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course in its flight back to the breeding grounds, but on account of restrictive laws 
I find that the spring records are not comparable with the autumn ones. Near 
Delavan, Wisconsin, of 1167 ducks shot in the autumn seasons of 1892 to 1899 only 
ten were Gadwall (Hollister, 1920). The report of the Minnesota Game Commission 
for 1919 to 1920 shows that between 5000 and 6000 Gadwall are killed in that 
State annually. This is only about 0.1% of the total. 
Along the coasts of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and 
Virginia the Gadwall becomes increasingly more frequent in the autumn as one goes 
south, but it does not become at all common until one reaches Virginia and the Caro- 
linas. Here the great fresh-water sounds are better adapted to it, and records of con- 
siderable interest are available. At the Swan Island Club (Currituck, North Carolina) 
between the years 1909 and 1918 out of a total of over 24,000 ducks, 753 were Gad- 
wall (3 + %). At the Princess Anne Club a few miles farther north in Virginia over 
a period of twenty -eight years only 253 are recorded, representing less than 1 %, but 
for the first seven years they were not distinguished from other ducks. Twenty miles 
farther south, at the Currituck Club the records were carefully kept between the 
years 1888 and 1910. They show that the Gadwall represented about 5.5% of the 
total number of ducks taken. The years 1911 to 1918 show no appreciable change, the 
annual number of Gadwall being from 152 to 332. The largest season in twenty-nine 
years was that of 1917-18. At the Narrows Island Club, only a short distance 
away, 908 are recorded for eighteen years of shooting (less than 4%) and there is no 
evidence of any recent lessening of the annual bag. At the Santee Club (mouth 
of the Santee River, South Carolina) from 15 to 45 Gadwall are taken each year in 
an annual total of 2500 to 3000 ducks, that is, about 1%, considerably less than in 
North Carolina. But these last records have probably not been kept so well as 
farther north where the sportsmen have more intelligent assistants. In the inter- 
mediate territory, on the more salty sounds of Albemarle and Pamlico, Gadwall 
are extremely rare. An artificial pond at a club on Pea Island, Dare County, North 
Carolina, contains a very few in seasons when the water is fresh, but none at all if 
the ocean breaks through and makes the water brackish. At the Canaveral Club 
near Titusville, Florida, Gadwall represent less than 2% of all ducks shot in the 
past thirteen years. 
On the Gulf coast of western Florida, McAtee found it the commonest duck at 
St. Vincent’s Island in January and abundant in the autumn. It is also plentiful 
on the coast of Louisiana. An idea of its numbers there may be gained from an 
estimate made of the ducks brought to the New Orleans market in the season 
1913-14. Of a total of 283,435 ducks about 15,620 were Gadwall (about 6%). The 
species seems to be equally common on the Gulf coast of Texas, where in the vicin- 
ity of Fort Brown it was said by Merrill (1878) to be the commonest duck. The U.S. 
Biological Survey field notes show it to be common all along that coast, and near 
