314 FEATHERED GAME 
Pintail learns caution and is otherwise mentally 
improved by his intimate acquaintance with the 
black duck. 
The bird is a delicate and cleanly feeder. It 
gets its food in the shallows, in its endeavors 
to bring hidden good things to the surface, put- 
ting its long neck down to the bottom and wrig- 
gling its sternpost in the air as the rules of 
‘river duck’’ table etiquette compel. Its own 
choice of food is small frogs, vegetable matter 
and the delicacies of the marsh dweller’s bill 
of fare. 
The Pintail is much more common on the 
fresh water of the interior and throughout the 
western country generally than on the coast line 
of New England. Save during the migrations 
it is rarely seen on the salt water, yet the speci- 
mens from which the accompanying drawing 
was made were killed in some of the severest 
winter weather in the swell of the broad Atlan- 
tic. They were shot at night from a flock of 
seven as they flew past a rocky islet where two 
gunners were creeping upon some black ducks 
which were feeding by moonlight. During the 
same week a few mallard drakes were killed in 
the same neighborhood, these, too, in full breed- 
