I 
THE SO-CALLED SUICIDE OF WOUNDED WATER 
BIRDS. 
Edward Howe Forbush. 
All gunners who have had much experience in hunting 
waterfowl know that wounded birds very often dive or dis¬ 
appear under water and are not seen again. However, if 
a hunt is made later, with a dog, the wounded birds usually 
will be found concealed along the shore in the grass, weeds 
or underbrush. Sometimes they disappear for a time and 
iater float to the surface dead and drift to a lee shore; 
but frequently they vanish and are never seen again. Some¬ 
times unwounded ducks disappear. Mr. George B. Foster 
of Brookline, Mass., wrote me as follows, on January 25 
1922: ’ 
"Last spring I was walking along the Esplanade and had 
reached a point just above Harvard Bridge where Muddy 
River empties into the Charles,, when I saw three ducks 
alight in the Charles River about one hundred yards from 
wheie I was standing. Two of them immediately dived, 
and in a minute or two one of them appeared on the sur¬ 
face. I waited ten minutes, I should say, to see the other 
one come up, but he did not appear. The water was per¬ 
fectly still and I could see in every direction for a long 
distance.” 
There are various ways of accounting for the disappear¬ 
ance of birds that are never found. At times the dis¬ 
appearance of both wounded and unwounded birds may 
be accounted for by sub-surface enemies. Many birds are 
pulled down by large turtles. Snapping-turtles have been 
known not only to catch many ducklings but also full-grown 
ducks. At the Game Farm of the American Game Pro¬ 
tective Association at Carver, Mass., a large turtle caught 
a Canada Goose. The bird escaped, but left a leg in the 
turtle's jaws. 
IO 
