One Month for Ducking

The U. S. Government last week decided what it was going to do to conserve the drought-diminished flocks of wild duck and other migratory waterfowl this season. Secretary of Agriculture Hyde drafted and President Hoover proclaimed an emergency law. Realizing that it would be a hard law to enforce, President Hoover followed it up with an earnest exhortation:

"I, Herbert Hoover, President of the United States of America, do hereby urge that all persons take cognizance of this emergency and I call upon all game and conservation officials. State and local, all members of game protective organizations, land owners, sportsmen and public-spirited citizens generally to lend their cooperation to effect full observance of this regulation to the end that adequate numbers of waterfowl may return to their breeding grounds next spring and that there may be no repetition of the calamity of extermination that has already overtaken some species of our American birds. . . ."

The New Law. The emergency regulation curtailed the open season for gunning duck, geese and brant to 31 days in northern States, 30 days in central and southern States. Nowhere in the U. S. may waterfowl be taken before the end of September or after the beginning of January. State authorities may shorten their seasons further if they want to. The Federal bag limits remain as before: 15 ducks, four geese (including brant) per day; not more than 30 ducks or eight geese in possession at one time. Divided to match the times of migration, the new state seasons are:

Oct. 1-31 (31 days)--Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York (except Long Island), Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming. Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Their old season, also California's, was Oct. iDec. 31 (92 days).

Nov. 16-Dec. 15 (30 days)--Long Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Texas (North Zone), Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Their old season, except California's, was Oct. 16-Jan. 15 (91 days).

Nov. 16-Dec. 15 (30 days)--District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas (South Zone). Their old season was Nov. 1-Jan. 15 (76 days).

Nov. 20-Dec. 19 (30 days)--Florida. Its old season was Nov. 20-Jan. 15 (56 days).

Scarcity of waterfowl has been taken for granted this season. Drought the three past summers has shrunk the breeding grounds of western Canada, prevented nesting and feeding, killed adults and fledglings (TIME, Aug. 10). However, the real effect of drought has been questioned. Ducks have been reported more plentiful than ever in Manitoba, presumably attracted from the desiccated swamps and waterways of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Quebec has had ample rainfall (as has the entire Atlantic Coast) this summer. Quebec birds seem normal in numbers and health. In his next issue Editor Raymond Prunty Holland of Field & Stream will remark: "It is hard to believe that a healthy pair of canvasbacks, having found their home destroyed by drought, would not move on farther north, east or west. until they found suitable conditions." He would have had the new regulations delayed until it was certain that ducks and geese had not nested west of Hudson Bay. that few were going south for the winter.

Candid Snakeman

Raymond Lee Ditmars last week turned to his work at the New York Zoological Park where he is curator of reptiles and manager of the mammal department. He had spent the summer in Central America. As always when he returns home, he had some new stories.

In Costa Rica he photographed a rattlesnake which, instead of lunging from its coil as other rattlers do, raises its head about 18 in. from the ground and strikes viciously. In the same country he found evidence that it is diet, not climate, which makes the venom of some kinds of snakes more poisonous than the venom of the same kind of snakes in another locality. Stopping over at Havana he learned from one of his young animal gatherers that a few solenodons (molelike animals the size of small opossums) still exist along Cuba's southern shore. Mammalogists have feared the solenodon extinct.

The snake data which Dr. Ditmars collected in Central America were for his projected book (to be published in October) on poisonous snakes of the world. That will be his third scholarly treatise on snakes.

Currently published is Animal Man Ditmars' first book for popular reading: Strange Animals I Have Known* It reveals almost as much about Dr. Ditmars as about his animals, snakes and birds. The telling is candid, the incidents amusing or startling.

Dr. Ditmars, 55, has been with the New York Zoo all its 32 years. In that time he has decided that "the average wild animal has character, personality and conscience, pretty much like the average human being. He is temperamental, perverse, vicious, phlegmatic, diffident and deceitful as the case may be. Entertainment lies in discerning these traits and adroitly checkmating them. Only in this way can one gain the upper hand. It's a sort of game. Where some men play golf, those of us at the New York Zoological Park play animals. Usually we win. Once in a while we lose."

They won, for example, when Congo, a pigmy elephant, tried to walk into Dr. Ditmars' office, got stuck in the doorway. Congo snorted and started to shake the walls down. Dr. Ditmars at once broke into a noisy, fake argument with a keeper. The argument attracted Congo's attention. He quieted down and keepers eased him from the doorway.

They won again when Hannibal, their largest and fiercest lion, got into a cage which a keeper was scrubbing. The keeper "did the one thing that would save his life. He took the lion completely by surprise. He emitted a blood-curdling yell, sprang into the air and with all his strength hurled his water-filled pail and his wet mop full in the face of the astonished beast. Hannibal was so unnerved by this attack that he tried to beat a hasty retreat over the slippery floor. His feet flew out from under him and he turned an undignified somersault back into his sleeping den. Poor Hannibal couldn't be persuaded to come out of his sleeping quarters for more than a week."

They almost lost when Gunda the elephant tried to kill his keeper. Another keeper drove Gunda away by driving a pitchfork into the tender hind quarters.

Chimpanzees grow mean with age. "An old chimpanzee is a lot like an incorrigible convict in a penitentiary." Dr. Ditmars hopes "that some day our zoos will agree to ship their adult chimpanzees back to Africa and turn them loose in some sanctuary like that now established for the gorilla.* This would limit us to the exhibition of only young specimens, which are highly interesting to adults and always a joy to children."

Candidly Dr. Ditmars remarks: &#quot;Abstract theorizing is not in my line. I deal with the animals themselves. . . . But I can't resist observing that much of the man-monkey relationship is based on feeble arguments. ... I think that it is the inconsistency in monkey psychology and ability that undermines his position as man's ancestor more than anything else."

That spreading civilization is crowding and exterminating wild creatures saddens Dr. Ditmars. He ends his book, which is preponderantly gay, with a reverie: "The beasts of the earth [are] getting none of the reverence. . . . Man is becoming a highly presumptuous type."

*Brewer, Warren & Putnam ($3.50).

*The Pare National Albert where Mr. & Mrs. Martin Johnson photographed gorillas this summer.

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