaults, coming without the slightest pre- 

 vious warning, do produce the effects Mr. Van Dyke 

 asserts, for we see it in every kind of wild creature, 

 both furred and feathered: the moment they suspect 

 that lurking danger may beset them, every sense is 

 strained to detect it, and is then unceasingly on the 

 look-out for it so again, in a home preserve, on the 

 other hand, where game know that they are never 

 allowed to be fired at, they become bold and confiding. 



No better illustration of this can be found than in 

 the conduct of wildfowl upon a pond in our own coun- 

 try if they are constantly shot at they become so wary 

 as to be almost unapproachable, whereas the very same 

 birds, upon alighting upon a preserved water in a 

 gentleman's demesne, perhaps located only a short dis- 

 tance off, will often let persons walk past within easy 

 gun shot and within full view of them, without putting 

 them up. 



These notorious facts open up a wide field of curi- 

 ous and instructive enquiry; for it is not very easy 

 to explain how this can be brought about among the 

 wild game of an extensive forest district, only a very 

 small proportion of which, in their own proper persons, 

 can ever have been made the target of the still-hunter's 

 rifle, and yet the panic which his proceedings creates 

 spreads abroad on every side, and becomes general 

 among the deer and other forest quadrupeds. 



* The Still-Hunter, by Theodore S. Van Dyke, New York, 1888, 

 pp. 26 and 27. 



