THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 2, 25 September 1937, Page 15

THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN

Wiy the drkke has never been used as the type of & perfect gentleman, I can't nnderstand, said Miss L. F. Eimsay, in a B.B.C. talk. He never dips hie beak into the food bowl till all hii wives have eaten. He would rather starve than be so ungentlemanly. He will protect his ladies against terrible odds, if 4 dog attacks for instance, 1 remember that hippening once when our brood was on the way home to supper. They all vanished aiid, thougb we huntfid till dark, we couldn't find them. Then, at midnight, the voice of the drake was heard under the bedroom windows. Se had brought all his wives home safely. Ducks and drakea have other endearlug wkys. The at4 tachment they have for their owners, it seems? cin be rather embarrassing. Oace we hid beeu away for the week-ead, retUrniug just as the people were cOming out 'of church on Bunday evening. The dog and the cat were

both outside the gate waiting for us: that was not unnatural. But the ten ducks were also there and greeted us with quacka of joy. Tho liens wouldn't have cared if we had stayed away for ever, but the ducks has missed us . . . , Ducks lay early and often and say nothing about it. Hens make the welkin ring when they are about to lay, have laid, or see an egg that somebody eise has laid. Every duck in the pen inay plank down an egg and you won't hear a sound from any Of them. It sometitofes happenS that you hear sounds ef strife in a hen ruu and wlion you go to investigate, you find two infufiatod females tearing out each Other 's feathers, their eornbs bleeding profu8ely. Nothing of that sort happ6ns amoiig ducks. They live liappily together aiid never* seehi to be jealous, though a drake usually haB a favourite wife.