OTHER RIVER DUCKS 239 



THE GADWALL 



The gadwall is often called the gray duck, on ac- 

 count of its gray appearance, and gray widgeon from 

 its resemblance to that bird. The females of the widg- 

 eon and gadwall are much alike and easily mistaken. 

 A female gadwall which was shot by my brother when 

 we were shooting in North Dakota, was mounted by a 

 taxidermist, who pronounced it a widgeon. 



The gadwall is found throughout North America, 

 but is not as common anywhere as are some of the 

 other fresh-water ducks. I found it fairly abundant 

 in North Dakota and usually shot a few gadwalls 

 with the other ducks. One day when shooting on a 

 little pond quite near the Devil's Lake, I shot a large 

 number of ducks, and nearly all of them were gadwalls. 

 They came quite rapidly toward evening, and stand- 

 ing in the tall rushes without much effort at conceal- 

 ment, I had some very rapid shooting. Far out on the 

 lake the swans and geese were trumpeting and honk- 

 ing. Large flocks of snow-geese, or white brant, as 

 they call them in Dakota, were always in the air, and 

 mallards, sprig-tails, teal, and all the ducks were flying 

 everywhere ; but the gadwalls were the only ducks 

 which came to me in any numbers. Had I put out 

 only gadwall decoys, there might have been a reason 

 for this, but I had no decoys that day at all. In fact 

 the ducks were always so abundant, that I could kill 

 far more than I could carry, without decoys, and an 

 ambulance from the garrison came out to carry in the 

 game. 



The gadwall breeds in the Northern United States. 



