ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 33 



Well-Placed Confidence 



In the May Bulletin of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the editor, 

 Mr. Winthrop Packard, published a letter from Brookline, Massachusetts, 

 telling of the exploit of a mallard duck under escort of a traffic policeman. 

 Mr. O. M. Schantz writes for this Bulletin of the Illinois Audubon Society 

 of a wise mallard he met during his summer vacation. Both stories are 

 printed below : 



April 13, 1920. 

 My dear Mr. Packard : — 



The following true story might interest your Bulletin readers. Last 

 week when traffic on Beacon Street was busiest, about eight o'clock in the 

 morning a mother mallard (wild duck) led her five children from a pond 

 on the Amory Street, where they had spread oil, across the field, under the 

 fence, down the middle of Carleton Street, the traffic policeman holding up 

 the electric cars and a hundred automobiles while she carefully led them 

 along over the car-tracks across Beacon Street, then over the B. & A. Rail- 

 road to the Fenway Brook in safety. That is what I call common sense and 

 devotion. I wonder if a hen would use as much judgment. 



Yours truly, 



(Signed) Harry V. Long. 



Mr. Schantz spent a half day at Jack Miner's famous bird-haven at 

 Kingsville, Ontario, in August. He writes: "On Mr. Miner's grounds 

 there are two large ponds, one being a circular pond and quite near the 

 country road but separated from it by a wire fence. The other pond, not 

 visible from the road, is rectangular and almost surrounded by a thick 

 hedge. The wild birds usually visit the more secluded pond first and after 

 they have recovered from their natural shyness, they fly over the road, clear 

 the fence and settle down on the exposed pond to be fed. There they be- 

 come as tame as barnyard fowls. Canada geese, mallard and pintail ducks 

 may be seen at almost any time in season on this pond. To this pond 

 a mother mallard duck has frequently attempted to bring her little ones 

 that were unable to fly over the wire fence. To do this she has had to lead 

 her young out of the fields and upon the public throughfare in her efforts 

 to get them through the fence into the pond where she knows that food 

 and protection is given other wild life. Now the Canada geese are in- 

 tolerant of the little ducks and would kill them if they were admitted. 

 So the mother mallard and her little ones were carefully driven around to 

 the sheltered pond where, if in danger, the ducklings could escape into the 

 hedges. Jack Miner's kindly attitude towards the ducks and geese must 

 have received wide publicity among feathered circles for they surely know 

 about the treatment they will be given when they call at his refuge." 



