314 FEATHERED GAME 



Pintail learns caution and is otherwise mentally 

 improved by his intimate acquaintance with the 

 black duck. 



The bird is a delicate and cleanly feeder. It 

 gets its food in the shallows, in its endeavors 

 to bring hidden good things to the surface, put- 

 ting its long neck down to the bottom and wrig- 

 gling its sternpost in the air as the rules of 

 '^ river duck" table etiquette compel. Its own 

 choice of food is small frogs, vegetable matter 

 and the delicacies of the marsh dweller's bill 

 of fare. 



The Pintail is much more common on the 

 fresh water of the interior and throughout the 

 western country generally than on the coast line 

 of New England. Save during the migrations 

 it is rarely seen on the salt water, yet the speci- 

 mens from which the accompanying drawing 

 was made were killed in some of the severest 

 winter weather in the swell of the broad Atlan- 

 tic. They were shot at night from a flock of 

 seven as they flew past a rocky islet where two 

 gunners were creeping upon some black ducks 

 which were feeding by moonlight. During the 

 same week a few mallard drakes were killed in 

 the same neighborhood, these, too, in full breed- 



