Descriptive List 



61 



The Black Duck is another favorite of the fowler. It inhabits the coast region 

 in great numbers, usually being found either singly or in small flocks. They feed 

 much at night, and in their quest for food shovel the mud about so vigorously that 

 the bottom when exposed by daylight often presents the appearance of having been 

 visited by a drove of rooting hogs. 



It is usually a far shyer bird than the Mallard and very much more suspicious of 

 a blind and stand of decoys. On a certain shooting ground familiar to the writers, 

 where Black Ducks feed at night by thousands, the birds that come to the decoys 

 have a habit of circling over the stool several times before deciding to alight. Many 

 a time the crouching hunter watching a bunch come in hears the measured wing- 



FiG. 35. Black Duck. 



strokes overhead suddenly break into a louder and quicker, ivhish, wlush, ivhish, 

 as the wary liirds, noting some suspicious object or movement, start to " climt) " into 

 the safer air-levels above. It takes a quick jump and a quicker shot to down a wise 

 old Black Duck under such conditions. 



The following remarks by J. C. Phili]ip are quoted by Brewster in his article on 

 "The Red-legged Duck" in The Auk of July, 1910, pp. 328-329: "While at Curri- 

 tuck last Christmas I was very much struck by the preponderance in our bags of 

 very large winter (l)lack) ducks. I weighed a large number and many went six 

 pounds to the pair. I shot numbers of Black Ducks in the same region twelve years 

 ago, and then we were always surprised to see any of these big ducks. Gunners 

 have spoken to me of the same thing — that is, a change in the type of Black Duck 

 during the last few years at Currituck." 



