124 WILD DUCK SHOOTING ON PRESERVES 



Where many ducks are encouraged to breed wild on 

 the preserve the gunner can seldom tell if he is shooting 

 at a hand-reared fowl or at one that has been bred in the 

 marshes, provided always that the first named be not 

 made too fat and lazy by overfeeding to fly well. 



The reader should remember that it is an easy matter 

 to domesticate certain species of wild ducks, especially 

 the mallard and dusky dufcks, the birds most used on 

 preserves for hand-rearing, and that tame and overfed 

 ducks are, of little more value from a sporting viewpoint 

 than ducks which have deserted the preserve never to re- 

 turn. It requires good judgment on the part of the game- 

 keeper to keep his ducks fairly wild and strong on the 

 wing and at the same time to keep them within bounds: 



On some of the small shoots in England the ducks are 

 kept more tame than they should be on a larger area. 

 The shooting sometimes is highly artificial. The ducks 

 are handled in various ways so as to bring them to the 

 guns continuously in small numbers. 



The most artificial method of all, no doubt, consists in 

 catching the ducks in the wire traps referred to else- 

 where and in taking them to a distance from their pond 

 and there releasing them singly and in pairs and small 

 companies at short intervals. When the ducks are taken 

 beyond a wood or strip of timber they must ascend to 

 pass over it, and thpy will fly high in coming to the pond. 

 In some places they are released from a hill or other ele- 

 vation. I know a gamekeeper who can give a line of 

 guns equally good shooting from a row of* blinds placed 

 about two gunshots or a little more apart. He has sev- 

 eral ponds back of the shooting stands, and a good sized 

 flock of ducks is reared on each pond. When the birds 



