BLACK DUCK 
83 
ward. At a small club, the Tobico Club, twenty-four miles from Saginaw and eight 
miles below Bay City on the west shore of Saginaw Bay, the records for 1913 to 
1920 show that Black Ducks have risen from about equal numbers with the Mallard, 
to twice or three times as many. Shooting clubs along the Illinois River have noted 
a recent increase. 
Forbush (1912) summed up what his field observers thought about this duck in 
Massachusetts in 1908. Forty observers reported an increase of the migrants and 
126 a decrease (we do not know to what race this applies). Of the breeding birds 27 
reported an increase and 83 a decrease. 
Twenty-five and thirty years ago the Topsfield meadows of Essex County, Mas- 
sachusetts, supported many breeding Carolina Ducks, but only a rare pair or two 
of Black Ducks. Now upon that same ground in wet seasons there are probably 
300 ducks reared each smnmer. 
An idea of numbers shot at certain points is always of interest in estimating the 
numbers of a species. This is best arrived at by consulting the books of the shooting 
clubs that have kept records over a long term of years. At Long Point, Lake Erie, 
Black Duck now represent 92% of the combined bag of Black Ducks and Mallard. 
They used to make up only 71%, but the Mallards have decreased. The number of 
Black Ducks shot in the open season (which lasts only about six weeks) runs as high 
as 3674, and in eleven different years between 1887 and 1903 over 2000 were killed 
each season. In eastern Massachusetts there are perhaps fifty shooting-stands 
which are “gunned” regularly for about two months of the season, besides numer- 
ous temporary “blinds.” Placing 100 Black Ducks as an average for each stand 
(the numbers run from 20 or 30 up to about 300) we get a figure of 5000. Add to 
this the numbers shot by individuals in the salt meadows, and in brooks, pond- 
holes, and fresh meadows all over the State and we can count on at least 10,000 in 
this small area. 
At the Swan Island Club, North Carolina, the average number of Black Ducks 
killed each year from 1909 to 1916 is about 700; of Mallards 114. At the Currituck 
Club, twenty miles farther south, the average number for twenty-two years was 
1158 Blacks and 547 Mallards (see Phillips, 1912). 
Farther south, near Georgetown, South Carolina, Black Ducks are less in propor- 
tion to Mallards, perhaps only about 25%, but enormous numbers are shot there. 
A good many are taken at the Canaveral Club, near Titusville, Florida. The records 
of shooting-clubs are now of less interest since a bag limit of 25 ducks was established 
in 1918; that is, relative numbers mean less because many sportsmen will not shoot 
“common ducks” if they can get others. Taking our whole coast from Maine to 
Georgia, it would seem as if at least 200,000 Black Ducks were shot there yearly. 
Audubon was told by his friend Bachman that this duck was becoming a much more 
common species in South Carolina in the early part of the last century, and this is 
