FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 29, 1906. 
498 
knowing what to make of his actions T hurried 
over, and in reply to my query, he simply pointed 
at something on the ground about twenty yards 
away and yelled the louder. Going in the direc¬ 
tion indicated, my dogs by this time had come 
up and were nosing something, which on closer 
inspection proved to be an exceptionally large 
tomcat whose head and neck were seamed and 
scarred from many a battle. 
Returning to my friend, whb had not left his 
position on the stump, 1 asked for an explana¬ 
tion, and he then gave me the history of this 
cat’s depredations the past season, how every¬ 
body in the neighborhood had suffered the loss 
of more or less chickens, and of the many at¬ 
tempts made to trap or kill it. When the news 
spread, there was almost as much excitement as 
a country wedding. 
Every gunner can recall cases of this kind, and 
I feel it is up to us to rid the woods and fields 
of this pest. I am aware that many men have 
a superstitious dread of killing a domestic cat, 
but after they have killed half a dozen or so 
Why Wounded Ducks Disappear. 
FRANK T. NOBLE, IN THE JOURNAL OF MAINE 
ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
In various publications, both scientific and 
secular, many discussions and queries have re¬ 
cently appeared regarding the remarkable man¬ 
ner in which water fowl, when shot at and 
wounded, frequently dive beneath the surface 
of the water and fail to rise again to view. 
The theories oftimes set forth in explanation 
of this well-known characteristic of the Anatidae 
family are numerous, some of them hardly tenable, 
however, under the application of common 
natural laws. 
The writer has observed the phenomenon fre¬ 
quently under both ordinary and unusual cir¬ 
cumstances, and has many times been greatly 
amazed at the non-appearance after diving of an 
unquestionably hard-hit duck, and this, too, at 
the time when the surface of the water was so 
smooth as to eliminate the possibility of the 
to •turn up, a bunch of three pintails, or gray 
ducks, suddenly dropped out of the sky from 
somewhere, and we sculled them without diffi¬ 
culty, as they are a comparatively unsuspecting 
bird when first arriving from the north. 
I stopped only two, however, owing to a 
"breakdown" after the first shot, one killed out¬ 
right, the other, a big drake, being hard hit and 
with one wing broken. Before the latter could 
be shot over, he made a dive with considerable 
difficulty and disappeared from view. We waited 
perhaps half a minute for him to appear again, 
but not doing so, we paddled to the spot where 
we found the, water thereabouts to be scarcely 
three feet deep, and the bottom to be 'thickly 
covered with various kinds of lilypads and 
grasses. A few moments of careful search and 
the duck was discovered on the bottom, grasp¬ 
ing with its bill the tough stem of a cowslip. The 
body of the bird floated upward posteriorly, some¬ 
what higher than the position of the head, and 
the long tail feathers were a foot or more nearer ’ 
the surface than the former. The bird’s feet 
Photo by G. L. P. 
SNIPE SHOOTING ON SHINNECOCK BAY, LONG ISLAND, N. Y. 
without anything happening, their minds will 
assume their normal state and then the cats had 
better look out. 
Of course, a little judgment must be used in 
this matter as in everything else, and gunners 
must not kill the housecat in the farmer’s front 
garden. The kind referred to in this article are 
those found wandering afield at some distance 
from a house. J. H. H. 
We find in the current Journal of the Maine 
Ornithological Society a note on this subject by 
A. FI. Norton, in which he says: 
"The harmful effect of cats upon birds and 
small game protection has long been recognized. 
In the report of the Maine Fish and Game Com¬ 
missioners for 1880 attention was called to the 
matter, and various cases of observed damage 
cited. Cats are particularly injurious to Leach's 
petrels whenever kept on islands inhabited by 
these birds. The nearly depleted condition of one 
of the largest colonies on the Maine coast is 
attributed to cats. When the writer was at the 
State House about a year aaro, the chairman of 
the present Commission of Fisheries and Game 
said, ‘Something ought to be done about the 
cats. Let’s take it up.’ In view of this im¬ 
portant sentiment, it is very gratifying to notice, 
according to the Audubon Society department of 
Bird-Lore for July and August. 1906, that the 
inspector of the first lighthouse district has taken 
a decided step in the matter in relation to the 
large and important colony at Great Duck Island, 
issuing an order that the light keepers are ex¬ 
pected to confine or remove their cats until after 
the close of the breeding season. It is to be 
hoped that a more general remedy may be found 
by the coming legislature.” 
bird breaking water ever so lightly for the pur¬ 
pose of taking breath without detection. Such 
an experience, and it is a common one with all 
duck shooters, impels one to draw the conclu¬ 
sion that the bird is dead, but for some mys¬ 
terious and unusual cause does not come to 
the surface. 
It is simply impossible to make the body of 
a freshly killed duck stay under water without 
artificial means, as all gunners of water fowl 
know, also, that the length of time any bird 
can remain alive underneath the surface is 
limited to a very few minutes. 
Now if the various accounts of these strange 
and unaccountable disappearances of wounded 
water fowl (and I do not in the least doubt their 
truthfulness) were carefully investigated, I am 
quite sure it would be found that they occur in 
comparatively shallow bodies of water, or where 
the bottom is within easy diving distance from 
the surface, and taking that as an important con¬ 
dition, perhaps the following from my own ex¬ 
perience will help to explain and clear away 
much that has heretofore looked more or less 
mysterious. 
On a bright, sunny afternoon late in Septem¬ 
ber. I was lying in a gunning float off Norris’ 
Cove in a shallow part of that finest of all 
Maine’s ducking grounds, Merrymeeting Bay. 
There was scarcely a breath of air stirring, 
certainly not enough to cause even a ripple upon 
the surface of the water, which was like a mirror. 
The tide was about half ebb. and in the bright 
sunlight the bottom of the bay, with its vege¬ 
table growth, was plainly visible. After a few 
moments of listless waiting and watching for 
something in the nature of web-footed game 
were outstretched, but he was motionless until 
molested, then he kicked and fluttered vigor¬ 
ously, all the time retaining his hold upon the 
bottom, and it required considerable force to 
break him away from his queer anchorage. 
I regret my inability to wholly satisfy the gen¬ 
eral curiosity as to the final outcome of this 
strange habit. Whether wounded ducks retain 
their hold in a death grip after life is extinct, 
or whether it relaxes with death and the body 
floats to the surface, I am unable to state with 
certainty, but I surmise from the experience of 
other observers as well as myself that the former 
is the case, and that not until sometime after 
death do the muscles relax sufficiently to enable 
the action of the water to free the body from 
its hold on the bottom. 
Perhaps other observers, who have made a 
more careful study of this phenomenon, will en¬ 
lighten 11s upon this important point. 
St. Louis Game Warden. 
A. E. Winkelmeyer has resigned as chief 
deputy game warden of St. Louis and H. C. 
Tulley has been appointed in his stead. Both are 
prominent in the Missouri Sportsmen’s Fish and 
Game Protective League, Mr. Winkelmeyer being 
its president and Mr. Tulley its treasurer. The 
new warden has an office in the city and will be 
supported by the league and sportsmen generally, 
as his appointment meets with their approval. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from 
any newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
