Wings, Wings, Wings 57 



iriuch to say about his appetite for bread and 

 butter meals. 



A perfect gentleman, whose name was Darling 

 and who had a business named after him in a 

 nearby town, came over to sell Culver a patent- 

 right, and got the wild mother and four of her 

 babies who could not fly and a mink mercifully 

 prevented the remainder from starving to death. 

 For a few days after this, had the teacher hap- 

 pened to glance at the small boy's slate, she would 

 have seen the word Darling and might have con- 

 cluded that she had surprised a first love affair; 

 but she would have been miles from the truth, for 

 that represented to him no term of endearment, 

 but an active little flame of pretty-fierce hatred. 

 The capital "D" was the one significant letter 

 and it stood for a certain lean, hungry gentleman 

 whose full costume comprised hoofs, horns and a 

 tail. 



The small boy knew something that few nature 

 lovers of the day seem to know: namely, that in 

 the bird kingdom, the duck is the natural and 

 irresistible harlequin. Imagine a quiet sheet of 

 water, on a peaceful October late afternoon, cov- 

 ered with countless thousands of ducks before 

 they had become the gun-shy creatures of to-day 

 and it requires no further imagination to see 

 before you a Water Circus, the like of which you 



