If beechnuts or chestnuts are at hand, they will 

 do as well as acorns. He is fond of chicken- 

 grapes, insects, and seeds, too. 



But what is even more unusual is the wood- 

 duck's nesting-place. A duck's nest? Down in 

 the soft, damp moss, on a bit of an island, or 

 hidden in the high grass along some wild lake- 

 side. Not so. The wood-duck biiilds in a hol- 

 low tree, high and dry, and even a long way 

 from water, it may be. 



The wood-duck's young, of course, are like all 

 ducklings, with feet and bills bigger than their 

 wings. They cannot possibly remain in the tree- 

 hollow until old enough to fly. How do they 

 get down to the water? Usually they scramble 

 down head over heels ; sometimes, it is said, the 

 mother carries them, and if so, then her solution 

 of this problem is one of the tenderest passages 

 in all the bird life of the woods. But I have 

 never seen it. I had hoped to see it the spring 

 that little Aix, the tame wood-duck of my 

 neighbor, was an egg,— hoped to see the mother 

 carry each fat, downy duckling to the ground, 

 dangling from her beak by its little flipper, 

 then, with her brood all safely landed, lead them 

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