IV 
THE WIT OF A DUCK 
HE homing instinct in birds and animals is one 
of their most remarkable traits: their strong 
local attachments and their skill in finding their way 
back when removed to a distance. It seems at times 
as if they possessed some extra sense — the home 
sense — which operates unerringly. I saw this illus- 
trated one spring in the case of a mallard drake. 
My son had two ducks, and to mate with them 
he procured a drake of a neighbor who lived two 
miles south of us. He brought the drake home in a 
bag. The bird had no opportunity to see the road 
along which it was carried, or to get the general 
direction, except at the time of starting, when the boy 
carried him a few rods openly. 
He was placed with the ducks in a spring run, 
under a tree in a secluded place on the river slope, 
about a hundred yards from the highway. The two 
ducks treated him very contemptuously. It was 
easy to see that the drake was homesick from the 
first hour, and he soon left the presence of the 
scornful ducks. 
Then we shut the three in the barn together, 
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