From the time she starts laying, she covers the eggs very carefully with grass and sticks before she leaves the nest, therefore they are absolutely out of sight and protected from a slight frost, such as we sometimes have after the wild ducks have started laying. When the eight to twelve eggs are laid she pulls down off her breast and covers them. Now comes the question, how can she pack these eggs in that down, and cover them with sticks and grass, and not leave a sign of down to indicate that there is a duck’s nest within a mile? This is certainly a piece of shrewd work.
PUZZLE: FIND THE DUCK’S NEST
WHERE THE DUCK’S NEST WAS
Wild ducks seldom ever leave their nests in the daytime after they start to set. I often go back to the north pond and watch them come home to feed, just at dusk, and they are usually there at twilight in the morning. This compels me to believe they sometimes stay off all night. However I found this duck’s nest, and one extremely hot day I saw her in the pond, so I slipped away with the kodak and got the two photographs. The lower one shows you where the nest is, but I doubt if you could locate it in the top picture. After I took one, I removed the down and got the lower photograph, which of course reveals the mystery. The down keeps the eggs warm until the old lady returns; you see the heat of her body gets the ground good and warm; then she packs the down carefully and firmly around the eggs, which holds the warmth there. She then puts the thatch of grass and sticks over the down and all is O.K., for she can stay away twenty-four hours if she sees fit.
DUCK, WITH YOUNG, CROSSING THE FIELD
Yes, we human beings invented a great thing when we produced the thermos bottle, but to the fowls of the air the invention is as old and as new as this beautiful earth.
Then when the young are hatched and old enough to catch insects, the mother starts off with her little sweethearts toddling after her in single file towards home, where she knows she will be helped in raising her family.