Sometimes it was the baccalaureates that displayed their
talents to the unbidden visitor, flashing out of sight, cutting
through the water like a ray of light, striking a young trout on the
bottom with the rapidity and certainty almost of the teacher. It was
marvelous, the diving and swimming; and mother bird looked on and
quacked her approval of the young graduates.--That is another
peculiarity: the birds are dumb in winter; they find their voice only
for the young.
While all this careful training is going on at home, the drake is off
on the lakes somewhere with his boon companions, having a good time,
and utterly neglectful of parental responsibility. Sometimes I have
found clubs of five or six, gay fellows all, living by themselves at
one end of a big lake where the fishing was good. All summer long
they roam and gad about, free from care, and happy as summer campers,
leaving mother birds meanwhile to feed and educate their offspring.
Once only have I seen a drake sharing the responsibilities of his
family. I watched three days to find the cause of his devotion; but he
disappeared the third evening, and I never saw him again. Whether the
drakes are lazy and run away, or whether they have the atrocious habit
of many male birds and animals of destroying their young, and so are
driven away by the females, I have not been able to find out.
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