THE WOOD-DUCK 235 



ponds for other ducks and a change of scene always 

 prevented my making very large bags. 



I found the wood-ducks abundant in the little lakes, 

 sloughs, and marshes near Havana, Illinois, when the 

 shooting was open ; but all the good duck grounds in 

 that vicinity are now owned by clubs, where I am 

 afraid the shooting is often over-done. 



The wood-duck is always a splendid table bird, and 

 when it is fattened on wild rice and acorns is excep- 

 tionally fine. It is, however, too pretty to shoot. It is 

 not a very wild duck, comes well to the decoys, and is 

 shot as it flies, over passes, to the streams and ponds. 

 I have shot them on small streams in the woods in 

 Ohio when partridge shooting, and had little difficulty 

 in approaching them within range as they swam 

 about. 



Many thousands are killed each season in the South- 

 ern States, and since they come first of all the ducks 

 to the Northern waters, they receive the first fire of 

 eager sportsmen in August and September, and the 

 shooting is kept up as they move southward and until 

 they have paired in the spring. 



The wood-duck builds its nest in trees near the water, 

 to which it carries the young before they are able to 

 fly. An account appeared in Forest and Stream of these 

 beautiful birds, and the golden-eyes, butter-balls, and 

 mergansers being driven from a pond in the vicinity 

 of which they nested, by the introduction of pickerel, 

 which destroyed the young. The carp also, as I have 

 said elsewhere, have done much to drive ducks away 

 from the marshes by destroying the food. 



