The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-11-12
SWIFT ON THE WING.
The Fastest Railroad Slow Compared
pared with a Wild Duck.

. "The gadwale-but there; it isn't likely
at all that you know what a gadwsle is, u
said an observant wild fowl hunter.
"The gadwale is a duck. It is a wild
duck that doesn't get East very often, but
is a familiar fowl in the West. I was
just about to remark that the gadwale is
a bird that can travel nearly a hundred
miles while the fastest railroad train is
going fifty, and yet it is slow on the wing
compared with a canvassback duck, broad
bill or even the wild goose. I have held
my watch on about every kind of wild
fowl there is, and know to a dot Just how
much space any of them can get over in
an hour. The canvassback can distance
the whole wild fowl family if it lays itself
out to do it. When the canvassback is
out taking things easy he jogs along
through the air at the rate of eighty miles
an hour. If he has business somewhere,
though, and has to get there, he can put
do it easy. If you don't believe that, just
fire square at the leader in a string of can
vaSSbacks that are out on a business trip
some time when you have the chance.
Duck shot, propelled by the proper guam
tity of powder, travels pretty quick itself,
but if your charge brings down any mem
Der of that string of ducks at all it will be
the fifth or sixth one back from the
leader, and I'll bet anything there is on
it. If you have the faintest idea in the
world of dropping the leader you must
aim at space not less than ten feet ahead
of him. Then the chances are that he
will run plumb against your shot. When
he drops you will find him a quarter of a
mile or so on, because even after he is
dead he can't stop short of that distance.
"The mallard duck is lazy. He seldom
cares to cover more than a mile a minute,
but he can if he wants to. His ordinary
everyday style Of getting along over the
country takes him from place to place at
about a forty-6ve-mile al hour rate. The
black duck can fly neck-and-neck with
the mallard, and neither one can give the
other odds. If the pin-tail pidgeon and
wood-duck should start in to race either
a mallard or a black duck it would be safe
to bet on either one. But if a redhead
duck enter the race you can give big odds
on him, for he can spin off his ninety
miles an hour as easy as you can walk
around the block, and can do it all day.
He would be left far behind, though, by
the blue-winged or the green-winged
teal. These two fowl can fly side by side
for n hundred miles and close the race
in a dead heat in one hour, and appear to
make ne hard task Of it. The broadbill
duck is the only fowl that Aes that can
push the canvassback on the wing. Let
a broadbill and a canvassback each do his
best for an hour, and broadbill will only
come GU about ten miles behind. One
hundred and ten miles an hour can be
done by the broadbill, and he consequently
makes a mark for a shotgun that a pretty
good gunner wouldn't be apt to hit once
in a lifetime.
"The wild goose is an astonisher on
the fay. 1t has a big heavy body to
carry, and to see it waddling on the
ground you wouldn't suppose it could get
away from you very fast on the wing.
But it manages to glide from one feeding
place to another with a s~uddenness that
is aggraVating to the best of wing shots.
To see ahock Of 'honkers' moving along,
80 high up that they seem to be sweeping
the cobwebs off of the sky, you probably
wouldn't dare to bet that they were trav-
cling at the rate of ninety miles an hour,
but that is just what they are doing, any
hour in the day. The wild goose nev
fools any time away. His gait is always
a business one."-M Y. Sun.