A LAND OF ETERNAL WARRING 



675 



A we:ird pii^ce: 01^ icr: in battli^ harbor 



blood being collected and turned into 

 fertilizer with the bones. The products 

 of the ductless glands, which as the crea- 

 ture is a mammal should be really valu- 

 able, have never yet been extracted. The 

 University of Kansas, through its enter- 

 prising industrial chemistry department, 

 is anticipating work on these from the 

 pineal gland to the suprarenal capsule 

 next year. 



Whales seem to depend for safety 

 more on their ears than anything, their 

 eyes being of little value. Indeed the 

 eye with all our animals except birds is 

 least relied on. A fox will jump into 

 the arms of a man on an open marsh if 

 he keep still and is down wind. A stag 

 will run right i^p to a man, who stands 

 without moving in the lead it is travel- 

 ing. I have seen a stag charge down on 

 a man with a head and horns of a lately 

 killed deer placed over his head and 

 shoulders, the stag not noticing he had 

 only two legs. 



But birds are the reverse. Ear and 

 nose count for nothing compared with 



the eye of our hawks, gulls, and even 

 less wary birds. Ducks do fail more 

 signally to tell things that are dangerous 

 by sight, but it seems to be obtuseness in 

 the process of their cerebration and not 

 keenness in recognizing. Like many 

 men they don't act quickly enough. 



A strange mistake in instinct our mi- 

 grating ducks always make when it is 

 foggy. They never seem to escape it. 

 They come south along the coast for full 

 600 miles, flying close to the headlands. 

 When they have gone 580 miles they 

 pass Cape St. Lewis, and a wide, deep 

 bay opens up with only the narrow south 

 side of the bay between them, and the 

 Straits up which nearly all the ducks are 

 bound. As sure as ever a northeast 

 wind blows, and there is too much fog to 

 see across the inlet, practically every 

 single flock will turn up the bay evi- 

 dently mistaking it for the Straits. They 

 are unwilling to rise and cross the land,- 

 I presume for fear of losing their bear- 

 ings, so they follow the shore right 



