Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1885-07-30
Fast-Flying Wild Fowl.

ave held my watch on about every
kind of wild duck there is" said II. w.
Winans, an old-time wild-fowl hunter,
land 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 CONT
nent that can hold candle to one side
of the slowcst duck that flies.
The canvasback can distance the
whole duck family, if it lays itself out
to do it. When the canvasback is CIT
taking things easy, enjoying little run
around the block, as it were, it joys
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 canvasbacks that are out on bust
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 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
the faintest idea that You will bring the
leader down you must aim at space not
less than ten feet ahead of him. Then
III run plump against your shot.
When he drops you will find him
quarter of mile or so on.
1.-The 1nallard duck is slow coach.
It's all he wants to do to go a mile
minute, but he can do it whenit is nee
essary. His ordinary, everyday style
of getting along over the country gets
him from place to place at about
forty -five-mile-an-hour rate. The black
duck is about an even mate for the
mallard, and the pin-tail widgeon and
wood duck can't do much better. The
redhead can sail along with case 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 100 miles and make the dis
lance neck and neck, for one can fly
just as fast as the other, and to go 100
miles an hour is no hard task for either
of them. The gadwale-you don't
know what gadwale is, Ill bet! |
thought not Well, it's a duck that
doesn't get east very often, but is very
well known in the west. 1t is some
thing like a mallard, only harder to
shoot, because it is not so unsuspecting
as the mallard. The gadwale is some
thing of a daisy, too. on the fly, and
will win money for YOU every time, if
you bet it can make its ninety miles an
hour.
MAY be you wouldn't think that a
goose could almost double discount the
fastest fast express train that runs on
our railroads, but it can every time.
mean wild goose. 1t has 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 see 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 hun
dred miles an hour, but they are. The
wild goose never has any time to fool
away, but his gait is always business
one. The broadbill duck is the only
wild fowl that can push the canvasback
on the wing. Let broadbill and a
canvasback each do his best for an hour
and the broadbill will 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 a shotgun that a
greenhorn wouldn' hit once in twenty
seven years, San Francisco Eran-
tner.