In Berkshire fields . se to hear the call of the wild. Not long ago,in a small stream behind my house, I saw two mal-lards swimming along, and rushed, in great excite-ment, to tell the news. To my chagrin, I foundthey had come from a barn-yard a mile away andwould return to it at night. They did. A hunterwould hardly have been more tempted to shootone than he would to shoot a cow. The so-called black duck (so called, no doubt,because it is distinctly brown) is still, I presume,the duck most often seen on inland waters or evenon such marshes as those of Long Island. It winterson Long Island, an
In Berkshire fields . se to hear the call of the wild. Not long ago,in a small stream behind my house, I saw two mal-lards swimming along, and rushed, in great excite-ment, to tell the news. To my chagrin, I foundthey had come from a barn-yard a mile away andwould return to it at night. They did. A hunterwould hardly have been more tempted to shootone than he would to shoot a cow. The so-called black duck (so called, no doubt,because it is distinctly brown) is still, I presume,the duck most often seen on inland waters or evenon such marshes as those of Long Island. It winterson Long Island, and it formerly bred, more or less,in New York and New England, but now seeks,like other birds that want to be let alone, the seclu-sion of more northern waters. It is a smart duck,hard to kill and wary of blinds, and its dietary ac-tivities are extremely beneficent. I was alwaysimpressed by the stomach of a black duck DoctorEaton killed near Canandaigua Lake, New York,out of a flock returning from a flooded The black duck is the duck most often seen on inland waters BY INLAND WATERS 109 From this ducks gullet and gizzard he took a few-pebbles, snail shells, a little chaff, and 23,774 weedseeds—13,240 pigweed seeds, 7,264 knot grass, 576dock, and 2,624 ragweed. As ragweed is popularly-supposed to be the worst of all dangers to hay-fever sufferers, the hay-fever convention should cer-tainly sit beneath a stuffed black duck, even asthe Great and General Court of Massachusettsmeets beneath a golden codfish! It is not, I fancy,generally realized that ducks consume so manyseeds—for that matter, it isnt generally realizedhow large a part all beneficent birds play in holdingthe destructive exuberance of nature in check. Theterrible and disgusting slaughter of our wild duck,especially by wealthy Northern hunters in theSouth in winter, is a blot on our national good knew of three New York men, one of them theowner of a house-boat, who went to the Carolinastwo wint
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