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Updated: May 5, 2025
This was to Billy Widgeon and the other sailor, who, immediately upon feeling the tremulous wavy motion of the earth, had dropped into a sitting position, and from that lain flat down upon their backs. "Is it safe to get up, sir?" said Billy pitifully. "Safe!" said the mate. "Yes, for you. You wouldn't fall far."
There was a loud rustling of palm leaves, and Mark Strong and Billy Widgeon sprang to their feet and stared at one another as the warm glow that precedes sunrise penetrated the cave and lit up their faces. "What was that?" "I don't know. Did somebody call?" "I I thought I heered them things again," said Billy in a whisper. "Why, Mr Mark, sir, you've been asleep!" "I'm afraid I have. Have you?"
"Now I calls him a warmint," said Billy, rubbing his neck softly. "A warmint that's what I calls him. Only let me get hold on him again; and if I don't make him warm, my name aren't Widgeon." "You've got about the worst on it this time, my lad, and no mistake," said Small, laughing, while Mark stamped about and held his sides.
I have heard Captain Smith say more than once, that he had seen flocks of ducks a full mile wide and five or six miles long, wherein canvasbacks, mallard, widgeon, redheads, dottrel, sheldrake, and teal swam wing to wing, actually crowding each other. When such flocks rose in the air, the noise made by their wings was like unto the roaring of a tempest at sea.
Besides, you might, perhaps, unexpectedly get a shot at a pig, and such a chance mustn't be lost." Danger past, a sailor soon recovers his good-humour, and Billy Widgeon ducked down, doubling himself up in a silent laugh. "Which is right, Billy, my lad," said the boatswain good-humouredly.
The boatswain nodded, and the pair went in among the trees, leaving the others discussing the narrow escapes and sending a stone or two down, and then a great dead dry stump of a tree-fern, all of which were shot up again, the stones after an interval, the fern stump, which was as long as Billy Widgeon and thicker round, coming up again directly.
"Don't know what to make on us, Mr Mark, sir," said Billy Widgeon, grinning. "See his old shovel nose?" "Yes," said Mark, "but I can't see his mouth. I thought they had great gaping mouths, full of sharp teeth." "He keeps his rat-trap down underneath him, sir, so as not to frighten the fishes." "Hand me that gun, Mark," said the mate.
He has calculated the exact spot where the other will rise; and, before the latter can open his eyes or get them clear of the water, the widgeon darts forward, snatches the luscious morsel from his bill, and makes off with it.
Other ibises, also birds of other genera, have similar aerial performances. The displays of most ducks known to me take the form of mock fights on the water; one exception is the handsome and loquacious whistling widgeon of La Plata, which has a pretty aerial performance.
After supper I took the notion to go over there, in the twilight, on idle exploration. Water of any kind had an appeal; a solitary pond always has; the ducks brought thoughts of home. Many a teal and widgeon and canvasback had fallen to my double-barreled Manton, back on the Atlantic coast very long ago, before I had got entangled in this confounded web of misadventure and homicidal tendencies.
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