THE CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 411 



solitudes, to breed in Alaska and the extreme North. 

 The Canada goose is much the same in taking such long 

 flights, and yet they will often stop and rear their young 

 in Dakota or Minnesota. Not so with the canvas-back, 

 for their desire seems to be to always seek the impene- 

 trable wilds of the far North, and only to return when 

 the cold blasts warn them to depart from their summer 

 homes. 



I have been in correspondence with a gentleman in 

 San Francisco, Cal., and his description of shooting can- 

 vas-backs on the Coast will open wide the eyes of some 

 of the Eastern hunters. It is nothing unusual for him to 

 bag from sixty to eighty canvas-backs in a day's hunt to 

 his gun. Their food in California and Oregon is the same 

 as in the East, and epicures there claim there is no bird 

 on earth that equals their bird when properly placed on 

 the table; but, as I said before, the food makes the bird, 

 and let the canvas-back be fattened on wild celery, and 

 it will taste the same whether it comes from Maryland, 

 Wisconsin, Iowa, or California. 



There seems to be a local prejudice about these birds 

 that is highly amusing. As an illustration, one writer 

 says: "In the Chesapeake alone are they perfect; of 

 course they are all canvas-back ducks from the point of 

 view of the gastronomic enthusiast. The bird only reaches 

 culinary superiority when it alights on the Chesapeake 

 Bay and its myriad arms. Here, its flesh acquires a 

 peculiarly delicious and indescribable taste, which is 

 largely owing to its feeding on a plant called wild celery. 

 Water and climate in the Chesapeake must contain some 

 other and unknown quality or condition which brings 

 the canvas-back ducks to a state of perfection, for I am 

 told that California and Illinois I am not certain about 

 Texas and North Carolina also supply wild celery as 

 food for the canvas-back, and yet it permits no dispute, 



