on Wild Ducks from an Incubator.



65



the heat, ancl putting them in a creel, they were carried all the

afternoon in a boat, then set under a hen at a ranch at night, and

driven all the next day over rough prairie trails. The weather was

hot all the time, and upon arrival the eggs were fully as warm as

when taken from the nest. The assistant had carried the creel all

day in his hands, to save the eggs from the jolting as much as

possible. Two days and a half later every one of the thirteen

hatched. Eleven of these ducklings, as I now write, grown to

maturity, are happy and active in their new surroundings in our

“effete” civilization of the East. Evidently the “rough riding”

experience did them no harm.


This was our first batch, one hundred per cent, which came

off on the 2nd of July. Rejoiced at this auspicious beginning, next

morning the assistant and I started out in the canoe and collected

the various sets of ducks’ eggs previously found, most of them

heavily incubated. JThe incubator was now considerably filled. How

handsome the tray looked, as we took it out for cooling and sprink¬

ling each day, how entrancingly interesting, with all those eggs of so

many shades and sizes, freighted, too, with such possibilities ! The

unitiated would say that they looked much alike, hut years of ex¬

perience reveal real differences in shade, size, and texture. The only

kinds in that region that are indistinguishable are the eggs of Gad-

wall and Baldpate, both of which range' from pure white to creamy,

and those of the two Teals, which are small and creamy white.

Day by day other sets were added, and the wonder and interest

grew.


Right here we were, from necessity, violating one of the

fundamental rules of incubator work, never to put in one machine

eggs at different times and in different stages of incubation. It was

clearly impossible to provide, out there in the wilderness, a separate

machine for every set of eggs. Setting hens, moreover, could not

be had, So we had to take chances on spoling the eggs.


Here were the iucubator methods used. In the main room

of the lodge, which was built of logs and plastered, we ran the incu¬

bators, which were kept at 103 degrees. Once a day we cooled the

eggs, till the temperature felt neutral when the egg was laid against

the eyelid. Then the tray was laid on the floor, and water, com-



