Duckweed

“ By day, as they swim to and fro in the flags and through the duckweed, shaded from the hot sun under willow and aspen, they call to each other, not unpleasantly, a note something like ‘croog,’ with a twirl of the ‘r.’ In summer they do not move far from the place they have chosen to breed in: in the frosts of winter they work their way up the brooks, or fly at night, but usually come back to the old spot. The dabchick, a slender bird, haunts the pond here too, diving even more quickly than the moorhen. ”

“ But duckweeds grow so crowded together that they are probably fertilised, to a great extent, by contact with their neighbours, without aid from the animal kingdom. We may also imagine the duckweed reproving the pine for his extravagance in the matter of pollen production. This, however, is necessary, because the pollen being sown broadcast by the wind, it is a matter of chance whether or not a grain reaches the stigma of its own species, and the chance of its doing so is clearly increased by multiplying the number of pollen-grains produced. ”

“ A house is no place for a little wet frog. He wants a pond or a muddy brook, and plenty of duckweed to hide under.
The duckweed in the pond is stirred by other things besides frogs, as I have told you already. The Elf and the Imp would be very angry with me, if I did not tell you all about the newts. For they are the most exciting of all the watery things that are not simple fishes. They are like water lizards, or like tiny water dragons, with four legs and a waving tail. ”

“ Anthemis arvensis.
—Compositæ.—
I. Least Duckweed (Lemna minor) . The most frequent species. Frond not more than a quarter of an inch long, egg-shaped, the top flat and bright green, 46 underside very pale green and slightly convex, with a single root. Spathe two-lipped, one much larger than the other. Stamens two, one maturing before the other; style long. Flowering in July.
II. Ivy-leaved Duckweed (L. trisulca) . Frond thin and flat, nearly an inch long, tailed at one end, coarsely toothed at the other. New fronds emerge at right angles to the parent. Roots solitary. Stamens two ”

“ In that duckweed—for what you call green, oozy stuff is duckweed—there are millions of tiny living things too small to be seen by the eye except with the aid of a microscope.”
Ruth looked quite as astonished as the cicada meant she should be.
“You have a great deal to learn, I assure you. Maybe you haven’t thought of the pond as a world, but just see what a busy place it is.”
112Ruth looked and agreed with the cicada. Dragon flies were darting here, there, and everywhere ”

“ The duckweed snails are fine things for keeping water clear and pure, and the Imp and the Elf always have a few of them in their aquarium to prevent the water from growing green and stagnant and unhealthy. But you shall hear all about that in the last chapter of the book.
These round snails are very small, but the duck-pond is full of living things even smaller than they. When we scoop a jampot full of water out of it, and hold it up to the light we can often see wee round emerald balls rolling round the pot. ”

“ Flowers June to September.
IV. Great Duckweed (L. polyrhiza) . At once distinguished from the others by its bunch of roots from each frond. Upper surface slightly convex, dark green with seven nerves. Underside purple, as also the upper margins. Stamens two. Flower has been rarely, if ever, seen in this country.
Late in Autumn the fronds sink to the bottom of the ponds and ditches, and remain there hibernating till Spring, when they arise to the surface, and again vegetate. The name of the genus is the old Greek appellation of the plant Lemna, supposed to be derived from Lepis, a scale. ”

“ Every one is acquainted with those water plants, the duckweeds, which appear to the eye as small oval leaves floating on the surface of ponds and streams, so closely packed together as to form an apparently continuous mass, often of considerable extent. Mr. Charles Henry Thompson, who has made a study of them, finds four well-defined genera and about twenty eight species in their order, the Lemnaceæ, distributed throughout the torrid and temperate zones. ”

“ Duckweed, the popular name of several species of Lemna, nat. ord. Lemnaceæ, plants growing in ditches and shallow water, floating on the surface, and serving as food for ducks and geese. Five species are known in Britain, and others are common in America. They consist of small fronds bearing naked unisexual flowers.
Duckworth, Sir John Thomas, a British admiral, born in 1748, died 1817. He joined the navy when eleven years of age ”

“ The duckweeds, which you know very well as little floating green leaves, have long, thread-like roots hanging from them unattached to the soil. When the water goes, they first root themselves in the soil with these water-roots, but if the drought lasts long the roots die away and the plant hides in the mud, where it can remain for a long time waiting for the return of the water. ”

“ I have always thought the history of the ugly duckling one of the truest and most pathetic of all stories. It commences in the sad minor key, a long prelude of oppression, of misunderstanding. The unknown creature, sombre of plumage, makes no way among its companions; its folded-up beauties remain hidden. The duck-pond represents the world. Amidst plenty of quackery and folly the weaker goes to the wall. By and by the key changes; the long neck arches above the weeds; amid a burst of triumph the ugly duckling sails away into fairy-land a beautiful swan. ”

“ Then there was no place to swim but in a muddy little duck-pond that almost dried up in the heat of summer.
But the worst thing of all at the farmhouse was the way the farmer’s wife used to steal the duck’s eggs. No matter how carefully Mrs. Duck hid her eggs, Mrs. Farmer always found them and took them away. Once she put a number of them in a hen’s nest, and allowed a hen to set on them. After a while the hen hatched out eleven of the cunningest, fuzziest, yellowest ducklings that ever were seen. The hen was just as pleased and proud as though she had laid the eggs herself. ”

“ The wild birds are attracted into nets placed in the ditches of the decoy, by ducks trained for the purpose, and called decoy-birds. The latter fly abroad, but regularly return, for food, to the pond of the decoy, where they mix with tame ducks, which never quit the place. When it is required to catch the wild birds a quantity of hemp-seed is thrown into the ditches. The decoy and tame ducks lead them in search of this, along the ditches, which generally have reed-skreens at certain intervals on each side, to prevent the decoy-man from being seen. ”

“ Throughout their breeding region, one or more pairs of these ducks nest in nearly every favorable locality. Their nests are placed on the ground in marshes, swamps or fields bordering a pond or lake, the nest being concealed in the long grass or reeds. They breed in equal abundance, either in the interior or along the sea coast; in the latter case their nests are often placed beside of, or under an overhanging rock. It is made of weeds, grass and moss and is lined with feathers and down. They lay from six to twelve eggs during May and June; these are buff or greenish buff in color. ”

“ If the pond is not too deep, the hen wades in till the water reaches half-way up her legs, and runs along the edge, calling her dear brood. In vain her courageous devotion, to no purpose her anxiety and grief: the ducklings gain the deep water whither she cannot follow them, and, heedless of the mother admonishing them from the shore, they wag their little pointed tails with joy. ”

“ We have seen its nest amongst the bracken, far [99] from water, in the open parts of Sherwood Forest, we have taken it from the rushes near a stagnant lowland pool, as well as from the knee-deep ling, the bare ground on the hillsides, and the bramble-covered banks of river and stream. Some nests are made of little else than down from the female’s body, others are much more elaborately constructed of almost any kind of vegetation growing near. We may also mention that this Duck breeds in some numbers near most of the tarns and pools of the moorlands from the Peak district northwards. ”

“ Four or five of these birds, indeed sometimes as many as fifteen or twenty, will alight on this weed, dive, flutter, and swim with all the gayety of ducks on a pond, which they have reached after a weary journey. I heard no note from any of them. No sooner have the Petrels eaten or dispersed the fish than they rise and extend their wings for flight, in search of more. At times, probably to rest themselves, they alighted, swam lightly, dipping their bills frequently in the water as Mergansers and fishy Ducks do when trying, by tasting, if the water contains much fish. ”

“ Most of these fowl feed on the same grass, which grows abundantly on the shallows in the bay and adjacent waters, and has been called duck-grass, Valisneria Americana. It grows from six to eighteen inches in length, and is readily pulled up by the root. Persons who have closely observed these ducks while feeding, say that the Canvass-back and Black-head dive and pull the grass from the ground, and feed on the roots, and that the Red-head and Bald-pate then consume the leaves. ”

“ The eyes of an eider-duck are, no doubt, sharper than my own—or anybody's. Still I do not believe that even the most sharp-sighted one could find anything on this seaweed, at least without searching for it, whereas these ducklings are constantly dipping and, apparently, as constantly feeding all the way along. Finding always, they never have the appearance of looking for what they find. To me they seem to be browsing in their little ducking way, just as sheep browse in a field. ”

“ They build very good nests, usually on the ground, and warmly lined with their own down, which the parent plucks from her breast to cover the eggs. The color of the eggs is always greenish, gray, drab, or buff, never with any spots. Most River Ducks nest in the far North, but there are some exceptions. The Wood Duck that Rap saw by the lake is one of these exceptions, and has the most beautiful plumage of all our Ducks. It does not build its nest on the ground, like most others of its family, but in a tree hole, like an Owl or a Woodpecker. ”

“ Although the Dusky Duck is often seen on salt-water bays or inlets, it resembles the Mallard in its habits, being fond of swampy marshes, rice-fields, and the shady margins of our rivers, during the whole of its stay in such portions of the Southern States as it is known to breed in. They are equally voracious, and may sometimes be seen with their crops so protruded as to destroy the natural elegance of their form. They devour, with the greatest eagerness, water-lizards, young frogs and toads, tadpoles, all sorts of insects, acorns, beech nuts, and every kind of grain that they can obtain. ”

“ This Duck probably pairs for life; in the breeding season it is certainly social, many males consorting together, and many females making their nests within a small area. The nest is usually made in a tussock of sedge, beneath a bush, or amongst rushes and coarse grass, and is a mere hollow lined with a little dry vegetation, and an abundance of down from the female. The eggs are usually from eight to ten in number, and greenish-buff. They are laid, according to locality, from April to June. The female alone brings up the young. ”

“ When sufficiently strong the duckling scramble to the mouth of the hole, launch into the air with their little wings and feet outstretched, and drop into the water. If the nest is situated some distance from the water, the mother carries them to it one by one in her bill, carefully holding each so that is sustains no injury. ”

“ In what conceivable way can we account for this, except on the supposition that the duckling knows perfectly well what it can and what it cannot do with water, owing to its recollection of what it did when it was still one individuality with its parents, and hence, when it was a duckling before?
“The squirrel, before it knows anything of winter, lays up a store of nuts. A bird when hatched in a cage will, when given its freedom, build for itself a nest like that of its parents, out of the same materials, and of the same shape.” ”

“ Some wild geese came by, and they laughed at the duckling, too. Just then some guns {187} went bang! bang! The hunters were all around. The hunting dogs came splash! into the swamp, and one dashed close to the duckling. The dog looked at him and went on.
"Well, I can be thankful for that," sighed he. "I am so ugly that even the dog will not bite me."
When all was quiet, the duckling started out again. A storm was raging, and he found shelter in a poor hut. Here lived an old woman with her cat and her hen. The old woman could not see well, and she thought he was a fat duck. ”

“ When little Wood Ducks are hatched and become quite dry, their mother takes them in her beak, by the wing, one by one, and flies down to the ground with them. As soon as her brood of ten or a dozen is thus collected, she leads them off to the nearest water, and the whole lot of Ducklings go in swimming, bobbing for food as if they were a year old instead of only a few hours. ”

“ Don't turn your feet inwards; a well-educated duckling always keeps his legs far apart, like his father and mother, just so,—look! now bow your necks, and say, 'quack.'"
And they did as they were told. But the other ducks who were in the yard looked at them, and said aloud, "Only see! now we have another brood,—as if there were not enough of us already; and fie! how ugly that one is! we will not endure it." And immediately one of the ducks flew at him, and bit him in the neck. ”