XIII
Black Mallards
Next to the deer, the wild ducks were the chief attraction of my pond. Indeed, they might well be placed first, since they were always at home there, and much of the time engaged in one or another of the little comedies that make ducks the most amusing of all birds. Eight summers in succession, and again after an interval of two years, I found my pond occupied by a pair of black mallards with their brood; and I fancied, since migratory birds return to the place of their birth, and their nestlings after them, that one of the pair was the lineal descendant of ducks that had held the place in undisputed possession for tens of thousands of years. Here was a succession, [[267]]modest like all true nobility, which made the proud family trees of Mayflower folk or English kings or Norman barons look like young berry-bushes in the shade of a towering pine.
Until late midsummer the family had the pond all to themselves. Never a stranger-duck appeared to share or challenge their heritage; while day after day the mother watched over the little brood as they fed or played or learned the wild-duck signals. Like our dogs, every manner of beast or bird has its own tribal ways or customs, some of which do not appear in the young until they begin to roam abroad or to mingle with their kind. So, as I watched the brood emerge from down to pin-feathers, there would come a red-letter day when two of them, meeting as they rounded a grassy point, would raise their wings as if in salutation; and a later day when, the pin-feathers having grown to fair plumage, their young cheepings or whistlings would change to a decided quack.
Thereafter their talk was endlessly entertaining, if one took the trouble to creep near enough to appreciate its modulations, expressive of every emotion between drowsiness and tense alarm; for it cannot be heard, except as a meaningless sound, beyond a few yards. The little hen-ducks got on famously, having the mother’s quacking as a [[268]]model; but male ducks cannot or will not learn to quack, and since a male voice was rarely heard on the pond at this season, each little drake was a law unto himself, and made a brave show of his liberty. Climbing on a tussock, as if for more room, he would stretch his wings, make odd motions with his neck, and finally pump out a funny wheekle, wheekle, as if he had swallowed a whistle.
Meanwhile the old drake and father of the family was seldom about; only two or three times did I see him enter the pond, stay a brief while, and then wing away over the tree-tops in the direction of a larger lake, some three miles to the eastward. On that lake there was never a brood of young ducks, so far as I could learn; but when trout-fishing there I often surprised the drake, at times taking precious care of his own skin in solitude, again clubbing sociably with three or four other drakes, who had run away each from a family and the cares thereof on some other lonely pond.
As the summer waned, a new sound of quacking, joyous and exultant, would greet me when I drew near my pond. Creeping to my blind under the larches, I would find a second brood making merry acquaintance with the family I had watched over; then a third and a fourth company of strangers, as young ducks of all that region began [[269]]to traffic about in preparation for the autumn flight. A little later the flocks fairly reveled in sociability, gathering here or there with increasing numbers, till on a late-September day I might find my pond deserted, the owners being on a visit elsewhere, or I might catch breath at sight of so many ducks that I could not accurately count them or distinguish one brood from another.
At such a time my little pond seemed to awaken, to shed its silence like a garment, to put on its most animated expression, as at a happy festival or family reunion. The air was never still from the gabble of meeting groups (probably all more or less related), or from the resounding quank, quank, quank of some old gossip who went about proclaiming her opinion to the whole company. Everywhere the still water was broken into undulating wakes as the drakes swept grandly over it, with that rhythmic, forward-and-back motion of their heads which is like duck poetry,—a motion that is not seen when the birds are feeding, but only when they are well satisfied with themselves or their audience. Through the shadows under the bank glided knots or ribbons of young birds which had not yet quite satisfied their appetites, some exploring every crevice for ripened seeds, others tip-tilting their tails to the blue sky as they probed the bottom for water-bugs and other titbits. [[270]]In an open space a solitary hen-duck bobbed and teetered ecstatically, dipping the fore part of her body under, then heaving it up quickly so as to send the cleansing water in a foamy wave over her back and wings. Here or there on a tussock stood a quiet group of the splendid birds, oiling their glossy feathers, setting a wing-cover just right, or adding some other last touch to an elaborate toilet before settling down for a nap.
The glassy water reflected every form, color, motion of these untroubled ducks as in a glass, doubling the graceful effect. Around them stretched the gloriously colored bog; and beyond the bog were the nebulous-green larches, the somber black growth and the lifting hills, on which autumn had laid its golden touch. Truly a beautiful sight, a sight to make the heart of hunter or naturalist tremble with expectancy as he fingered his gun. I have known that trembling, that expectancy; but there was greater pleasure, perhaps greater freedom also, in leaving the happy comedy undisturbed.
