THE OOLOGIST 



85 



Reminiscences of the Wood Duck. 



The first wild ducks that I ever re- 

 member having seen were Wood duclvs 

 in my old home in the Berkshire Hills, 

 in Massachusetts, near the town of 

 Great Harrington. On the banks of 

 the old Cove or bayou as it is called 

 in the west, a pair reared their young 

 every year 1850. In 1856 my father 

 immigrated to Winnebago County, 

 Illinois. At that time the country 

 was full of game; prairie hens by the 

 thousands, a few deer still lingered 

 in the forest and sometimes in winter, 

 a lynx wandered down from the north 

 woods. One of the pioneer settlers 

 had thrown a dam across Otter Creek 

 and built a saw mill, one of the old- 

 fashioned kind which few of this gen- 

 eration have ever seen. This dam 

 made a pond of about forty acres. In 

 the Spring this pond was the stopping 

 place of ducks and we counted them 

 by the tens of thousands instead of 

 thousands, as we do now. There was 

 a dugout in the pond, made from a 

 walnut log. One day I was paddling 

 around in this old craft when 1 saw 

 two ducks sitting on a fence that ran 

 out into the water. As I came near 

 they took wing, I fired and one drop- 

 ped. It proved to be a drake and was 

 the first one I had seen in its wedding- 

 plumage. I did not know then that a 

 bird could be mounted or I would have 

 worked months to have kept my first 

 duck. The wood duck was not very 

 common in northern Illinois at that 

 time, but every creek had a pair. In 

 the fall of I860 I started on a trapping- 

 expedition, going- south to Monmouth, 

 Illinois. I found the Wood duck on a 

 small stream north of there. Late in 

 November just before Christmas, I 

 crossed the Mississippi on the ice; at 

 that time there was only one bridge 

 across the big river. In Black Hawk 

 County, Iowa, on the Cedar River, I 



think I found the center of abundance 

 of the Wood duck. Here in 1867 I 

 made a small collection of eggs for 

 Mr. L. E. Ricksecker, then of Naza- 

 reth,, Pa. I have no list of them, but 

 I think I collected a few Wood ducks 

 eggs that year. 



The next year I made a larger col- 

 lection, three hundred and thirty-six 

 eggs; one nest contained thirty-six 

 eggs, but five of them proved to be the 

 eggs 01 the Hooded Merganser. The 

 hole in the tree was not more than 

 two feet deep, with the eggs piled one 

 on top of the other. The hole was 

 about fifteen feet up. At that time I 

 could find a Wood duck's nest in five 

 minutes walk from home. I found one 

 nest not more that two feet from the 

 ground, the hole about four feet up; 

 some were more than forty feet fi'om 

 the ground. Some nests were at least 

 eight feet down in the hole; I often 

 wondered how the parent birds could 

 bring the young out such a distance. 



One day as I was passing through 

 the wood I saw a Woodchuck run up a 

 leaning maple tree. As he neared the 

 top a Wood duck flew out of a hole 

 near. Now I think I hear some east- 

 ern Yankee say "I know he is fibbing, 

 for a wood chuck never climbs trees," 

 but they do in the west, for I have 

 seen them often sitting on limbs, but 

 as a small boy in Massachusetts, I 

 killed thirty in one season and never 

 saw one in the trees. Now I did not 

 want this chuck of which I am telling, 

 or the Wood duck's eggs, but when 

 did a collector ever pass a nest with- 

 out looking in. The eggs had small 

 holes in them and would be hatched 

 in a short time. I have always been 

 sorry that I did not wait and see the 

 old bird bring down the young ones, 

 as this was the only opportunity I 

 ever had to see it done. 



The duck lays early in the morning, 

 the drake sitting on a nearby tree; 



