edge of the water with nothing above it but the bill, but at other times
running to a considerable distance into the woods, or hiding in a canebrake
beside a log. In such places I have often found them, having been
led to their place of concealment by my dog. When frightened, they rise
by a single spring from the water, and are as apt to make directly for the
woods as to follow the stream. When they discover an enemy while
under the covert of shrubs or other plants on a pond, instead of taking to
wing, they swim off in silence among the thickest weeds, so as generally to
elude your search, by landing and running over a narrow piece of ground
to another pond. In autumn, a whole covey may often be seen standing
or sitting on a floating log, pluming and cleaning themselves for hours.
On such occasions the knowing sportsman commits great havock among
them, killing half a dozen or more at a shot.
The food of the Wood Duck, or as it is called in the Western and
Southern States, the Summer Duck, consists of acorns, beech-nuts, grapes,
and berries of various sorts, for which they half-dive, in the manner of
the Mallard for example, or search under the trees on the shores and in
the woods, turning over the fallen leaves with dexterity. In the Carolinas,
they resort under night to the rice fields, as soon as the grain becomes
milky. They also devour insects, snails, tadpoles, and small water
lizards, swallowing at the same time a quantity of sand or gravel to aid
the trituration of their food.
The best season in which to procure these birds for the table is from
the beginning of September until the first frost, their flesh being then
tender, juicy, and in my opinion excellent. They are easily caught in
figure-of-four traps. I know a person now residing in South Carolina,
who has caught several hundreds in the course of a week, bringing them
home in bags across his horse's saddle, and afterwards feeding them in
coops on Indian corn. In that State, they are bought in the markets for
thirty or forty cents the pair. At Boston, where I found them rather
abundant during winter, they bring nearly double that price; but in
Ohio or Kentucky twenty-five cents are considered an equivalent. Their
feathers are as good as those of any other species; and I feel well assured
that, with a few years of care, the Wood Duck might be perfectly domesticated,
when it could not fail to be as valuable as it is beautiful.
Their sense of hearing is exceedingly acute, and by means of it they
often save themselves from their wily enemies the minx, the polecat, and
the racoon. The vile snake that creeps into their nest and destroys their
eggs, is their most pernicious enemy on land. The young, when on the
water, have to guard against the snapping turtle, the gar-fish, and the
eel, and in the Southern Districts, against the lashing tail and the tremendous
jaws of the alligator.
Those which breed in Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, move
southward as soon as the frosts commence, and none are known to spend
the winter so far north. I have been much surprised to find WILSON
speaking of the Wood Ducks as a species of which more than five or six
individuals are seldom seen together. A would-be naturalist in America,
who has had better opportunities of knowing its habits than the admired
author of the " American Ornithology," repeats the same error, and, I
am told, believes that all his statements are considered true. For my own
part, I assure you, I have seen hundreds in a single flock, and have known
fifteen to be killed by a single shot. They, however, raise only one brood
in the season, unless their eggs or young have been destroyed. Should
this happen, the female soon finds means of recalling her mate from the
flock which he has joined.
On having recourse to a journal written by me at Henderson nearly
twenty years ago, I find it stated that the attachment of a male to a female
lasts only during one breeding season; and that the males provide themselves
with mates in succession, the strongest taking the first choice, and
the weakest being content with what remains. The young birds which
I raised, never failed to make directly for the Ohio, whenever they escaped
from the grounds, although they never had been there before. The only
other circumstances which I have to mention are, that when entering the
hole in which its nest is, the bird dives as it were into it at once, and does
not alight first against the tree; that I have never witnessed an instance
of its taking possession, by force, of a woodpecker's hole; and lastly,
that during winter they allow ducks of different species to associate with
them.'