"WILD DUCKS AND WESTEKN DUCK-SHOOTING. 171 



knew that they had feasted on Western ducks 

 until told so the next day. Even then they were 

 hardly convinced. Another matter in this connec- 

 tion is that the very able and well-informed 

 author, Dr. Sharpless, of Philadelphia, stated that 

 he could never distinguish much difference in 

 flavor between canvas-backs and redheads, and 

 that many of the latter were sold as canvas-backs 

 and eaten as such by those who professed to know 

 all about the divine flavor. The editor of this 

 work has often received canvas-back ducks from 

 Mr. Saliagnac, of Philadelphia, who rents shootings 

 on the coast. The canvas-backs sent to him by 

 that gentleman were in truth very excellent, but 

 neither he nor any one else who partook of them 

 thought them superior to some mallards which had 

 been killed in a wheat-stubble in Iowa, and were 

 sent on as a present by Mr. James Bruce, of 

 Keokuk, now of St. Louis, Missouri. Moreover, 

 Mr. Saliagnac himself, great sportsman and en- 

 thusiastic admirer of canvas-backs as he is, told 

 the editor that his breed of tame ducks, the 

 large, white upland Muscovy, were just about as 

 fine eating as canvas-backs when fattened and killed 

 at the right time, and cooked in the same way. 

 Of course all this will be hooted at by those 



