64 Ways of Wood Folk. 



lono;, and not a duck takes his head from under 

 his wing; but the instant either crow or gull utters 

 his danger note every duck is in the air and headed 

 straight off shore. 



The constant watchfulness of black ducks is per- 

 haps the most remarkable thing about them. When 

 feeding at night in some lonely marsh, or hidden away 

 by day deep in the heart of the swamps, they never 

 for a moment seem to lay aside their alertness, nor 

 trust to their hiding places alone for protection. Even 

 when lying fast asleep among the grasses with heads 

 tucked under their wings, there is a nervous vigilance 

 in their very attitudes which suggests a sense of dan- 

 ger. Generally one has to content himself with study- 

 ing them through a glass; but once I had a very good 

 opportunity of watching them close at hand, of out- 

 witting them, as it were, at their own game of hide- 

 and-seek. It was in a grassy little pond, shut in by 

 high hills, on the open moors of Nantucket. The 

 pond was in the middle of a plain, perhaps a hundred 

 yards from the nearest hill. No tree or rock or bush 

 offered any concealment to an enemy; the ducks 

 could sleep there as sure of detecting the approach 

 of danger as if on the open ocean. 



One autumn day I passed the place and, looking 

 cautiously over the top of a hill, saw a single black 

 duck swim out of the water-grass at the edge of the 



