On Seeing A Male Musk Duck Poem by Francis Duggan

In his territorial or courtship display
With his feet he kicks up a watery spray
Under his chin a fleshy pouch which he inflates at will
The musk duck at home where the waters are still.

His short spiky dark tail he can stiffen at ease
He lives as he choose and he does as he please
A dark gray freckled creature of the quiet waterway
His kind I see often though not every day.

By those who have handled them and of them can tell
'Tis said they emit from them a musky smell
A strange creature of Nature my wonder of them grow
Yet so little of their ways I can claim to know.

Such amazing creatures that Nature create
The female does not have a pouch to inflate
They dive for their food where the still waters are deep
And they don't even come to shore for to rest and sleep.