In Chapter 2, what is Holden wondering about in terms of the ducks?

The desperately lonely Holden has taken the time to visit his favorite teacher at Pencey Prep, old Mr. Spencer. But Spencer's lecturing and storytelling grows old quickly for Holden, who begins to daydream. He chooses a topic that he returns to several times in The Catcher in the Rye: He wonders how the ducks who swim in the lagoon in Central Park South survive during the winter months. Does someone load them in a truck and take them to safety?

The question is more of a rhetorical one, since Holden is actually wondering about his own future. What will happen to him now that he is displaced with winter approaching? His aimless life seems similar to the ducks in park, and he wonders if someone will appear to save him as well.

This theme is repeated several times later in the novel, and during his return to New York he asks an unfriendly cabbie the same question. The flustered taxi driver gives him a less-than-accurate answer, telling him that the ducks will adapt and hibernate. In truth, the ducks do as many Northern snowbirds do during the winter months: They migrate south to warmer weather. This is a thought that later crosses Holden's mind--to escape his problems by moving to new surroundings.