The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-19
FLIGHTS OF DUCKS
Canvasbacks Fly One Hundred and
 Twenty Miles an Hour

From the New York Sun.
 'If a bluebill duck Is travelling at it's best said the gunner. "it can wing of it's mile and a half a minute with ease. That seems like going some, but a can vasback duck would leave the bluebill way behind.
 'I have held my watch on about evelyl kind of wild fowl there is, and as nearlyl as I can calculate from the record race between a canvasback, blue or a greent winged teal and a broadbill ducy would come pretty near to being a dead hea. 2 the chances being a trife, perhaps,t against the broadbill, which would make. say, it's no miles an hour to the canvas< backs 120 and the teal's 115.
 Some who have timed wild fowl hold that either of the teals can lead the cant vasback in speed, but all my tests go td show that as a rule the canvasback cau distance the whole wild fowl family if
 it lays itself out to do it. When the can-H along at the rate of 80 miles an hour. if it has business somewhere and has to get there 1t can put it's two miles be- hind it every minute and do it easy all day if necessary, I believe.
 "If you have any doubt as to the swift neSS or the cdnVaSDdck on the wing when business calls just fire at the leader m string some time when you have the chance. Duck shot when 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 the fifth or sixth bird back of the leader and I'll bet . farm on it.
 "If you would have chance of drop- ping the leader you will have to aim not less than 10 feet ahead of him. Then he will more than likely run plumb against your shot. When he drops 1t will be q quarter of a mile so further on, for he can't stop short of that distance even after he is dead.
 ''On the other hand I have found that the mallard duck is lazy, as wild duck activity on the wing goes. He seldom cares to cover more than mile a minute, but he can if he wants to, for have timed him when he was hitting the wind at good 75-mile clip. The mallard's every day style of getting over the coun- try takes him along at about 50-mile an hour rate. The black duck can show about the same speed as the mallard.
 "The wild goose is an astonisher on the fly It has a big, heavy body to carry, and to see one of these fowl wad- ding on the ground you wouldn't sup pose it could get away from you very
 
 to glide from one feeding place to an- other on occasion has suddenness to it that is aggravating to the best of wing shots.
 "To see a flock of bonkers moving along so high that they seem to be :. sweeping the cobwebs off the sky you probably wouldn't care to bet that they were travelling at the rate of 90 or 100 miles an hour. but that is just what they are doing any hour in the day, for the wild goose never fools any time away. His is always a business gait.
 But consider the flight of the squealer duck! You won't be apt to see squealer duck unless you go down into the oak and pecan deadenings of Arkansas, for this duck doesn't seem to flock where other wild fowl is found in large num- hers Tn fact, I don't know whether it hocks at all or not, for never saw moro than two or three of them together.
 This duck lights in trees, but 1t Is not wood duck. I never, saw 1t any where else than in those deadenings, and the natives down there call 1t the squeal- CT because of the sound 1t makes !t flies. It is about the size of "a teal, brown, with black topknot. It's tail is built like rudder and by the nanipula- tion of it the duck darts and dives ana plnnges ahout in the midst of the thick timber and trailing vines very much as a dragonfy wings it's eccentric flight among the insects it preys on.
 You will seldom see one of these queer ducks in strai aightaway flight of more than two or three yards They twist and wind and soar and dive about among the close growing trees and almost inn penetrable vines and hanging mosses now in sight moment skimming a chance open space of water, then gone either pe- hind some obtruding tree or flashing ip- ward over it's top. saw one once in a flight of 30 feet, very long one, and took it's time. It was more than a mile and a half minute clip that duck was go- ing, and I guess they never travel any slower
 'sncidentsllv I r'i-h. r,e~'ir'' t''r' 's chap who brings down a souealer duck with his gun can throw bo1uue,s at 4.....- self as long as he lives.''