56 What Birds Have Done With Me 



easily realized to-day. While vast numbers went 

 on farther north, multitudes remained and nested 

 in every lake, river, creek and little pond, and 

 could be seen swimming around later in the sea- 

 son in the midst of their broods almost like do- 

 mesticated ducks, with whom they occasionally 

 mixed freely. 



Culver, Hamilton, and Spaulding ponds con- 

 tained many such families, but in Culver's, the 

 smallest of the three and the nearest to the vil- 

 lage, all were shot early in the season; leaving 

 open water there for three families of Wood- 

 duck that later on took possession with their 

 pretty broods. It was the small boy's first sum- 

 mer in the wilderness and he became much inter- 

 ested in these families of wild things, and was on 

 a fair way to a friendly acquaintance, when one 

 Sunday while at Sunday-school, some Christian 

 hunter visited the pond and killed four of the old 

 birds and slightly wounded a fifth a male that 

 later on died; this left one mother bird and seven 

 ducklings. The wild mother in spite of her good 

 reasons to distrust man, soon overcame her fear 

 of the little tad who came, literally, casting his 

 bread upon the water. How the bright-eyed, in- 

 credibly swift-motioned little fellows would 

 scramble for it; and they knew who brought it 

 better than the small boy's sister, who had so 



