WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 265 



VELOCITY OF FLIGHT. 



When wild fowl are travelling against the Avind, it causes them to 

 fly loAV and closer together than when going with it. The velocity 

 with which ducks cleave the air is very great, and argues strongly 

 the necessity of having the best of guns and ammunition, to be suc- 

 cessful in this kind of sport. The barrels of duck-guns should be of 

 sufiicient calibre and length to bear a large proportion of powder, 

 so as to throw the shot thickly and with great force to a long 

 distance. Under ordinary circumstances, unassisted by the wind, 

 ducks fly at the rate of eighty to one hundred miles an hour, as 

 has often been proven by actual experiment; and the following 

 plan, adopted by Major Cartwright, to ascertain this fact to his 

 own satisfaction, is both ingenious and conclusive in its results, 

 and Ave therefore give it in his OAvn Avords: — "In my Avay hither, I 

 measured the flight of eideiMlucks by the folloAving method, — viz. : 

 on arriving off" Duck Island I caused the people to lie on their 

 oars ; and Avhen I saAv the flash of the gims Avhich Avere fired at a 

 flock of ducks as they passed through the latter, I obserA'cd by my 

 Avatch hoAv long they Avere in flying abreast of us. The result of 

 very many observations ascertained the rate of their speed to be 

 ninety miles an hour." This celerity of flight is not only Avonder- 

 ful, but seems almost incredible; nevertheless, the fact is Avell 

 substantiated by the observations of other Avriters respecting the 

 movements of birds eA'en less rapid than those of ducks. For 

 example, it is not an uncommon occurrence to shoot Avild 

 pigeons {Columha migratoria) in the forests of Canada, Avith their 

 stomachs filled with perfect, or rather whole, grains of rice, which 

 must have been gleaned from the rice-fields of the Southern States, 

 at a distance, perhaps, of one thousand miles or more from the 

 spot where they AA'ere killed. Noav, alloAving several hours of 

 actiA'e exercise to be suflicient to digest this article of food, or, 

 rather, granting the inability of these seeds to resist the action of 

 the stomach for a longer time than a few hours, it is but fair to 

 conclude that the birds must have floAvn Avith astounding velocity 



