FOREST AND STREAM, 
Those "Sleeping" Dusky Mallards 
-Pinafore. 
What, never? 
Well, hardly ever. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The red gods fly scored many rises ; the dusky mallard 
gets more. Your paper certainly has a wide circulation, 
and is closely read. 
Mr. John Burroughs, in the July issue of Outing, 
asserts that while he hunted ducks he "time and again" 
reached for his gun to shoot at dusky mallards that he 
knew were all sleeping soundly. This while hardly 
within gunshot of the ducks ; and the mere act of reaching 
for that gun while the ducks did not see him, waked them 
all instantly! That was "duck-and-man telepathy!" And 
this is proof of his claim that he is a duck hunter ; yet in 
the very next (August) issue of Outing, he specifically 
declares he is not a duck hunter ! 
The above allegation, that he had "time and again" seen 
groups of mallards "all sound asleep" was made the sub- 
ject, in Forest and Stream, of a general denial by me, 
in these words : "No man ever saw two or more dusky 
mallards (Anas obscura) that were all asleep together." 
The assertion, and the general denial, formed an issue, 
with the duty resting on Mr. Burroughs or his advocates 
to prove a statement so ridiculous that it is pitiful. And 
that is all the "dogmatism" contained in the denial that 
has served its purpose, as of course no one has ventured 
forth to prove an impossible case. Even those who choose 
to treat the denial as an original assertion and demand 
that I prove it, admit in these columns that Mr. Bur- 
roughs could not have known those ducks were asleep in 
any one of the cases that he observed "time and again." 
Now, as long and exceptionally excellent opportunities 
for observing dusky mallards have been enjoyed not sim- 
ply by me, but by some famous ornithologists who have 
devoted their lives to studying and writing about web- 
footed wildfowls, facts known about them warrant a pre- 
sumption by a legitimate process of reasoning that "No 
man," etc. But I cannot permit men who are watching 
for chances to trip me to force me into the false position 
of appearing to assert that I have always had, and still 
have, all the eyes of all the men in the world since the 
beginning of mankind. This is absurd. To challenge me 
in scorn to prove it, is more absurd. To those not un- 
friendly it will be enough to disclaim ever having in- 
tended to place myself in such a position. But it is my 
full belief that no man ever did see a group of dusky mal- 
lards that were all asleep, without sentinels. When the 
illustrated article about hunting ducks with field-glass and 
camera appears here, readers will note that it is the height 
of improbability that any man since the beginning of 
time has seen dusky mallards with habits that have been 
so clearly known and observed, all asleep together. Mean- 
while, readers are invited to read carefully what I 
separately wrote in the article which contained the general 
denial of the allegation by Mr. Burroughs. 
How little I spare myself to unpiqued readers here that 
are alone worthy of consideration, will be manifest from 
the following incidents showing how I have been scored, 
not by foes in a former contest, but by personal friends 
and comrades. By virtue of what sense of humor do they 
treat my denial as making me a legitimate target for prac- 
tical joking, and will not let me confine that denial to 
dusky mallards under normal conditions? 
Two days after Forest and Stream printed that denial, 
a broker at 50 Broadway telephoned, "Come here in a cab, 
quick! Matter life and death!" Hustled to his office, 
where he showed three old wooden decoys that he had 
decorated with little white nightcaps, and shouted: 
"Dusky mallards all, and all asleep together ! Cigars on 
you. Want two mild ones for a quarter." 
Cigar money gone, and a dollar for a cab used in driv- 
ing two blocks ! 
From away out near Nakusp, in British Columbia, my 
old comrade, George Abriel, mails to me a horrible pen- 
drawing of three ducks snoring quacks from three beds, 
and of himself leading me to their bedsides and saying: 
"They are asleep ; be not afraid." Four cents postage due 
on the letter! 
Last week a fishing-tackle dealer hailed me on Green- 
wich street with, "Step right in here and let me show you 
a cold storage plant." There he stopped me before many 
hundreds of dressed fowls, and I asked what they were. 
Note his crushing reply: "Group of dusky mallards all 
asleep together. You do not even recognize them. What 
do you know about ducks, anyhow, and now you can't 
say 'No man,' " etc. , , . , 
From Main River, in Newfoundland, that waggish 
Italian merchant, Antonio Nardini, sent me a package, re- 
ceived this morning, with charges not paid, that contained 
a cabbage head, and a letter as follows : "If you will come 
here again right away I'll show you 'telepathy' that works 
backwards— mallards not waked but all put to sleep with 
gun, powder and shot, and not a sentinel bird in sight." 
Even the cabbage had been sliced and ruined by the men 
of the United States Customs' Collector at Bangor search- 
ing for dutiable stuff that they thought the cabbage might 
conceal ! 
While I care nothing for men who are not only oppo- 
nents but unfriendly, these sarcasms from friends come 
home' to me. Five telegrams, three with full charges on 
them eight or ten telephone inquiries, and as many letters, 
have'also asked me in substance, "How do you know that 
no man," etc. I never was so tired of any words, and of 
a denial being treated as an allegation 
And here is the last straw. At luncheon to-day a 
former comrade at Mattamuskeet Lake buttonholed me, 
obtained the usual cigar, and lectured at me between 
PU "Got all the eyes men ever owned, or will own through 
all past and future eternity, have you? The next time 
you mar an article with one incorrect statement, just de- 
cide beforehand to hold ahead before you shoot. You 
got your bird, all right, but you should hit through the 
head Yes, I know, we shot mallards at Kitty Hawk, 
members of the same group, and in one we found seeds of 
the cloudberry that don't grow south of Labrador, and 
in another seeds that only grow in South America. Those 
birds had met from Great Bear Lake and from Argentine 
in two days or less ; must have used telepathy, and invited 
each other to a little wild celery lunch day after to- 
morrow on the outer North Carolina coast. Yes, they 
were no doubt awful tired after all that flight of say 8,500 
or 3,000 miles each ; and the groups had sentinels out, all 
right, bad luck to them ! But those are not really ab- 
normal conditions. Just suppose that at the luncheon they 
had gone on a little spree in honor of their meeting, and 
had ventured to eat some roots that would make them 
drunk, and finally put them all to sleep, for ducks will be 
ducks, you know. Suppose we go right down there and 
feed a lot of ducks on rum-soaked wild rice. Why, we 
could row about and pick the mallards up by thousands, 
sentinels and all." 
All right, ye jokers. Be it so. All ducks sleep soundly 
until a gun is pointed at them. Then they all wake on 
the instant. This is especially true when the hunter is in 
a position where the ducks could not see him if they were 
awake, and more true when the hunter declares he is not 
a hunter. L. F. Brown. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Of course dusky mallards sometimes sleep; yet even 
when they do, one standing right beside them could not 
be sure they were asleep. 
Very few of mere duck hunters have actually seen a 
group of these birds when some members of the group 
were in the posture and repose of even seeming sleep. 
No' group of such ducks fails to have members that are 
manifestly awake, acting as sentinels, keenly alert and 
watchful. As this is true of all groups near enough to be 
observed, it is also true of groups too distant for detailed 
observation. To find and note an exception to this abso- 
lute fact of the constant exercise by dusky mallards of 
this protection from danger, is in their case an impossi- 
ble exception to the rule that self-preservation is the first 
law of nature. It would be like seeing a rock drawn from 
the earth by the attraction of gravitation. Only those who 
really know the habits of dusky mallards can realize how 
absolutely this is true ; only such men are entitled to 
judge. And they will see no falsity in the statement, "No 
man ever saw two or more dusky mallards that were all 
actually asleep together." 
It follows that those who admittedly have little knowl- 
edge of the habits, conduct, and customs of mallards, and 
who produce no experience by reputable men to prove 
their denials, are the true dogmatists. Obliged to admit 
that a statement by Mr. Burroughs about sleeping mal- 
lards and "telepathy" has been shown to be so ridiculous 
as to be pitiful, they hunt for and pounce upon what they 
hope is a "peg on which to hang a dispute." 
Study of dusky mallards at _ Bird Rock, Magdalen 
Islands, and around Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian, in 
Louisiana, must convince sportsmen who have no motive 
for denying it that no group of such birds all get actually 
asleep at the same time, leaving no sentinels. 
Readers of Forest and Stream who may be interested 
in the habits of dusky mallards, should read Elliott, prob- 
ably our best authority on web-footed wildfowls, and 
especially his chapter on the surprising vigilance of the 
dusky mallards. If they follow this by actual study of 
mallards, they will come, more and more, to know that to 
catch even one such duck when isolated and solitary, in 
an attitude of seeming sleep, is like catching a weasel 
asleep; and that to find a group of mallards in seeming 
sleep without sentinels, is like searching for the pot of 
gold at the end of a rainbow. A. H. Stephens. 
Migratory Stragglers. 
Passing through Battery Park the other day I saw a 
small speckled woodpecker clinging to the bark of one of the 
trees. He was evidently a migrant that had lost his way 
or been left behind. The weather being wet and chill, he 
looked somewhat bedraggled and decidedly disconsolate. 
On my approaching to get a good view of him, he took 
wing to another part of the park, where was a congrega- 
tion of sparrows. These made no attempt to molest him, 
being doubtless impressed with the size of his bill. The 
English sparrow dearly loves a scrap, but he is a prudent 
bird withal. 
As I continued on my way I recalled other instances of 
migratory stragglers. One was that of a crested fly- 
catcher who flew in through my window one morning as 
I was dressing. Another that of a veery whom I_ observed 
perched on my windowsill while a cat on a neighboring 
fence kept her basilisk gaze fixed upon him. Still another 
was that of a bluebird crouching low beneath a dripping 
hedge in mid-November. 
Now it would be interesting to know whether these 
migratory stragglers have lost their sense of direction and 
invariably perish, or take wing again at nightfall and pur- 
sue their southerly course. We may assume that they are 
birds of inferior strength, but their intelligence may not 
be inferior. But does it require the collective intelligence 
or instinct of a flock of birds to engineer a migration, or 
is one bird alone capable of it ? 
Whatever may be the answer to this question, it is 
pretty certain, as pointed out by a learned British 
ornithologist, Mr. Alfred Newton, that past experience 
has nothing to do with the directing of migration ; that is 
to say, with the finding of a course. For what would 
experience be in this case? Simply the memory of land- 
marks from observation. But how could a bird migrating 
by night observe the land to any purpose, or what obser- 
vations could a bird crossing the ocean far from land 
make which would be of any assistance to it in a subse- 
quent migration ? Another thing is this, that the young 
and the old among migrants always journey apart, and 
most generally by different routes. This was observed by 
Temminck and abundantly proved by Gatke (of Heligo- 
land) and others, as noted by Mr. Newton. The young 
can have no experience, and yet they manage to reach 
their goal. It is clear, therefore, that a knowledge of 
signs or landmarks cannot account for the accuracy with 
which birds steer their course. 
Dr. Von Middendorf, a Russian, observed that birds 
migrating across Siberia were in the habit of steering for 
the Taimyr Peninsula, the seat of one of the magnetic 
poles, but Prof. Baird, an American, observed that birds 
migrating on this continent do not direct their course 
for the magnetic pole. The question arises, Did Prof. 
Baird observe long and carefully enough? Magnetic in- 
fluence is really a most plausible theory, and one fact, at 
least, which would seem to substantiate it is that birds ap- 
pear 'to prefer thick or cloudy nights for migrating, when 
the electric currents may be supposed to be most active. 
But even admitting the theory to be correct, it does not 
Oct 4ft 
coyer the whole ground. For while attraction of the pole 
might enable birds to find their Way generally to the 
north, it could not, manifestly, enable them to find their 
particular nesting locations or spots, to which,, as is well 
known, they return year after year. 
Altogether, in the words of Mr. Newton, "the whole 
question is fraught with difficulty, and we must leave to 
time the discovery of this mystery of mysteries." 
Francis Moonan. 
New York, October. 
Some Animals I Have Studied. 
XII.— A Cranky Old Horse. 
We possess a small horse which is famous for his 
eccentricities. He's as great a bundle of contradictions, as 
many-sided in character as Malty, the trick dog. 
He's the first and only yellow horse I ever liked or 
admired. But though he has certain exasperating ways, 
he is beautiful, affectionate, and generally lovable. His 
color is really a bright terra-cotta, with a distinct pinkish 
tinge, and a dark brown stripe along the backbone. His 
mane is fine, soft, silky, with a gleam of gold in it 
And although he must be twenty years old, or older his 
tail is still amazingly heavy and reaches the ground, or 
would but for its proud outward curve. His eyes are full 
and bright, his feet so good that the hind ones never need 
to be shod and the forefeet only about once in a year for a 
short time. He seems to be as sound, as active, and as 
gay as when a colt. I have heard that Buffalo Bill (who 
ought to be a good judge of horses) declares that yellow- 
ish or saddle-colored horses with striped backbone aver- 
age hardier and more enduring than other colors But in 
my own limited experience, Chass is the first yellow horse 
without some serious physical fault or weakness His 
faults are all in his disposition. If he hasn't a character 
a mind, an individuality, then I will own that animals are 
mere machines. 
To begin at the beginning, when we first got possession 
of him he was the wildest bridle-wise horse I ever saw; 
more afraid of a man than of anything else in creation 
indicating that he had been treated with violence. In- 
deed, we afterward learned that he had been the property 
of a gypsy during his "breaking in" days, and that the 
human brute habitually caught him with the lasso when- 
ever he desired to use him, threw him, and proceeded to 
nearly "beat his brains out" with a huge club before put- 
ting on the bridle. He was about five years old when he 
came to live with us (I say "live with us," because we 
have grown to regard him as one of the family, and I 
would not consent to exchange him for any other horse 
nor for a very large sum of money), and we saw at once 
that he had, apparently, been hopelessly ruined in disposi- 
tion. Whenever he was wanted, he had to be forced into 
the stable, and then cornered, and two fearless active 
men were required to bridle him. He could not be' enticed 
to follow in. No man could get near him without help. 
No ordinary farm horse could catch him. But with the 
help of Malty, the trick dog, whose motto was always 
Catch anything or run it off the earth!" (I've seen her 
catch low-flying quail and other birds, and without hurt- 
ing them), we drove him into the stable day after day. 
We have here an excellent, well-watered pasture, and can- 
not bear to keep any animal tied or shut up. When I first 
tried alone to bridle him, he retreated to a corner of the 
stable, squatted like a lion about to spring, trembled like a 
volcano on the point of explosion, and gave a snort like 
the popping of a locomotive's safety valve. I hesitated, 
for I saw that there was great danger of getting hurt, or 
causing him to hurt himself, for he was crazy with terror 
Continuing to apply the most flattering terms I could! 
think of, in the softest voice I could muster, I at last at- 
tempted to get near his head, whereupon he violently 
whirled, struck me with his hip and knocked me in a heap 
to the further side, then spun about in a most terrifying 
manner on all fours, on the hind feet, leaping, wildly 
searching for some place of exit. In spite of my own 
peril, I. trembled for the horse. I feared he might try to 
break through the wall, or even through the roof. I saw 
no sign of viciousness— only fear, and a mad desire for 
freedom. Yet I can truthfully say I'd as soon be in a 
lion's den as in that situation again. I don't recollect 
how many I had to call to my help that time. ' In fact, 
I was myself conquered, if not broken. But it was Clay, 
my brother, who finally slipped the bridle on the slippery 
fellow, who at once became docile, though nervous and 
shaking still. We found him tender-mouthed, easily led, 
apparently anxious only to avoid punishment, having no 
thought of inflicting injury upon us or on any living 
thing. 
Yet there was so much trouble, danger, and loss of time 
in dealing with him that we were in despair; until our 
aged father, whom we had not counted on at all, one day 
came out to "have a look" at the untamed acquisition. 
He didn't look long until he ridiculed us for our lack of 
understanding, saying : "Why, boys, that horse will be all 
right! He is nervous and mettlesome, and has been 
shamefully abused, but he's got lots of sense, you'll find, 
and will be kind and genth when he finds you've got 
sense enough to know how to treat a horse ! In the first 
place, don't try to jump right at his head. Can't you see 
that's just what he's afraid of? Some fool's been beatin" 
him over the head. Let him know you are not afraid of 
his other end." 
"He's liable to kick," I protested. 
"Some folks ought to be kicked !" irritably insisted this 
venerable friend of horses, .wherewith he at once confi- 
dently approached the quaking, forbidding-looking ani- 
mal, saying, "Whoa, Charley, whoa! Whoa, boy! I 
won't let 'em hurt you !" 
"I tell you, pa, he's so violent he can knock you over 
with his tail," I exclaimed, trying mildly to detain him. 
Clay also insisted that the beast was dangerous. 
"Quit slanderin' that horse," the old gentleman retorted, 
with a great show of indignation, while continuing to 
draw nearer the rear of the frightened horse, who seemed 
truly unapproachable. It was a thrilling moment when 
he raised one hand to pat him on the hip, while the horse 
kept crouching lower and lower, and shrinking and 
shrinking more and more into his corner, but the hand 
descended, and the horse stood still. Little by little the 
intrepid old man crept forward, until soon he was patting 
the glossy neck. 
