272 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 
BLACK DUCK. 
The black duck is of all wild fowl, scarcely even except- 
ing geese and swans, the wildest and most difficult to in- 
duce to come within gunshot. All who have shot upon 
the low sedgy shores of the Chesapeake Bay will confirm 
this assertion, for well and frequently must he remem- 
ber to have watched with anxious and impatient eye this 
dusky beauty wheeling, and wheeling in gradually con- 
tracting flights, toward the well-guarded decoys, only to 
leave them in disgust before the impatient gunner was 
BLACK DUCK. 
rewarded with a shot. Moreover, this species seems to 
be regarded by all others of its family as a most reliable 
advance-guard in whom to place confidence, for often have 
I seen both red-heads and canvas-backs retire precipitous- 
ly from the blind to which they were coming direct, when 
a black duck has been observed giving a wide berth to the 
decoys. 
Mr. Copper and Mr. Macready, both commanding vessels 
in the Maryland police force, than whom no better sports- 
men and duck shots are to be found, have often assured me 
that the black duck was the most difficult of all the water- 
fowl on the Chesapeake to kill; this I feel assured of from 
another circumstance than their wariness, for, being very 
