THE STORY OF A DUCKLING.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 &n,—I had a setting of wild duck's eggs sent me, but not having a hen of my own willing to sit, I borrowed one from a neighbour. This hen, after sitting a day or two, however, seemed to have an instinctive feeling that she was being im- posed upon, so gradually took to eating or breaking the eggs until only one was left. I therefore returned her, and the solitary egg was pushed under a hen that was sitting on hens' eggs. In the course of a few days a wee duckling appeared, and was brought into the kitchen and put in a -deep basket by the fire; but it jumped out at once and refused to stay in, preferring to run about the kitchen after the cook. Fearing that it might be trodden upon—being only the size of a sparrow—I suggested its being put into an empty two-stall stable, with wire netting half-way up the door; but the poor little thing nearly strangled itself trying to get through the wire, until our kitchen cat jumped in with a kitten in its mouth and lay down on some straw. The duckling at once followed it and nestled up to it, and the cat, after looking at it with astonishment for a few seconds, put its paw on it, licking it and purring all the while, and in fact adopted it! The following morning, no duckling being found, we of course concluded that the cat had killed it, but upon our garden boy going to fetch some butter from a neighbour who lives at the end of our lane, he saw our duckling in their kitchen, and was told it bad followed the postman there in the early morning. Upon our boy calling it, it waddled after him back to the house, quite content to return to its foster-mother the cat, and received a warm welcome. This happy state of affairs lasted five days; but alas ! yesterday morning part of our poor duckling's remains
were discovered near a rat's hole.—I am, Sir, &c., X.
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