FOREST AND STREAM 
1145 
Thanks to the Migratory Law and Better State Protection, the Wood-Ducks Are Coming Back. 
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(I “PEET-PEET” AND BROWNIE || 
A LITTLE NATURE STUDY OF THE 
WOOD-DUCK AND HIS FAMILY 
By Will C. Parsons. 
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.<4|—\EET, peet, peet -pect\" For twenty years 
the silent man on the river bank had 
not heard that sound. 
Straight up the center of the stream, following 
■each bend and curve as unerringly as a perfect 
ship follows her rudder’s impulse, came a beauti¬ 
fully feathered tourist from the direction of the 
■sunny southland, followed by his more sober 
clad wife. 
As the male spied the crouching human figure 
on the bank, he uttered a warning cry—“oe eek, 
oeek,” and, turning sharply to the left, sped 
through, just where the ghostly sycamore 
branches thrust out the thickest. He and his 
plump mate were gone! 
Not for twenty years before had the man seen 
a pair of wood-ducks (or summer ducks as they 
are also known) along that stream, and he then 
and there made mental resolution to get acquaint¬ 
ed with the interesting pair, should house-keep¬ 
ing be started somewhere along the river in his 
favorite territory. 
Unlike other birds, these ducks do not nest in 
the reeds along shore or upon some abandoned 
musk-rat’s house, but seeking some dead and hol¬ 
low monarch of the water line, choose a dark 
cavity, preferably in a limb jutting out over the 
stream, and there make their home and rear 
their young. 
The terrific floods of spring had completely 
changed the physical aspect of the river. Where 
once were deep and silent pools, riffles laughed 
and sang in the sunshine. Where the riffles had 
once raced, beds of gravel appeared, and where 
the current had been normal the previous year, 
giant snags, bridge timbers and butts of huge 
walnut trees bad gouged out holes in the bot¬ 
tom, and made a home for the bass, the sun fish, 
the shiners and the minnows. 
Along the river’s banks cottages of summer 
residents had been built. On the stream glided, 
from time to time, when the weather was pro¬ 
pitious, gayly painted canoes filled with laughing 
lads and lasses, and even a motor boat (where 
the water was deep enough) “put-putted” here 
and there. Also, upon the bars of gravel and 
sand, appeared to the wandering Crusoes, 
strange prints of feet, some showing the mark 
of the bathing sandal. So when the “peet, peet” 
of the male wood-duck fell upon the ears of 
this present Crusoe, he pondered along and deeply, 
for the wary wild folk allow but few mortals 
to spy upon their comings and goings. 
Away back in the days of the “hick’ry” shirt 
and one suspender the watcher had come in 
contact with numbers of these birds and, not 
much to his credit, had gunned more or less suc¬ 
cessfully for them. Long ago they had deserted 
the stream. Now, in spite of the march of 
civilization, a pair had returned! 
Sitting there in the warm sunshine Crusoe 
turned the matter over and over in his mind, 
and stray bits of ideas began to collect in his 
brain. First he remembered that he had found 
the nest of an upland plover that spring—some¬ 
thing that he had never found before in that 
locality; that he had heard the soras chattering 
by the riverside, and never before had he heard 
them in that spot. Finally a big fish hawk—a 
bird not seen near there since he could remem¬ 
ber—had, the day before, dashed from the cloud- 
land, seized a spawning sucker from the shal¬ 
lows and had gone to some distant dead tree to 
devour his prey. The call of the quail had come 
at frequent intervals that spring, a thing not 
heard as frequently in years. 
Ah, the solution of the “Peet-peet” mystery 
was at hand! 
By a wise legislation the state had protected 
the quail; the birds had not been shot, there¬ 
fore they had increased. The National govern¬ 
ment had finally awakened to the necessity of 
bird (especially migratory) conservation, and 
laws had been passed that tend to protect the 
migrants in the spring, when they pair and go 
to seek their nesting places. True, the floods 
may have spoiled the last year’s nesting places 
of the “Peet-peets” and disgusted them with 
their former surroundings, but be this as it 
may, the fact remains that if “Peet-peet” and 
“Brownie.” his wife, had not been protected, 
they would never, never have got so far north! 
Again the man harked back through the misty 
vistas of memory and recalled an incident men¬ 
tioned by Wilson, to show that the wood-duck 
is fearless and tame. The great bird man says 
that in one instance that came to his knowledge 
a pair of these birds nested in a hollow tree 
within a few yards of where a ship was being 
built. Also that the wood-duck had been tamed 
and had bred in captivity, until they fairly over¬ 
ran the estates that fostered them. They be¬ 
came just like domesticated ducks and anyone 
who has raised a brood of “quackers” knows 
that it is sometimes embarrassing to be followed 
to the post office by a line of waggling, quacking 
waddlers! 
During the latter part of April and the first 
part of May “Peet-peet” was occasionally seen 
as he sped up or down the river. “Brownie” 
was also visible at times, but so crafty was the 
pair that Crusoe could not locate the nest tree 
until— 
A sleepy afternoon; bees droning; river croon¬ 
ing; fleecy clouds lazily drifting; a buzzard al¬ 
most stationary in mid-air, and a long cane pole 
“set” at the roots of a gaunt sycamore tree for 
“goggle eyes.” 
Splash! 
Then, ever widening ripples circling toward 
the shore. Crusoe is indignant! Who could be 
pitching pebbles at his line? 
Then— 
Up pops a little fuzzy head with a pair of 
beady, bright eyes, and a baby wood-duck, his 
paddles frantically catching the water, disappears 
around a miniature cape, and is lost to sight! 
Just beyond this “Brownie,” who has been 
dropping like a shadow with one duck at a time 
carried in her strong bill, marshals an even dozen 
little “fuzzies” and drives them to a more 
sheltered and less public pool. 
At the risk of a wetting (and perhaps worse) 
Crusoe climbs out on the snag and peeps within. 
There has been no necessity for elaborate nest 
building. Nature has provided the cavity, and 
floored it with the softest of wood-dust. Here 
“Brownie” has hatched her brood, all unbe¬ 
known to the bathers and the canoe parties! 
From former studies of the wood-duck, Crusoe 
