The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1900-02-09
WILD DUCK AS A MOTHER.
The Most Secluded Places Selected
for Nests, Which Are Watched
Jeal0usly.

The wild duck is apt to be rather
quaint as g. mother. She often seems
to have the most singular idea about
sites appropriate for the nursery.
1t is practically an essential for the
well-be!ng Of her babies that the
nursery should be close by the wa
ters' side, for the little ones like to
take to the water as soon as hatched.
They have small use for the land ex-
cept to rest on, and they are rather
restless. The water is their element,
and yet the old mother duck will
sometimes choose for her nesting
place a spot remote by more than a
hundred yards from any water, some
times she will even choose the humble,
but yet considerable, height of pol
lard willow; and how she conveys her
young brood from these situations to
the water is one of those problems
of natural history which, like the
cuckoo's way of conveying her egg
into wren's nest, will probably go
on vexing till the end of time.
There are theories in plenty, but
no certainty. And often she will
make her nest or lay her eggs (for her
notions of nest architecture are prim-
itive) in a spot that seems specially
selected for its absence of covert. And
yet no one can say that she is not an
mother. When you come near her
nest and startle her off it, she does
not go away, as wise woman would,
stealthily, secretly, so as not to reveal
to you its existence, but with fut-
ter and commotion and often with
an affectation of a broken wing (as
if to lead you off in pursuit of her,
rather than leave you looking for her
eggs). that tells you as plainly as If
she had quacked it out: "I have q
nest there; please do not go looking
for it; but come and catch me; I have
a broken wing" She has charming
idea of human simplicity.
She has only too many reasons for
her overanxiety. 1t is quite pitiful.
She is a pitiful object herself, as she
goes about in her lame and incompe-
tent fashion. But the real dangers
that menace her young family are
many and terrible.
On shore, as soon as Matched, or
even while still in the shell, they are
the most attractive prey of rats, both
gray rats and water voles, and no
sooner do they take to the water than
hungry pike is looking out to gobble
them up or a heron, ostensibly bent on
fishing, is not at all above skewering
one of them on his bayonet beak, if
1t should come his way. So all these
adequate causes for most poignant
anxiety more than excuse Mother
Duck for her fussiness even If they be
no excuse for her habit of pitching
her nursery tent in sites that really
are not very eligible.
hut this mother has chosen fairly
secluded spot. For the most part she
will be found sitting closely, if she be
approached with caution, or else will
movo just a foot or so from her nest,
and remain watching jealously, lest
her eggs take any harm. And close
beside her in the same covert is
Mother Pheasant on her nest, less
suspicious and more trustful, for she,
something of a domesticated person,
having been brought up under barn.
door hen, and so learning the ways Of
civilization. If the wild duck mother
could learn only portion of her
truStfulness she would be more con-
tented wolnan.-Country Life.