A DAY WITH THE DUCKS ON LAKE CAYUGA 



241 



with only its bill protruding and is very difficult to hit 

 in a vital spot. Three more shots were required to 

 despatch one of the cripples and though three more 

 were fired at the fourth duck, it finally got out of range 

 of the shore and a lively chase ensued with the boat 

 before we finally secured it. By the time we tumbled 

 back into the blind, we had forgotten all about its being 

 seven below zero, for we had worked hastily, and this, 

 together with the excitement, caused by the numerous 

 flocks of ducks that had flown by while we were out of 

 the blind, caused us to feel that it was mid-summer. It 

 is strange but it always seems to be so that the ducks fly 

 best when one is putting out the decoys, when he is taking 

 them up, or when he is out on the lake chasing a cripple. 

 It was thus all day long. Occasionally we had to row 

 out to the decoys to break off the ice which formed 

 around them or to pick up one that had broken loose, and 

 even if we had not seen a duck for an hour before, 

 some always flew in close at such times and made us 

 feel sorry that we had left 

 the blind. 



We sat in the blind talking 

 things over and watching a 

 bald eagle that had followed 

 up the shore and perched in 

 a dead elm near the base of 

 the point when five more 

 ducks were spied flying close 

 against the water. At a dis- 

 tance they looked more like 

 swallows than ducks for all 

 one could make out was their 

 rapidly moving black wings. 

 As they came closer we 

 could discern their white 

 heads and long tails and we 

 knew that they were old 

 squaws. No self-respecting 

 hunter shoots an old squaw any more than he would a 

 merganser, for both are so fishy that they are impossible 

 subjects for a white man's table. I desired a specimen 

 of a nice old male in full winter plumage, however, to 

 mount for the museum, and so I told Sam that, inasmuch 

 as he had not fired at the whistlers, he could pick out the 

 nicest bird from this flock as they went by and I would 

 give him the body, after I had skinned it. We knew 

 that they would not look at the decoys but their line of 

 flight promised to bring them within long gun shot of the 

 point. Almost any duck hunter is glad to shoot at an 

 undesirable duck if he knows it is going to be utilized, 

 so, as they swung by the point, Sam picked his bird and 

 fired. "Well, I'll be good and thoroughly switched," ex- 

 claimed Claude. "All five at one shot; what sort of a 

 game hog are you?" Sure enough, at the discharge of 

 the gun, all five of the old squaws hit the water with a 

 big splash. But they didn't stop going, and, to all 

 appearances, they did not stop beating their wings, for 

 when they came up again, far out of range, every one 

 of them was flying as fast as when the shot was fired. 



AT THE CLOSE OF A GOOD DAY'S SPORT 



Nine canvasbacks, two bluebills an 

 25 to the individual or forty to the 

 that many. 



The old squaws are strange ducks, and, especially in the 

 spring during the courting season, go through many un- 

 usual maneuvers, chasing one another about, plunging 

 into the water from a considerable height, playing and 

 gambling like so many children. They are great divers, 

 too, and are often caught in gill nets set for white fish 

 in 150 feet of water. 



Soon after the old squaws, came two canvasbacks that 

 would have passed far out of range without looking at 

 the decoys, but a low guttural note from the wooden 

 "duck call" caused one of them to veer and swing close 

 enough so that a long shot pulled it down. Another pair 

 behaved much the same way only this time both of them 

 came in range and both were added to the bag. Then 

 came a great mass of ducks flying in close formation, 

 low against the water. Redheads, was our guess while 

 they were still so far off that even the individuals of the 

 flock could not be made out, and sure enough, as they 

 came closer, we could make out their dark forms, 



resembling bluebills much 

 more than canvasbacks, but 

 without any white in the 

 wings. There were at least 

 five hundred in the flock and 

 though they came close 

 enough for us to make out 

 the red heads of the males, 

 we had no hopes of their 

 turning in to the decoys and 

 they passed undisturbed. 

 Earlier in the season red- 

 heads decoy very well to 

 their own kind or to blue- 

 bill and canvasback decoys, 

 but by the time winter sets 

 in, it is only stray singles or 

 pairs that will look at any 

 decoys. They are clannish 

 ducks and spend most of their time in compact "rafts" 

 over beds of musk grass (Chara), and while with us 

 are quite inferior to the canvasbacks. Indeed on Cayuga 

 Lake the canvasback lives up to its reputation and excells 

 all the other species. Of the diving ducks, bluebills and 

 redheads are next in quality, and about on a par with 

 each other. The canvasback is the largest also, with the 

 exception of the black duck, and when in good condition 

 weighs three and a half pounds or even somewhat more, 

 while the redheads rarely tip the scales at three pounds, 

 and the best bluebills weigh two and three-quarters. The 

 largest bluebill I have ever seen, weighed an even three 

 pounds and it was so fat that, when plucked, its legs 

 appeared as mere bumps protruding slightly from the 

 otherwise oval body. The black ducks, which winter 

 on the lake, are much larger than those that pass through 

 earlier, and by many persons are supposed to represent a 

 different sub-species called the "red-legged black duck." 

 Many individuals weigh as much as four pounds and one 

 exceptional duck, taken in November of 1914, weighed 

 four pounds and eleven ounces. The whistlers are the 



d two whistlers. The law allows 

 blind, but only "game hogs" kill 



