How Animals Talk 



model; but male ducks cannot or will not learn 

 to quack, and since a male voice was rarely heard 

 on the pond at this season, each little drake was a 

 law unto himself, and made a brave show of his 

 liberty. Climbing on a tussock, as if for more 

 room, he would stretch his wings, make odd mo- 

 tions with his neck, and finally pump out a funny 

 wheekle, wheekle, as if he had swallowed a whistle. 



Meanwhile the old drake and father of the 

 family was seldom about ; only two or three times 

 did I see him enter the pond, stay a brief while, 

 and then wing away over the tree-tops in the direc- 

 tion of a larger lake, some three miles to the east- 

 ward. On that lake there was never a brood of 

 young ducks, so far as I could learn; but when 

 trout-fishing there I often surprised the drake, at 

 times taking precious care of his own skin in 

 solitude, again clubbing sociably with three or 

 four other drakes, who had run away each from a 

 family and the cares thereof on some other lonely 

 pond. 



As the summer waned, a new sound of quack- 

 ing, joyous and exultant, would greet me when I 

 drew near my pond. Creeping to my blind under 

 the larches, I would find a second brood making 

 merry acquaintance with the family I had watched 

 over; then a third and a fourth company of 

 strangers, as young ducks of all that region began 



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