16 T HE} JA ULDsUcBiO Ni BU leis ie 
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“Wood ducks broke into the news in Quincy for the third time this 
summer, Wednesday, with the capturing of seven tiny wood duck ducklings 
at Twentieth and Hampshire Tuesday evening, and an eighth in the 1600 
block of Payson Avenue Wednesday morning. T. E. Musselman, Quincy 
ornithologist, has taken charge of the eight little ducklings and will try 
to rear them. 
“<The seven caught Tuesday evening,’ said Mr. Musselman, ‘evidently 
were of a brood hatched in some tree hollow in the neighborhood. The 
one caught on Payson Avenue, he said, evidently is from another brood 
as the location is more than a mile distant from where the first were 
caught. It discloses that wood ducks are nesting in Quincy in larger 
numbers than we realize.’ 
“A brood was believed to have hatched out in Madison Park, or ihe 
general vicinity of Twenty-fourth and Maine, recently, which with the 
two indicated broods disclosed Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning 
indicates at least three nests of wood ducks in the eastern part of Quincy. 
In years past wood ducks have been known to nest in Woodland cemetery 
and in South Park, but both of these are much closer to water. 
“Mr. Musselman said he was informed Tuesday noon by G. Arthur 
Keller, 2006 Hampshire, that a mother wood duck and her brood had been 
reported in the neighborhood of Twentieth and Hampshire. Tuesday eve- 
ning he was called and discovered that children of the neighborhood, with 
a hunting dog on a leash, had trailed the wood duck ducklings and had 
herded seven of them into the garage of Charles J. McCaughey at 1881 
Hampshire, where they had caught them. 
“Mr. Musselman took a square wire trap to the garage and placed the 
frightened, shrill-voiced youngsters in it. Then a trap was rigged through 
which the garage door could be closed by pulling a rope, in the correct 
belief that mama duck, hearing her piping youngsters, would try to get 
to them. ‘We planned, if we caught the mother,’ explained Mr. Musselman, 
‘to take her and the young ones up the bay or somewhere in the north 
bottoms and release them in a safe place.’ 
“Meantime, while awaiting a chance to trap the mother, another phone 
call from Charles Bennett, 2210 Vermont, brought the information that 
three ducklings, solemnly marching in single file, had crossed his back 
yard. A search for these tiny strays was launched, but proved unsuccessful. 
“The mother duck, as anticipated, tried to get to her young ones in 
the McCaughey garage, but she eluded capture on the first effort, and on 
the second try, Wednesday morning, the rope broke just as it appeared 
that the effort would succeed. 
“Mr. Musselman said Wednesday noon that he apparently had eight 
young wood duck ducklings on his hands, and with them a headache in 
the problem of trying to rear them as they will require an insect diet 
for some time.. He voiced the hope that he could locate, somewhere, a 
broody bantam hen that might adopt the youngsters and help rear them. 
Even better, he said, would be a duck that had just come off her nest with 
a brood during the last day or so, or a broody duck without young.” 
