A Wild Duck. 59 



dog it is almost useless to look for a wounded duck, 

 if there is any cover to be reached. Hiding under a 

 bank, crawling into a muskrat hole, worming a way 

 under a bunch of dead grass or pile of leaves, swim- 

 ming around and around a clump of bushes just out 

 of sight of his pursuer, diving and coming up behind 

 a tuft of grass, — these are some of the ways by which 

 I have known a black duck try to escape. Twice 

 I have heard from old hunters of their finding a bird 

 clinging to a bunch of grass under water, though I 

 have never seen it. Once, from a blind, I saw a black 

 duck swim ashore and disappear into a small clump 

 of berry bushes. Karl, who was with me, ran over 

 to get him, but after a half-hour's search gave it up. 

 Then I tried, and gave it up also. An hour later 

 we saw the bird come out of the very place where 

 we had been searching, and enter the water. Karl 

 ran out, shouting, and the bird hid in the bushes 

 again. Again we hunted the clump over and over, 

 but no duck could be seen. We were turning away 

 a second time when Karl cried : " Look ! " — and there, 

 in plain sight, by the very white stone where I had 

 seen him disappear, was the duck, or rather the red 

 leg of a duck, sticking out of a tangle of black roots. 



With the first sharp frost that threatens to ice over 

 the ponds in which they have passed the summer, the 

 inland birds betake themselves to the seacoast, where 



