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Wood Duck — Part 2
Images coming soon.
In July the drake withdraws to moult his bridal garments, leaving his overworked mate to lead the ducklings about on land and water in quest of seeds of plants, wild oats or rice, roots of aquatic vegetables, acorns, and numerous kinds of insects. The small coleoptera that skips and flies so nimbly along the surface of still inland waters, among the sedges and the lily pads, is ever a favorite morsel, a fact that testifies to the expert swimming of this duck. By September the drake comes out from his exile clad in plumage resembling the duck's, but still more brilliant than hers, and retaining the white throat markings. As the young birds have been gradually shedding their down through the summer and putting on feathers like their mother's, the family likeness in each individual is now most marked. Wood ducks, if ever gregarious, are so in autumn, when flocks begin to assemble early for the southern migration; but at the north we see only family parties preparing for the journeys that are made at twilight and by night, although in the south we hear of companies sometimes numbering a hundred or more. Unhappily, their sweet, tender flesh is in a demand exceeding the legitimate supply in every state they pass through.
"The wood duck is far too beautiful a bird to be killed for food. Its economic value is too small to be worth a moment's consideration," says Mr. Shields. "I would as soon think of killing and eating a Baltimore oriole or a scarlet tanager as a wood duck, and I hope to see the day when the latter will be protected all the year round by the laws of all the states in the Union and of all the provinces of Canada."
SEA AND BAY DUCKS
(Subfamily Fuligulinoe)