The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-02-28

Wild Fowl that Could Make Loops Around
the Fastest Locomotive.

New York Sun.
1--WE held my watch on about every kind of
wild duck there is" said r. W. Winans, an old
time widfowl hunter land / can tell just
about to the sixty -third part of dot how much
space any one of EN- can get over in an hour.
There's railroad train the continent that
can hold a candle to one side of the slowest duck
that flies
''The nvas-back can distance the whole
duck family, if it lays itself out to do it. When
the vasback is out taking things easy, en-
joying little run around the block, as it were,
1t logs through the air at the rate of eighty
miles an hour. If it has business somewhere
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 Fritzs
and call for beer. If you don't believe it, just
fire square at the leader of string of canvas
backs that are out on business cruise, some
time when you get the chance Duck shot tray
els 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 ali, if it isn't the fifth or sixth
one back from the leader that drops. If you
have the 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 quarter of mile on.
'The mallard duck is a slow coach. It's all
he wants to do to go mile minute, but he can
do when it is necessary His ordinary, every
day style of getting along over the country gets
him from place to place at about forty
flve-mile- an-hour rate. Tho black duck is
about an even match for the mallard, and
the pin-ta widgeon, and wood duck can't do
much better The redhead can sail along with
ease and cover his ninety miles an hour long
as he feels inclined to. The blue-wnged teal
and its handsome cousin, the green-w ged 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 90 q hundred
miles an hour is no hard task for either Of them.
The gadwale-you don't know what a gadwale
is, Ill bet L thought not. Well, it's duck
that doesn't get East very often, but is we'll
known in the West. tits something like NAL
lard, only harder to shoot because it's not SO
unsuspecting as the mallard The gadwae 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 a goose could
almost double discount the fastest fast express
train that runs on railroads, but it can every
time. mean wild goose 1t has a big, heavy
body to carry, but it manages to glide from one
feeding ground to another with a Suddenness
that is caution TO wing shots To flock
of honkers moving along so high up that they
seem to be scraping their backs against the sky,
you'd never believe they were travelling between
eighty and a hundred miles an hour, but they
are. The wild goose never has any time to fool
away, and his gait is always a business one.
The broadbill duck is the only wild fowl that
can push the canvas back OH the wing. Let
broadbil and canvas back 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 mark for shotgun
that greenhorn wouldn't hit once in twenty
seven years.