22 



THE SNAPPER AND A BROOD OF DUCKS. 



Some years aj^o a black.siuitli lesiding near a small 

 creek on the outskirts of the bo)-oiij:^li of ^Vest Chester, 

 had a Hock of about llfttMii young ducks, which were 

 eared for by a cross old Brahma ben that always 

 scolded whenever her web-footed brood disported iu 

 the muddy water of a small dam which had V)een made 

 in the stream for their accommodation. The ducks 

 went there with great regularity, notwithstand- 

 ing the protests 'of their clucking, bad-tempered 

 and fussing foster-parent. Suddenly the ducks 

 began to disappear; one, and sometimes two. 

 were spirited away iu a day. First the tats 

 were accused and they were promptly shot. Next 

 a frolicksome setter pup was whipped when he "stood" 

 the old hen and the surviving members of her palmate 

 family. The poor, misused dog immediately after his 

 castigation, was chained in the barn. The death of 

 several cats and the confinement of a dog, whose lung 

 power, both in daylight and dark, furnished abundant 

 evidence of the entire absence of consumptive or asth- 

 matic troubles, did not put an end to the thinning out 

 of the ducklings. There were no minks, weasels, or 

 foxes about the premises, and all the hawks and owls 

 for miles around, had been killed for bounty. Sleek- 

 coated meadow mice, it is true, were plentiful about the 

 creek and in the tangled, matted grassy coverts or 

 adjoining fields. But as these little creatures, which, 

 curious to relate, had multiplied with marvelous rn 

 pidity a few months after the hawks and owls had 

 bopn sh'in, subsisted on grass roots, cereals, grape- 

 vines, etc., such vegetarians certainly did not molest 

 the ducks. At last. \ icwing the matter from every 

 imaginabh' standpoint, attention was directed' to a 



