nr. This is especially true of the dusky duck, 

 generally known by the name black duck 

 ^ To/Id Duck among hunters. An ordinary tramp with a 

 field glass, and eyes wide open, may give a 

 rare, distant view of him; but only as one 

 follows him winter after winter, meeting with 

 much less of success than of discouragement, 

 does he pick up many details of his personal 

 life; for wildness is born in him, and no 

 experience with man is needed to develop it. 

 On lonely lakes, in the midst of a Canada 

 forest, where he meets man for the first time, 

 he is the same as when he builds at the head 

 of some mill pond, within sight of a busy New 

 England town. Other ducks may, in time, 

 be tamed and used as decoys ; but not so he. 

 Several times I have tried it with wing4ipped 

 birds; but the result was always the same. 

 They worked night and day to escape, refus- 

 ing all food and even water till they broke 

 through their pen, or were dying of hunger, 

 when I let them go. 



One spring a farmer whom I know deter- 

 mined to try with young birds. He found a 

 black duck's nest and hatched the eggs, with 



