Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1898 — ODD DUCKS OF PORT TAMPA. [ARTICLE]

ODD DUCKS OF PORT TAMPA.

Of the Wild Variety. They Respond Readily to Man's Call. The most interesting thing at Port Tampa is the duck. Port Tampa is a collection of piers, but there Is a hotel bnik on piles that are dressed in sewer* pipe trousers to keep the teredo away. No shooting is allowed around tho grounds or the piers, and, of course, not a little stuff is thrown from the hotel that is good food for docks, peli* cans and gulls. Accordingly these birds come about the hotel in flocks, and not only are they without fear of the people there, but they have learned to come for food when any one whistles for them as if for a dog. “At first it seems as if the birds come as readily to the call of one person afc of another, but the fact is that two or three people about the hotel are on speaking terms with them. The birds know their voices, and are plainly very friendly with them. At an ?old boatlanding stage the pelicans gather a dozen at a time, and, sitting there in the sun, preen their feathers and scratch their ribs with their long, ungainly looking bills. The fact that a lot of people are standing six feet away is in no way disturbing to them unless some unmannerly fellow pokes them with a cane. In that event the bird gives the intruder a white-eyed look of astonishment and utters a protest in a voice that is so gentle and delicate as to make one wonder where in the world such an ungainly bird got it. Then it flops its way to safety beyond the piers. If undisturbed the pelicans often pillow their heads on their backs and take a nap, but in that position they are quickly observed by the tourist who thinks it is fun to make troupe for quiet folks, and they are quickly snared by a cane-crook and sent flapping to the water. “Only the smaller ducks come about the hotel,\but they are excedingly beautiful and graceful in their movements, while the gulls in their dancing flight are of endless interest. No one has tried to teach the birds to come to hand for food, it is said, but it is plain that any one with knowledge and tact and lovemight establish an acquaintance there that would enable him to write a most interesting story about our feathered brothers afloat.”