BLACK DUCK 37 



when I rose tip all took to flight in a great straggling 

 flock which at a distance looked like crows, in no order. 

 Yet, when you see two or three, the parallelism pro- 

 duced by their necks and bodies steering the same way 

 gives the idea of order. 



April 21, 1855. Watched for some time a dozen 

 black ducks on the meadow's edge -in a retired place, 

 some on land and some sailing. Fifty rods off and with- 

 out the glass, they looked like crows feeding on the 

 meadow's edge, with a scarcely perceptible tinge of 

 brown. 



Feb. 29, 1856. He l loves to recall his hunting days 

 and adventures, and I willingly listen to the stories he 

 has told me half a dozen times already. One day he saw 

 about twenty black ducks on Goose Pond, and stole 

 down on them, thinking to get a shot, but it chanced 

 that a stray dog scared them up before he was ready. 

 He stood on the point of the neck of land between 

 the ponds, and watched them as they flew high toward 

 Flint's Pond. As he looked, he saw one separate from 

 the flock when they had got half-way to Flint's Pond, or 

 half a mile, and return straight toward Goose Pond again. 

 He thought he would await him, and give him a shot if 

 he came near enough. As he flew pretty near and rather 

 low, he fired, whereupon the duck rose right up high 

 into the air, and he saw by his motions that he was 

 wounded. Suddenly he dropped, by a slanting fall, into 

 the point of a thick pine wood, and he heard him plainly 

 strike the ground like a stone. He went there and 

 searched for a long time, and was about giving it up, 



1 [George Minott.] 



