172 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [13:5— May, 1917 



But had Bryant been able to follow the bird to its "weedy lake or 

 river wide," he would have pictured for us a different sort of a 

 duck — a duck of the earth earthy, with a short, squat body, and great 

 webbed feet, a duck with a broad, busy bill and a glistening eye; 

 a duck that rides the water like a cork, then suddenly flips into the 

 wave, rising in a moment, juggling a strand of eel grass, while the 

 beads of water roll from its back like milky pearls. Such birds one 

 must now stir far from his fireside to see. Long persecution has 

 made them both scarce and wary, so that, if one would know them 

 intimately, he must follow them away to their native stretches of 

 marsh and water, and live with them a while. 



In colonial days, when this country was more or less in a state 

 of pristine nature, the number of wild ducks, and indeed all wild 

 life was almost phenomenal, but too soon this wealth was prodi- 

 gally wasted. The early settlers doubtless though c it inexhaustible 

 and shot, and trapped, and netted, practically unrestricted by law, 

 until but a small remnant was left. 



The Laborador duck and the passenger pigeon are now extinct, 

 but these calamities served to rouse the country to the need of 

 protecting birds. Good laws are at last in force, helping bird-life 

 to regain its own. We are passing through a national awakening 

 to the value and beauty of birds, and wild ducks, although as yet 

 imperfectly known, and so difficult to study, are no small part of 

 the new and fascinating field of nature-study. 



Central New York is the home of large flocks of wild ducks from 

 November to April. Most species, nest west and north of this 

 region but they come south in the fall, the pond and river ducks 

 continuing to the Southern States where small bodies of water 

 remain open, while many of the bay or diving ducks stop on the 

 Finger Lakes. 



The ducks are a large group of water birds which, with the geese 

 and swans, are classified as the family Anatidae of the order 

 Anseres. There are two hundred species of ducks, geese, and 

 swans, found throughout the world, of which approximately fifty 

 occur in Ncrth America. Abcut forty of these are ducks, the rest 

 being geese and swans. The ducks, in turn, are divided into three 

 subfamilies, the Merginae (fish-eating ducks with serrate bills), the 

 Anatinae (the pond and river ducks which secure their food by 

 dabbling in shallow water), and the Fuligulinae (che bay or diving 

 ducks which dive for their food in water from five to one hundred. 



