or grass with either feet or bill, and he has pulled them 
from such places when they were under water at varying 
depths, from a few inches to more than an arm’s length. 
He says also that rails, when crippled and hiding under 
water, often stick up the bill alongside of reeds, so that 
they can breathe and at the same time elude their enemies. 
It sems probable that ducks, when hiding under water, 
usually grasp some object in the bill, as in diving the bill 
comes first in contact with something that will give a 
secure hold. A few clean-cut instances where this habit 
has been observed may be given here: 
Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson, President of the National Asso¬ 
ciation of Audubon Societies, asserts that when, as a boy, 
he followed a hunter who graciously allowed him to wade 
into the water to secure the dead fowls, a Green-winged 
Teal was shot and fell into a pond thickly grown with vege¬ 
tation which came close to the surface. The moment the 
teal struck the water it disappeared. It was easy to deter¬ 
mine the exact spot, so Mr. Pearson waded out and looked 
down into the water,, where he saw the bird holding to the 
stem of a submerged plant. The tail pointed upward toward 
the surface. When the teal was lifted, the plant also came 
up, still tightly clasped in the bird’s bill. 
Mr. Frank T. Noble, the well-known naturalist of Au¬ 
gusta, Me., under the heading, “Why Wounded Ducks Dis¬ 
appear,” reports a similar experience. 3 A male Pintail 
Duck which he had winged, dived into the water and did 
not come up. After a search it was found in ‘‘scarcely 
three feet of water,” clinging with its bill to the stem of 
a cowslip. Its body floated upward and its feet were out¬ 
stretched. The bird was still alive and “it required some 
force to break him away from his queer anchorage.” 
Mr. Charles B. Morss, a well-known sportsman of Haver¬ 
hill, Mass., writes, October 15, 1922,as follows: “I saw a 
Blue-winged Teal commit suicide this fall when wounded. 
Had the water been deeper I should have lost the bird alto¬ 
gether but, as it was, half of the bird’s extended tail showed 
3 Journal of the Maine Ornithological Society, Vol. VIII No 3 Sent 1906 
pag-e 61. ' 
14 
