CHAPTER XIX.

_My Last Distinguished Family of Pet Ducks._

At the present time I have only one grey duck of my own. She is pinioned and lives in the park. In the spring of 1919 she paired off with one of the wild drakes that came here, built a nest and laid eleven eggs.

I have a pair of Egyptian geese in the park, and of all the web-footed devils I know of on earth, these Egyptian geese are the worst. I knew full well I must not let this duck hatch her young there, so a few days previous to their hatching I stole the eggs and put them under a domestic fowl. She hatched the whole eleven and in about twenty-four hours I moved them all to the north pond, shutting the eleven pets in a playground about two feet square which I made in front of their own stepmother. The third day I gave them their liberty by quietly removing the three boards, but of course left the hen in the permanent coop. I sat for a few minutes and watched them as they saw water for the first time. Finally all apparently lined up along the sloping bank of the pond, looking and peering sidewise as they slowly advanced to the edge of the water, where all stood still for a few seconds, then as suddenly as anything could possibly be, they dove into the water, just like eleven frogs, and equally as quick, some of them coming up fully ten feet from shore.

The first week I fed them a little custard, then gradually tapered off to oatmeal, throwing the feed in the shallow water so they would have to tip up to get it.

They grew quite rapidly, but the thirteenth was their unlucky day for a snapping turtle took one. Fortunately three other wild ducks were raising their families there, and these old ducks gave the alarm and I arrived just in time to see this little duck’s finish; but the other ten got along O.K., for that was the last meal that old mossback ever required.

In about a week I heard these old ducks’ alarming cries again. I hustled back and shortened the career of another snapping turtle, but this time my nerve was not very steady and I missed his head, but the ball split the roof of his house, causing it to leak, letting in the water that gradually pushed his life out, leaving him just strength enough to walk to shore.

About a week later I again heard these old ducks’ call of distress, saying “Help, help! Help, help!” and this cry continued until I arrived with the glittering rifle in my hand; then it ceased. All were standing on the shore, and, best of all, my ten had learned the alarm and had also come out of the water; the forty or fifty ducks, young and old, were on their tiptoes, each with one eye directed towards the middle of the pond. So I hid myself in the growing rye surrounding the pond. Finally the three old birds ventured in the water about twenty feet in front of me, and just as I was about to give up watching they all three raised their heads and said “Quack! Quack! Quack!” and they swam quickly towards me and their young who were preening their baby feathers on the bank. I could not see a thing. Yet they continued the alarm, as much as to say, “There he is!” Now what could it be? Finally I saw a little speck not much larger than an ordinary bean projecting above the calm surface of the water. I watched it closely and it still grew larger until I was sure it was the periscope of one of these old four-legged submarines. The ducks having my nerves keyed up to the highest tension, I wanted to make a sure shot. When this speck was as large as my two thumbs above the water I slowly cocked the high-powered rifle, took a steady aim and pressed the button, and I have never seen that turtle’s head since.

But here is what is interesting: Of these three old ducks two were tagged in 1916, and have migrated and returned three times to my personal knowledge, and have undoubtedly been shot at, time and again; one has part of her foot shot away. Yet when this rifle cracked, right above the three, not one attempted to fly, but all rushed right up to the muzzle of the gun. This was only a starter of them exposing their knowledge; for ten minutes later each took her family right out into the water. Whether they knew I had killed the turtle, or if it was the calmness and safety brought about by the crack of the rifle the two previous times that gave them confidence to go out into the water, I do not know; only this, that they did go out with the appearance of perfect safety. Moreover I had no proof that I had killed the turtle. But time told that tale; the weather was very hot and on the second day and about the eleventh hour he arose, but minus a head.

Well, to return to the ten little ducks, I was trying to make them grow as fast as the old ducks did their broods. In other words I was racing with the old duck, but I was like Dad’s fast horse, just fast enough to lose. Fortunately one day mine followed me towards the house and found the mulberries. These trees were only five years old and therefore hadn’t much fruit, but the ducks ate every berry almost before it touched the ground. Now I had the old ducks a-going some, for these Mulberry ducks outgrew theirs. For three weeks they ignored me, but as the weather was dry and hot the bulk of this fruit gave out and the Mulberry family, as we called them, were glad to come back to their old step-father.

They were hatched on May 25th. The day they were eight weeks old they arose and flew the full length of the pond, two hundred and forty feet. At nine weeks old they were going over the top of the whole premises including the seventy-five foot chimney at the drain-tile factory. On July 14th we caught, tagged and named each one. I put two tags on each duck so I could see how many returned in the spring without catching them, the one being the usual tag that I put on any duck; the other was a little narrower and contained just the initials of the duck’s name. Their names were as follows:

Agnes Mulberry Ruth Mulberry Mabel Mulberry Flossie Mulberry Nellie Mulberry Joseph Mulberry Woodrow Mulberry John Mulberry Theodore Mulberry Peter Mulberry.

In August the pond dried up and most all of my ducks went away. Mr. William Scratch, Kingsville, Ontario, shot Theodore Mulberry on September 1st, at Cedar Creek. Later on, in October, seven of them were home again, and all migrated on December 2nd. On December 13th, Joseph Mulberry was shot by Mr. August Holstein of Columbus, Ohio. Mr. Holstein shot the drake near that city, and on January 3rd, 1920, Mr. H. C. Leiding of Charlestown, South Carolina, killed Mabel Mulberry near that city. In the spring at least three of them returned, but strangely I haven’t any proof of what happened to any of the rest; possibly some may be alive yet.

It may seem strange to you that I enjoy keeping a history of different families of birds, but if you were to do the same I am sure you would enjoy it far better than tracing your own family history, for in tracing the history of the birds we are not so apt to find out things we wish we had never known.