Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-09-05
sWlET ON The WING.
The Fastest Railroad Train slow Com
pared with q Wild Duck.


The Fastest Railroad Train slow Com
pared with = Wild Duck.
''The gadwale-but there; it isn't
likely at all that you know what
gadwale is" said an observant wild
fowl hunter. The gadwale is duck.
1t Is wild duck that doesn't get East
very often, but it is familiar fowl in
the West. Twas Just about to remark
that the gadwale is a bird that can
travel nearly hundred miles while
the fastest railroad train is going fifty,
and vet it is slow on the wing COM
| pared with a canvasback duck, the
| brOadbill, or even the wild goose.
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 canvas
back can distance the whole wild fowl
family If it lays itself out to do it.
hen the canvasback is out taking
things easy he joys along through the
air at the rate of eighty miles an hour.
Ii he has business somewhere, though,
and has to get there, he can put two
miles behind him every minute, and do
it easy. If you don't believe that, Just
fire square at the leader in a string of
canvasbacks that are out on business
trip some time when you have the
chance. Duck shot. propelled by the
proper quantity of powder, travels
pretty quick itself, but if your charge
brings down any member of that string
OF ducks at all it will be thes fifth or
sixth one back from the leader, and
IL bet any thing 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 mile or so on, because
even after he is dead he can't stop
short of that distance.
The mallard duck is lazy. He sell
dom cares to cover more than 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 forty-five-mile
an hour rate. The black duck can ay
neck-and-neck with the mallard, and
neither one can give the other odds.
If the pin-tail widgeon and wood-duck
should start in to race either mallard
or black duck it would be safe to bet
on either one. But il a redhead duck
should 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 dc
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 one hundred
miles and close the race in dead heat
in an hour, and appear to make no
hard task of it. The broadbilf duck is
the only fowl that flies that can push
the canvasback on the wing. Let a
brOadbill and canvasback each do his
best for an hour, and the brOadbill will
only come out about ten miles behind.
One hundred and ten miles an hour can
be done by the broadbill, and he con-
sequently makes mark for shotgun
that a pretty good gunner wouldn't be
apt to hit once in a lifetime.
The wild goose is an astonisher on
the fly. 1t has 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
suddenness that is aggravating to the
best of wing shots. To see a flock of
'hOnkers' moving along, so high up
that they seem to be sweeping the cob
webs off of the sky, you probably
wouldn't dare to bet that they were
travelling at the rate of ninety miles an
hour, but that is just what they are
doing, any hour in the day. The wild
goose never fools any time away. His
gait is always business one. IN. Y.
SIM