That summer Delilah raised her family, but Polly came home May 20th without any, and both ducks migrated again that fall.
On March 13th, 1915, Delilah came home, and on the 16th Polly came, but Polly had had a narrow escape, as part of her beak was shot off. The sight was pitiful. With a fragment of her beak hanging down she could hardly eat, so I mixed up some corn-meal and put it in piles for her. Finally I reached out and grabbed the opportunity, then with the scissors in the other hand I clipped the dead fragment of her beak off, and in a few days she appeared to eat quite naturally. Later on I caught the two sisters, put them in a twine sack, took them to town, stood them on a table and stroked them until they became quite contented; then I stepped back and the photographer took the photograph which is shown.
POLLY AND DELILAH
Wild ducks spending their third spring at my home. Notice where the piece has been shot off Polly’s beak.
My boy said Polly got her beak a little too far ahead. At any rate she appeared to think that was a close enough call for her, and the next winter she did not migrate, but stayed here with our domestic fowls, and she was shot by a wild goose hunter in April, 1916. But Delilah continued to migrate and returned for the sixth time on March 25th, 1918. That summer she raised a family of twelve, which is, by the way, the largest family of mallards I have ever known to grow to maturity. The last I have any positive proof of seeing her was in September, 1918. During the six years she brought to my home five families, two eights, two nines, and a twelve. In 1917 she came home without a family.
Providing all of her descendents multiply as she did, how many ducks have you got in six years? Surely this is worth thinking over, and when we see that it runs up into the thousands we cannot help but be encouraged, and our confidence increased in His lovable, truthful promise to us, His children; for He says “Let the mother go that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days.” Who could ask for a plainer fulfilment of His promises?
Now in case the reader might think that possibly I am mistaken in the ducks, and this was not the same bird, I will say that outside of other proofs of her being the same duck (such as coming when we would call her, and now and then eating from our hands, her peculiar marking, and so forth), we caught her each year and examined the tag. In the spring of 1917, after she had returned the fifth time, Mrs. Miner and I caught her and gave her a new tag, as the old one was so badly worn.
Now before I go farther I want you to stop and think. Remember, these are just wild ducks that we are apt to think know so little. Yet the fact is, these birds have shied out around thousands of hunters who are hidden in the ambush with all kinds of decoys to assist them. Yet these ducks have outwitted them all, year after year. Then when they return they will almost eat from my hand the first day they arrive, when if they had allowed themselves to have ventured within two hundred feet of the hunters’ decoys it would have been almost sure death to them. Can you blame me for enjoying nature study? Do you wonder that I have hung up the gun and am trying in my A, B, C fashion to tell you these unpolished facts? Yet I doubt if the best writers on earth could give you a taste of this grateful feeling in having your pets return to you year after year for food and protection; really it almost makes you feel you were personally present when He said, “How often would I have gathered thee as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings.”
Another thing that interests me: These ducks always leave here in flocks, and return singly, except those that have doubled by bringing mates. I have never seen two with tags on return together. In 1914 I tagged twelve. One was shot at Gueydan, Louisiana and one at Cooksville, Tennessee. In the spring of 1915, day after day added to the number until on March 28th there were six sitting on the brick wall surrounding the pond with bright aluminum tags on their legs. In the fall of 1915 I tagged fifty-three, and in the spring of 1916 nearly half of them returned. In the fall of 1916 I caught and tagged fifty-four, and in catching these fifty-four I caught twenty-three that had been tagged previously.