WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 265 



VELOCITY OF FLIGHT. 



When wild fowl are travelling against the wind, it causes them to 

 fly low and closer together than when going with it. The velocity 

 with which ducks cleave the air is very great, and argues strongly 

 the necessity of having the best of guns and ammunition, to be suc- 

 cessful in this kind of sport. The barrels of duck-guns should be of 

 sufficient calibre and length to bear a large proportion of powder, 

 so as to throw the shot thickly and with great force to a long 

 distance. Under ordinary circumstances, unassisted by the wind, 

 ducks fly at the rate of eighty to one hundred miles an hour, as 

 has often been proven by actual experiment; and the following 

 plan, adopted by Major Cartwright, to ascertain this fact to his 

 own satisfaction, is both ingenious and conclusive in its results, 

 and we therefore give it in his own words : " In my way hither, I 

 measured the flight of eider-ducks by the following method, viz. : 

 on arriving off Duck Island I caused the people to lie on their 

 oars ; and when I saw the flash of the guns which were fired at a 

 flock of ducks as they passed through the latter, I observed by my 

 watch how long they were in flying abreast of us. The result of 

 very many observations ascertained the rate of their speed to be 

 ninety miles an hour." This celerity of flight is not only wonder- 

 ful, but seems almost incredible; nevertheless, the fact is well 

 substantiated by the observations of other writers respecting the 

 movements of birds even less rapid than those of ducks. For 

 example, it is not an uncommon occurrence to shoot wild 

 pigeons (Columba migratona) in the forests of Canada, with their 

 stomachs filled with perfect, or rather whole, grains of rice, which 

 must have been gleaned from the rice-fields of the Southern States, 

 at a distance, perhaps, of one thousand miles or more from the 

 spot where they were killed. Now, allowing several hours of 

 active exercise to be sufficient to digest this article of food, or, 

 rather, granting the inability of these seeds to resist the action of 

 the stomach for a longer time than a few hours, it is but fair to 

 conclude that the birds must have flown with astounding velocity 



