Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1885-07-24
TWO MILES A MINUTE.
Wild Fowl That Could Make Loops ArOunt
tho SmOkestaek of the Best Locomotive.

wild Fowl That Could Make Loops Around
tho smokestack of the Best Locomotive.
1--WE held my watch on about every
kind OF wild duck there is" said r. W.
Winans, an old time wild-fowl hunter,
land / can tell just about to the sixty
third part OF dot how much space any
of 'em can get over in an hour. There's
no railroad train on the continent
that can hold a 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 canvashack is out
taking things easy, enjoying little run
around the block, as it were, it joys
through the air at the rate of eighty
m les 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. If you don't be-
licve ii lire square at the leader in a
string of canvasbacks out on business
cruise sometime when you get the
chance. Duck shot travel pretty quick,
but if your charge brings down any at
all, I'll blow you off to pair of the
best there is in the market, with trim
m'ngs 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
nl,nnI Of l,.,,, fHhnn hnfll
plumb against your shot. When he
drops you will find him quarter of a
mile or so ON.
The mallard duck is a slow coach.
It's all he wants to do to 90 mile a
minute, but he can 20 it when it is
necessary. His ordinary everyday
style OF getting along over the country
gets him from place TO place at about a
| Observation-Disclosures. The black
duck is about an even match for the
mallard, and the pintail widgeon and
wood duck cam do much better. The
rcdhead can sail along with ease and
cover his ninety miles an hour as long
as he feels inclined to- The blue
winged teal and its handsome cousin,
the 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 90 a
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!
| thought not. Well, it's duck that
doesn't get East very often, but is well
known in the West. 1t is something
like mallard, only harder to shoot,
because it's not so ansuspecting as the
mallard. The gadwale is something Of
II daisy on the fly, too, and will win
money for you every time il you bet il
can make its ninety miles an hour.
MAY be you wouldn't think that q
goose could almost double discount thu
fastest fast express train that runs Oh
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 an
other with suddenness that is eau
ton to wing shots. To see a flock o
honkers moving along, so high up thai
they seem to be scraping their backs
against the sky, you'd never believe
they were travelling between eighty ant
one hundred miles an hour, but they
are, The wild goose never has any
time to fool away, and his gait is al
ways Il business one.
"Thc broadbill duck is the only wilt
fowl that can push the canvasback OF
the wing, Let a broadbill and can
vasback each do his best for an hour
and the broadbill would only come on
about ten miles behind. A hundred
and ten miles an hour Can be done b,
the broadbill, and he, consequently
makes mark for shot gun that /;
grecnhorn wouldn't hit once in TWEEN
ty-seven years. IN y, Sun.