218 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



* 



caught all tlie old wild ducks that would bo 

 caught, as described, at the moment they hatched 

 out, for the purpose of cooping them with their 

 young. But these wild ducks so caught, and 

 taken in mucli the same wild districts, were as 

 unlike each other in their tempers when caught 

 as black is to white. Some of them flew at and 

 beat themselves against the bars of the coops, 

 frightening and trampling to death their own 

 young, while others remained perfectly contented 

 and docile in their coop, ^' hived" or nursed the 

 brood, and did very well. 



Everything is, can be, or ought to be, accounted 

 for. So to unravel this mystery for the future, I 

 ordered all young ducks from the sea district 

 and wildest ground, when hatched under hens, 

 to he marked. By this we should know in catch- 

 ing old ducks from their nests, or in the bag 

 after shooting, Iioav they came to hand, whether 

 known to us before or not. The mystery of the 

 different tempers when cooped was at once ex- 

 plained. Those wild ducks that had been reared 

 in a coop, wlien brouglit back to it, took to it 

 at once again, while those wild ducks that liad 

 never been in a coop flew at the bars and re- 



