The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1885-04-11
Two Miles q Minute.


"I've held my watch on about every
kind ofwild duck there is, said R. w.
Winans, an old-time wild-fowl hunter,
"and l can tell just about to the sixty
third part of dot how much space any
one of 'em can get over in an hour.
There's no railroad train on the conti-
nent that can hold candle to one side
of the slowest duck that flies.
"The canvasback can distance the
whole duck family, if it lays itself out
to do it. When the canvasback is out
taking things easy, enjoying little
run around the block, as it were, it jogs
through the air at the rate of eighty
miles an hour. If it has business some
where and has to get there, it puts two
miles behind it every minute it keeps
its wings tapping, and does it as easy
as you or | would step into Fritz's and
call for beer. If you don't believe it,
just fire square at the leader in string
of canvas5acks that a.c out on a Dusf-
ness cruise some time when you get the
chance. Duck-shot travels pretty quick,
but if your charge brings down any one
of these ducks at all, I'll blow you off
to a pair of the best there is in the
market, with trimmings and all if it isn't
the fifth or sixth one back from the
leader that drops. If you have tie
faintest idea that you will bring the
leader down, you must aim at space
not less than ten feet ahead of him.
Then he'll run plumb against your shot.
When he drops you will find him a
quarter of mile or so on.
"The mallard duck is slow coach.
It's all he wants to do to 60 mile a
minute, but he can do it when it is
necessary. His ordinary, every day
style of getting along over the country
gets him from place to place at about
a forty-five-an-hour rate. The black
duck is about an even match for the
mallard, and the pintail, pidgeon, and
wood duck can't do much better. The
redhead can sail along with ease and
cover his ninety miles an hour as long
as he feels inclined to. The blue-wing-
ed teal and its handsome cousin, the
green-winged teal, could fly side by
side for hundred miles and make the
distance neck and neck, for one can
fly just as fast as the other, and to go
hundred miles an hour is no hard task
for either of them. The gadwale-you
don't know what a gadwale is, I'll bet
l thought not Well, it's duck that
doesn't get East very often, but is we'll
known in the West. 1t is something
like mallard, only harder to shoot,
because it's not so unsuspecting as the
mal!ard. The gadwale is something of
daisy on the fly, too, and will win
money for you every time if you bet it
can make its ninety miles an hour.
"Maybe you wouldn't think that
goose could almost double discount the
fastest fast express train that runs on
our railroads, but it can every time. l
mean wild goose. 1t has big, heavy
body to carry, but it manages to glide
from one feeding ground to another
with suddenness that is caution to
wing shots. To see a flock of honkers
moving along, SO high up that they
seem to be scraping their backs against
the sky, you'd never believe that they
were travelling between eighty and
hundred miles an hour, but they are.
The wild goose never has any time to
fool away, and his gait is always bus
iness one.
The broadbill duck is the only wild
fowl that can push the canvasback on
the wing. Let a broadback and can
vasback each do his best for an hour,
and the broadbill would only come out
about ten miles behind. A hundred
and ten miles an hour can be done by
the broadbill, and he, consequently,
makes a mark for a shotgun that
greenhorn wouldn't hit once in twenty
ceven wears ~