GREAT WILD-FOWL SWAMPS. 233 



Now in the olden day the Detroit River was a cele- 

 brated " duck pass " (in sporting phraseology) where 

 countless myriads of wild fowl passed up and down 

 to and from their feeding grounds, along the margins 

 of Lake St. Clair, which though it may look a small 

 place upon a map, is in reality a sheet of water 29 

 miles long, by nearly as much in width. It is however 

 shallow, and a canal has of late years had to be dredged 

 to 1 6 feet in depth for the convenience of shipping. 

 Water weeds therefore flourished and there was a peculiar 

 aquatic plant which grew in its shallows (Zizania A. quatica 

 or " Canada Rice ") * which was greedily sought after 

 by wild fowl, and which attracted innumerable flocks 

 to the locality to feed upon it more than that, not so 

 very far to the southwards of the embouchure of the 

 St. Clair into Lake Erie, were some of the most 

 celebrated wildfowling grounds in the interior of North 

 America, upon the swampy margins of these great 

 lakes. We hope to be able to say something more 

 upon this subject in our section upon Wild Fowl, but 

 must defer any further remarks upon it until another 

 opportunity. 



Our object, we need hardly say, in referring to 

 sporting matters at present was to make good our 

 assertion as to the magnificence of the sporting quarters 

 in the midst of which many of these western frontier 

 posts were planted ; given a quiet time, if a man could 



* This invaluable game plant, the Wild, or Canada Rice, grows in 

 N. America in shallow waters from Canada to Florida, occasionally 

 attaining a length of 9 feet. It is a hardy annual, producing a very 

 good grain, which attracts aquatic fowl of every description, and which 

 was formerly collected by the Indian tribes and made into a species 

 of bread. It is however as a food for water birds that this plant is 

 so valuable the only objection to it is that it stops up waterways, 

 and thus acts as an impediment to drainage and navigation. 



