ady for its spring opening.

IV

THE WIT OF A DUCK

The homing instinct in birds and animals is one of their most
remarkable traits: their strong local attachments and their skill in
finding their way back when removed to a distance. It seems at times
as if they possessed some extra sense--the home sense--which operates
unerringly. I saw this illustrated one spring in the case of a mallard
drake.

My son had two ducks, and to mate with them he procured a drake of a
neighbor who lived two miles south of us. He brought the drake home in
a bag. The bird had no opportunity to see the road along which it was
carried, or to get the general direction, except at the time of
starting, when the boy carried him a few rods openly.

He was placed with the ducks in a spring run, under a tree in a
secluded place on the river slope, about a hundred yards from the
highway. The two ducks treated him very contemptuously. It was easy to
see that the drake was homesick from the first hour, and he soon left
the presence of the scornful ducks.

Then we shut the three in the barn together, and kept them there a
day and a night. Still the friendship did not ripen; the ducks and the
drake separated the moment we let them out. Left to himself, the drake
at once turned his head homeward, and started up the hill for the
highway.

Then we shut the trio up together again for a couple of days, but with
the same results as before. There seemed to be but one thought in the
mind of the drake, and that was home.

Several times we headed him off and brought him back, till finally on
the third or fourth day I said to my son, "If that drake is really
bound to go home, he shall have an opportunity to make the trial, and
I will go with him to see that he has fair play." We withdrew, and the
homesick mallard started up through the currant patch, then through
the vineyard toward the highway which he had never seen.

When he reached the fence, he followed it south till he came to the
open gate, where he took to the road as confidently as if he knew for
a certainty that it would lead him straight to his mate. How eagerly
he paddled along, glancing right and left, and increasing his speed at
every step! I kept about fifty yards behind him. Presently he met a
dog; he paused and eyed the animal for a moment, and then turned to
the right along a road which diverged just at that point, and