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PROPOSITION—By changing the position of the fewest possible number of the ten ducks arrange them so there will be five rows of four in line.
THE SUBJECT OF this puzzle inspiration is a familiar one to residents of the vicinity of Buzzard's Bay and introduces one of the many problems which, aside from the mere question of a hunter's luck, have doubtless been noticed by such as revel in the pleasures of duck shooting.
Next to shooting the chutes, there is no salt water sport so exhilarating as gunning for ducks, and there are Few problems of a political or eco- nomical character which call for such profound statesmanship and administrative ability to show a bal ance sheet in favor of the internal receipts of the game bag, as against the expenditure of powder and shot, to say nothing of the other lavish expenditures which pertain to the make-up of a great duck hunter.
There are a thousand and one problems connected with the game, any one of which would be worthy of consideration, but with which our puzzlists are doubtless more familiar than myself, so I only refer to one little proposition which be may pe- culiarly characteristic of my style of duck shooting. Of course it is a great feat to get more than one duck at a single shot, and as that can only be done by getting several of them in a line, it set me to studying the principle upon which Bizzard Bay ducks line up, and I may have hit upon something which my uniform lack of skill as a marksman enabled me to discover.
I noticed that the birds invariably approached in two rows, with a cor- poral bird, so to speak, on each side in charge of either line, so that, as shown in the sketch, one could figure out three lines of four-in-row. Now just as soon as I got a line on four of these birds I would blaze away in the hopes of getting several birds with one shot. I could readily have killed one bird or possibly two, but my ambition to get four or none led to the result of my making the fol- lowing interesting discovery. As soon as the smoke cleared away, so that I could open my eyes, I would find that the ten birds had reversed their direction, and were shooting away like a company of Filipinos, to reorganize somewhere back in the swamps What I particularly no ticed, however, was that while they came in the three four-in-a-row form as shown, they invariably scooted away in the shape of five rows, with four-in-a-row. Just how they mule the change I never could see, on ac- count of the smoke and confusion, but I noticed that the fewest possi ble number of birds had changed their positions, so it will afford me special pleasure to give credit to any lucky duck who will solve this little problem for me correctly.
The picture shows ten ducks advancing in geometrical form, show ing three rows of four-in-line. Now reorganize them so there will be five rows of four-in-line, simply by chang ing the position of the fewest possi- ble number of ducks and it will inci- dentally show how many ducks Grover bags out of the flock.
The problem can be worked out practically by placing very small counters upon the ducks in the pic- ture and move them around until you get five rows of four-in-a-row.
A Tricky Problem.
Ask your friends if they can write down five odd figures to add up and make fourteen.
It is really astonishing how en- grossed most people will get, and how much time they will spend over this, at first sight, simple problem. The questioner, however, must be careful to say figures, not numbers.
There is the answer:
11
1
1
1
14
38
