Aug. 6, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
211 
When the eggs are ready to hatch, they will 
be observed somewhat to change their color and 
to grow more whitish. The egg has an odd 
and rather dead look. This is a sign that a 
duckling is about to chip the egg, and it will 
soon begin to do so if it has not already 
started. If the eggs seem all to be hatching 
about the same time, it is well to let them 
severely alone, but if they hatch two or three 
at a time, the first hatched birds should be taken 
out from under the hens and put in a warm 
cloth-lined basket somewhere near . the fire. 
After all the eggs have hatched, the young birds 
may be again put under the hen to stay there 
for a few hours. The next day the hen should 
be put in a coop out in the grass and about the 
coop should be set up a low woven wire barri¬ 
cade to keep the young birds' from wandering 
too far. 
If by chance two or three hatchings by wild 
ducks should come off at about the same time 
as the hens, it may be worth while to divide up 
the young birds hatched under the hens among 
the mother ducks. This must be done with judg¬ 
ment, however, otherwise the foster mother may 
kill the duckings. 
A danger to which young birds are always sub¬ 
ject when in charge of a hen is that she will 
scratch vigorously in search of food, and in this 
way may kill or seriously injure some of the 
young birds. This is not likely to happen if the 
hen is confined in a coop with a board floor, or 
in fact if she is tethered by one leg on the grass 
without a coop. 
For the first day after being hatched the young 
birds require no food, but after that they should 
be given a little corn meal, spread out very thin, 
either on a board or a flat dish, and as soon as 
they seem to have satisfied their appetites, the 
food should be taken away and the dish washed 
or the board cleansed by scraping. It is well to 
moisten the meal with boiling water and then 
to let it cool, but the quantity offered should be 
very small, in the hope that the birds will eat 
practically all of it. The hen must be fed and 
given pure water twice a day. The little birds 
should be fed not less than four times a day, 
the earliest meal being given as soon as possible 
in the morning, and the latest one just before 
sunset. After a hen and her coop have been 
in one place for several days, it is well to 
move the family to fresh ground, both for the 
sake of cleanliness and of the fresh natural food 
—insects and young vegetation—which the tiny 
birds may pick up. Even if the hen is tethered 
out on the grass by one leg, it is essential that 
she should have a coop to retreat to in case of 
rainy weather, for young ducks are easily in¬ 
jured if they once get wet. Orange. 
American Bison Society. 
The annual report of the American Bison So¬ 
ciety is one of progress and success. The herd 
of bison for the Montana buffalo range has been 
bought, paid for and duly turned loose on its 
range in Montana, where it will do well and 
rapidly ihcrease. The bill setting aside the 
Bison Range was passed May 23, 1908, and with¬ 
in less than one year the Bison Society had 
raised a fund of $10,560. With this sum there 
were purchased from the Conrad Bison Herd 
near Kalispel, Mont., twelve male and twenty- 
two female buffalo, and in due time these were 
crated and shipped by rail to the reservation. 
The herd appears to have been handled con¬ 
stantly and to be very gentle, and there was no 
great difficulty in the shipping of these animals. 
All this is told in the report of the president. 
The secretary has devoted much of his time to 
giving illustrated lectures to the public, which 
have been listened to with interest. Mr. Clinton 
Gilbert, of Friend, Neb., is announced to have 
willed his herd of buffalo to the American Bison 
Society. The report contains a census of the buf¬ 
falo in North America, which is partly estimated. 
It is said that the total of buffalo was 1,633 in 
1909 as against 1,592 in 1908. The wild buffalo 
are estimated to be 325 in 1908 and 475 in 1909. 
We called attention last week to the fact that 
the appropriation for the care of the fenced 
herd in the Yellowstone Park had been increased 
from $2,500 to $3,000. 
Blackheads Breeding in Currituck. 
Waterlily, N. C., July 28 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Two weeks since, July 13, while going 
up old Currituck Inlet, I saw a flock of seven 
young blackhead ducks—small sized scaup. They 
were about two-thirds grown and I would never- 
have known they were young blackheads, but for 
the old birds. They were very tame and allowed 
me to get within twenty yards of them. We 
often see young blackducks, woodducks and 
sometimes mallards, but I never saw nor heard 
of young blackheads at Currituck before. 
The drake with the old duck and young ones 
had just enough white on his back for me to be 
able to tell that it was the male bird. All wild 
ducks at this season are off color, but anyone 
who has had a life time of experience like my¬ 
self can' tell them. I saw a flock of ten to-day, 
eight of which looked like young ducks, but they 
could fly, and it was impossible to be certain. 
They came to my yellowleg decoys and I could 
have shot at least half of them and might have 
been tempted, but I had just bagged sixty yel- 
lowlegs and dowitchers; enough for myself and 
neighbors. 
There is a flock of 200 or 250 scaup now on 
the beach ponds of the Swan Island Club 
grounds, and I have no doubt many of them are 
young birds. 
Two men on Knotts Island found a wild 
goose nest last week on the same grounds and 
set the eggs under a hen, but I will write you 
about that later. 
Yellowlegs, dowitchers and willets began to 
arrive on the 10th. There were some fair bags 
made Friday, the 15th. They are very fat and 
make a fine dinner served on toast. There is 
an abundant crop of wild celery, foxtail grass 
and widgeon grass this season; more of the lat¬ 
ter than I have ever seen in our sound before. 
The foxtail grass (Potomogeton pectinatus ) 
seems to be growing in every part of the sound 
this season and should be a big he'p to us when 
the ducks start southward, as it is one of the 
most important duck foods here. It grows from 
both seed and roots and I think can be as easily 
propagated as wild celery. I find by examining a 
large number of stomachs and gizzards of ducks, 
geese and swans that quite as much of it is con¬ 
sumed as of wild celery, and widgeon grass 
comes next. I do not see how the latter could 
be gathered, however, the seed is so small. 
Jasper B. White. 
The Coyote’s Gray Matter. 
El Centro, Cal., July 20.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Involved in a recent increase in the 
death rate among the coyotes of Imperial Valley 
is a problem of animal psychology that might 
put some of the most eminent nature fakers up 
a stump higher than that to which they were 
driven by the great faunal naturalist not so long 
ago. 
Coyotes are numerous in the fringe of desert 
bordering the reclaimed lands of the valley, and 
they are no friends to the settler who keeps 
chickens or sheep. Ordinary methods of putting 
out poison were effective temporarily, but the 
coyotes soon learned to view with profound sus¬ 
picion the tempting morsels of fresh meat that 
dropped like manna in the wilderness where no 
meat had been before. The providential cater¬ 
ing to the appetite of the desert vagabond ceased 
to be plausible to the coyote mind, and soon the 
poison paths led only to the chicken yard. 
Then an observant rancher burnished up his 
wits and pitted human craft against the genius 
of the wild, proving that under favorable con¬ 
ditions man may display intelligence almost 
equal to that of any wild animal that ever taught 
school in the woods. 
This is what set the rancher’s think-works 
agoing. In the desert beypnd the irrigated land 
is an isolated peak called Signal Mountain, to 
the top of which many persons climb for the 
view or for leg exercise. It is an all-day trip 
to the mountain, and people who make it carry 
grub and “picnic” on the mesa at the foot, leav¬ 
ing the debris of their luncheons scattered about 
after the fashion of picnic parties. The rancher 
noted that the coyotes had located the picnic 
grounds and kept them policed, eating the scraps 
of food, consisting mainly of sandwiches wrap¬ 
ped in paper. Wherefore the rancher and his 
neighbors wrapped their poisoned meat in paper, 
or placed bijs upon pieces of paper on the 
ground and let coyote nature take its course. 
Br’er Coyote had learned that it was safe to 
eat the leavings of campers, and the association 
of paper with food fooled him. In two weeks, 
so the “intelligent ranchers I have known” as¬ 
sure me, nearly a hundred coyotes proved the 
old adage that a little learning is a dangerous 
thing by turning up their toes and yelping out 
their souls on the desert. 
Now here is the problem in animal psychology: 
When and how, if at all, will Br’er Coyote learn 
to distinguish between bona fide campers’ scraps 
and lethal dainties alluringly wrapped in paper ? 
If he cannot differentiate, will he avoid all com¬ 
binations of grub and paper as works of the 
evil one, or will he go on taking chances? Will 
his first determination of the desirability of 
paper-wrapped provender persist, or will the 
later experience obliterate the original impres¬ 
sion? Can his mind stand the strain of an effort 
to reconcile the contradiction, or will it get into 
a hopeless muddle, culminating in brain fever or 
paresis? 
It would be interesting to hear from Ernest 
Thompson Seton, who knows the psychic “in¬ 
nards” of wild animals and can read their minds 
as accurately as the seventh daughter of a 
seventh daughter, born with a caul, can read 
your palm, on the subject of impending brain¬ 
fag or neurasthenia among the coyotes of Im¬ 
perial Valley. Allen Kelly. 
