20 WILD DUCKS FOR SPORT AND PROFIT 



aroma sends these strangers to human presence winging 

 their way to discover more secure abodes. Breeding for 

 the gun is altogether another matter; the producer relies 

 on his own stock of birds, and not on the nightly supply 

 of truly wild ones, which are the decoyman's daily profit. 



"The ideal spot for wild duck breeding is, no doubt, a 

 hilly country more or less covered with woods, and in 

 them lakes, or lakelets, supplied by perennial burns to 

 keep the water fresh and to bring down a supply of food, 

 such as the Ferintosh part of the Culladen estate, near 

 Dingwall, in Ross-shire. With lakes half a mile apart in 

 a circle amid the hills the finest sport imaginable can be 

 obtained. The fowl can be driven, or trained to fly, from 

 lake to lake, and give the best sporting shots to hidden 

 guns lying in wait. The owner of one lake or large pond 

 need not despair; he can have his shoot, too, in its way 

 as good, and even more certain than that of his luckier 

 neighbor with many waters. When birds are merely 

 driven from lake to lake over guns, the sport is more like 

 flight shooting, as followed by the sea coast, and, in con- 

 sequence, has also much of its uncertainties. At its very 

 best it can hardly be better when the mere quality of the 

 shooting obtained is considered, without regard to the 

 circumstances of its production, than when the ducks are 

 sent in threes and fours, as they are let out of a cage on a 

 hillside over the guns, to a lake or pond beyond them. 

 Failing a hillside, a line of trees, or nets supported on 

 wires by poles, are nearly as good in giving high flight 

 and speed. 



"The mallard* most frequently, in a perfectly wild 



t 



Decoymen make a useful distinction in classing their take of fowl. 

 The male bird, or drake, is "the mallard," the female always "the duck." 



