186 
FOREST AND STHEAM; « 
l^fiFr. ^, 1906. 
American Wildfowl and How to 
Take Them. 
BY GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL. 
I. — TJ^Ducfc Family. 
No group of birds is more important to man than that 
known as the duck family. They are called the Anatidce, 
from the Latin word Anas, a duck, and belong to the 
order LamelUorostres, or birds whose bills are provided 
with Jamellffi, by which are meant the little transverse 
ridges found on the, margins of the bills of most ducks. 
Sometimes, as with some geese, the lamella appear like 
a row of white blunt teeth; in the shoveller they con- 
stitute a fine comb-like structure, which acts as a strainer, 
while in tlie case of the mergansers they have the appear- 
ance of being real teeth, which, however, they are not, 
since teeth are alwaj'S'implanted in sockets in the bone of 
the jaw ; and this is true of no known birds, except some 
Cretaceous forms of western America and the Jurassic, 
ArchcEOpteryx. 
The bill is variously shaped in the members of the 
duck family. Usually it is broad and depressed, as in the 
domestic duck ; or it may be high at the base and approach 
the conical, as in some geese; broadly spread, or spoon- 
shaped, as in the shoveller duck, or .almost cylindrical 
and hooked at the tip, as in the mergansers. Whatever 
its shape, the bill is almost wholly covered with a soft, 
sensitive membrane or skin, and- ends at the tip in a 
horny process which is termed the nail. From this fact 
the family is sometimes called Unguirostres, or nail- 
beaked. 
The body is short and stout, the neck usually long; 
the feet and legs are short. The wings are moderately 
long and stout, giving power of rapid and long-continued 
flight. There are various anatomical characteristics, most 
of which need not be considered here. 
One of these, however, is common to so many species, 
and is so frequently inquired about by sportsmen, that 
it may be briefly mentioned. In the male of most ducks 
the windpipe just above the bronchial tubes on the left 
side is usually expanded to form a bony, bulbous en- 
largement, called the labyrinth. Except In one or two 
species the female does not possess this enlargement, and 
there are some of the sea ducks {Fuligulince) in which 
it is not found. The labyrinth varies greatly in different 
species. In some it is round and comparatively simple, 
in others large, and instead of being more or less cylin- 
drical in shape it has the form of a long three-cornered 
box. The labyrinth has been stated to have relation to 
the voice of the bird, but what this relation is has yet to 
be proved. 
In addition to the labyrinth, some species of ducks have 
an enlargement of the windpipe near the throat, and the 
swans have the windpipe curiously coiled within the 
breast bone. 
The plumage of these birds is well adapted for pro- 
tection against wet and cold. All possess large oil glands, 
and the overlying feathers, ' which are constantly kept 
oiled, protect the down beneath them from moisture, and 
form a covering whose warmth enables the birds to en- 
dure an Arctic temperature. There is a great variety in 
the coloring of the plumage. The sexes in the swans and 
most geese are alike, but in the ducks the male is usually 
more highly colored than the female. The males of some 
species are among our most beautiful birds, as the mallard, 
harlequin, wood duck and the odd little mandarin duck of 
eastern Asia, while in others the colors are duller, and 
in the female and young are often extremely modest and 
subdued. Most of the fresh-water ducks possess a patch 
of brilliant iridescent color on the secondary feathers 
of the wing which is usually either green or violet. This 
is called the speculum. A less brilliant speculum is seen 
in some of the sea ducks. 
The males of certain species possess peculiar develop- 
ments of plumage or of bill, such as the curled tail 
feather of the mallard, the long pointed scapulars and 
long tail feathers of the old squaw and the sprig tail, 
the peculiar wing feathers of the mandarin ducks, the 
stiff feathers on the face in some sea ducks, the crests 
of many species, and the peculiar processes and swellings 
on the bills of certain sea ducks. 
The duck family is divided into three sections — the 
swans, the geese and the ducks proper. These last again 
are subdivided into shoal water or river ducks, or diving 
ducks, and mergansers or fish ducks. 
The swans are characterized by their large size and 
extremely long necks, and are usually white in color, 
although the Australian black swan forms a notable ex- 
ception. The naked skin of the bill extends back to the 
eyes. Only two species — with a European form attributed 
to Greenland— are found in North America. One of 
these, the common swan, covers the whole country, while 
the slightly larger trumpeter swan is found chiefly in 
the West. The swans constitute a siili-fainily of the 
Anatidce, and are known to ornithologists as the Cygnince. 
Less in size than the swans and in form -intermediate 
between them and the ducks are the gee«e. They have 
necks much longer than the ducks, yet not so long as 
the_ swans. Like the swans, they feed by stretching down 
their necks through the water and tearing up vegetable 
food from the bottom. Geese and swans do not dive, ex- 
cept to escape the pursuit of enemies. Most geese are 
found within the limits of the United States only in 
autumn or winter, and breed far to the north, although 
up to the time of the settlement of the western country 
the Canada goose commonly nested on the prairies and 
along the Missouri River, sometimes building its nest 
in trees; that is to say, on the tops of broken cottonwood 
stubs, standing 30 or 40 feet above the ground. The 
settling up of the country has, for the most part, de- 
prived these birds of their summer home, and it may be 
fjuestioned whether they now breed regularly anywhere 
within the United States, except in the Yellowstone 
Park, where protection is afforded them. 
With the geese are to be included the tree ducks, a 
group connecting the sub-families of the geese and the 
ducks, and known by naturalists as Dendrocygnece. They 
are found only on the southern borders of the United 
States, and thus will but seldom come under the notice of 
North American sportsmen. They are really duck-like, 
tree-inhabiting geese. There are several species, occur- 
ring chiefly in the tropics. 
I'he true ducks are divided into three groups, known 
as Aiiatince, or shoal-water ducks ; Fuligulince, or sea 
ducks, and Mergince, flsh ducks, or mergansers. These 
three groups are natural ones, although the birds belonging 
to them are constantly associated together during the 
migrations, and often live similar lives. No one of the 
three is confined either to sea coast or interior, but all 
are spread out over the whole breadth of the continent. 
In summer the great majority of the birds of each group 
migrate to the further north, there to raise their young, 
while others still breed sparingly within the United States, 
where formerly they did so in great numbers. 
As is indicated by one of their English names, the 
fresh-water ducks prefer fresh and shallow water, and 
must have this last because they do not dive for their 
food, but feed on what they can pick up from the bottoms 
and margins of the rivers and pools which they frequent. 
The sea ducks, on the other hand, are expert divers, 
manjr of them feeding in water from 15 to 30 feet deep. 
The food of the mergansers is assumed to consist largely 
of small fish, which they capture by pursuing them under 
the water. They are expert divers. 
The food of the fresh-water ducks is chiefly vegetable, 
consisting of seeds, grasses and roots, which they gather 
from the water. That of the sea ducks is largely animal, 
and often consists exclusively of shellfish, which they 
bring up from the bottom. Yet with regard to the food 
of the two groups, there is no invariable rule, and many 
of the sea ducks live largely on vegetable matter, while 
the fresh-water ducks do not disdain any animal matter 
which may come in their way. Both groups, with some 
possible exceptions, are fond of grain, which they eat 
greedily when it is accessible. The far-famed canvas- 
back derives its delicious flavor from the vegetable food 
which it finds in the deep, fresh or brackish waters of 
lakes, slow-flowing streams and estuaries, while the 
widgeon, which is one of the typical fresh-water ducks and 
is equally toothsome, feeds only in shoal water. 
The flavor of any duck's flesh depends entirely on its 
food, and a bird of whatever kind whicli is killed after 
living for a month or two in a region where proper 
vegetable food is to be found will prove delicious eating, 
whether it be canvasback, redhead, widgeon, black duck 
or broadbill. On the other hand, a black duck, redhead, 
broadbill or canvasback, which had spent a month or two 
in the salt water, where its food had been chiefly shell 
fish, will be found to have a strong flavor of fish. Thus 
the fine feathers of a canvasback are not necessarily a 
guarantee that the bird wearing them possesses the table 
qualities that have made the species famous. 
Hybrids between dift'erent species of the fresh-water 
ducks occur quite frequently, and many perfectly authentic 
examples of this have been examined by competent 
authority, although in many instances a supposed hybrid 
is nothing more than some species with which the gun- 
ner is unfamiliar. In his great work, "The 'Birds of 
North America," Audubon figured a hybrid under the 
name Brewer's duck. Hybrids between the mallard and 
the musco\'y, the black duck and the pintail are not un- 
common. One of the latter, which I still possess, I killed 
in Wyoming, and I have killed several black duck-mallard 
hybrids in ISTorth Carolina. Besides these, ducks have 
been killed which appear to resemble a cross between 
mallard and gadwal, between teal and pintail, and even 
between wood duck and redhead. On the other hand, 
some years ago, when my gunner picked up a male Eng- 
lish widgeon which I had killed, he suggested that it was 
a hybrid between a redhead and a widgeon. 
It is to be noted that the hybrids supposed to be a cross 
between the black duck and mallard, while possessing 
the general appearance of the black duck, appear to ex- 
ceed either parent in size, and that the males often possess 
the curved tail feather of the male mallard. 
Ducks and geese are to a great extent nocturnal in 
their habits. Many, if not all of them, migrate by night, 
and in localities where they are greatly disturbed on their 
feeding grounds they are 'likely to pass the hours of day 
in the open water far from the shore and not to visit their 
feeding grounds until evening or even dark night. In 
rnany places along the New England coast it is the prac- 
tice during cloudy nights, when the moon is large, to 
visit- the hills in the line of flight to shoot at the ducks 
and geese which fly over from their daily resting place on 
the salt water to their nightly feeding ground in ponds, 
rivers and shallow bays, or before daylight in the morn- 
ing, to resort to the same places, in the hope of getting a 
shot at the birds as they fly back toward the sea. 
During moonlight nights the birds frequently feed at in- 
tervals all night long, and in many places advantage is 
taken of this habit to shoot them either by moonlight or 
by fire lighting. 
Ducks are found all over the world, and appear equally 
at home in the tropics and on the borders of the Arctic 
ice. There are about 200 known species, of which not far 
from sixty are found in North America. Their economic 
importance is due not merely to the fact that they occur 
in such numbers as to furnish a great deal of food for 
man, but also because of the feathers and down which 
they produce. To the inhabitants of many regions they 
furnish clothing, in part, as well as food. In some parts 
of the world, whole communities are largely dependent for 
their living on the products of these birds, subsisting for 
portions of the year entirely on their flesh and eggs, 
and deriving a large part of their revenue from the sale 
of feathers and down. Many examples might be cited of 
northern latitudes where the gathering of eggs, birds or 
feathers forms at certain seasons of the year the principal 
industry of the people. 
A familiar species, whose economic importance to dwell- 
ers in high latitudes can hardly be overestimated is the 
well-known eider duck. This bird is occasionally shot 
on the Long Island coast in winter, and is then a common 
visitor to northern New England. Its slightly differing 
forms breed on the sea coasts of the northern parts of 
the world, and are very abundant in the Arctic regions. 
In Greenland, Iceland and Norway the breeding grounds 
of the eider duck are protected by laws which have the 
universal support of the inhabitants. Indeed, these breed- 
ing grounds are handed down from father to son as prop- 
erty of great value. Every effort is made to foster and en- 
courage the birds. Sometimes cattle are removed from 
islands where they have been ranging in order that the 
ducks may breed there undisturbed, and a careful watch 
is kept against depredations by dogs and foxes. Accord- 
ing to Dr. Stejncger: "The inhabitants [of parts of 
Norway] take great care of the breeding birds, which 
often enter their houses to find suitable nesting places, 
and cases are authenticated in which the poor fisherman 
vacated his bed in order not to disturb the female eider 
which had selected it as a quiet corner wherein to raise 
her young. In another instance the cooking of a family 
had to be done in a temporary kitchen, as a fanciful bird 
had taken up her abode on the fireplace." 
On many of the breeding grounds in Iceland and Nor- 
way the birds are so tame as to pay little attention to the 
approach of strangers. Often the nests occur in such 
numbers that it is difficult to walk among them without 
stepping on them. On the little island of Vidoe, near 
Reikjavik, almost all the hollows among the rocks with 
which the ground is strewn are occupied by nests of the 
birds. Here, too, they occupy burrows especially pre- 
pared for them, as with the sheldrakes in Sylt. 
In "Baird, Brewer and Ridgway's North American 
Birds," Dr. T. M. Brewer quotes Mr. C. W. Shepard, 
who, in a sketch of his travels in northern Iceland, gives 
the following account of the tameness and lareeding 
there of the eider : 
"The islands of Vigr and Oedey are their headquarters 
in the northwest of Iceland. In these they live in un- 
disturbed tranquillity. They have become almost domesti- 
cated, and are found in vast multitudes, as the young 
remain and breed in the place of their birth. As the 
island (Vigr) was approached we could see flocks upon 
flocks of the sacred birds, and could hear their cooing 
at a great distance. We landed on a rocky, wave-shorn 
shore. It was the most wonderful ornithological sight 
conceivable. The ducks and their nests were everywhere. 
Great brown ducks sat upon their nests in masses, and at 
every step started from under our feet. It was with 
difficulty that we avoided treading on some of the nests. 
On the coast of the opposite shore was a wall built of large 
stones, just above the high-water level, about 3 feet in 
height and of considerable thickness. At the bottom, on 
both sides of it, alternate stones had been left out, so as 
to form a series of square compartments for the ducks 
to nest in. Almost every compartment was occupied, and 
as we walked along the shore a long line of ducks flew 
out, one after the other. The surface of the water also 
was perfectly white with drakes, who welcomed their 
brown wives with loud and clamorous cooing. The house 
itself was a marvel. The earthen walls that surrounded 
it and the window embrasures were occupied by ducks. 
On the ground the house was fringed with ducks. On the 
turf slopes of its roof we could see ducks, and a duck sat 
on the door scraper. The grassy banks had been cut into 
square patches, about 18 inches having been removed, and 
each hollow had been filled with ducks. A windmill was 
infested, and so were all the outhouses, mounds, rocks 
and crevices. The ducks were everywhere. Many were 
so tame that we could stroke them on their nests; and 
the good lady told us that there was scarcely a duck on the 
island that would not allow her to take its eggs without 
flight or fear. Our hostess told us that when she first 
became possessor of the island the produce of down from 
the ducks was not more than 15 pounds in a year; but 
that under her careful nurture of twenty years it had 
risen to nearly 100 pounds annually. Most of the eggs are 
taken and pickled for winter consumption, one or two 
only being left in each nest to hatch." 
Although breeding in great numbers on the coast of 
Labrador and in other Canadian waters, the eider duck 
is practically not protected there, and indeed is scarcely 
made use of commercially in America. We have not yet 
advanced sufficiently to take advantage of our oppor- 
tunities. 
Dr. Leonard Stejneger, in the "Standard Natural His- 
tory," writing of the Europe'an sheldrake {Tadorna) — 
which must not be confounded with any of the birds 
(Mergus) which we of the United States call sheldrakes 
— almost parallels Mr. ShjCpard's account, but on a 
smaller scale. He says: "The inhabitants on several 
of the small sandy islands off the western coast of Jut- 
land — notably, the Island of Sylt — have made the whole 
colony of sheldrakes breeding there a source of con- 
siderable income by judiciously taxing the birds for eggs 
and down, supplying them in return with burrows of 
easy access and protecting them against all kinds of in- 
jury. The construction of such a duck burrow is de- 
scribed by Johann Friedrich Naumann, who says that 
all the digging, with the exception of the entrance tun- 
nel, is made from above. On top of small, rounded 
hills, covered with grass, the breeding chambers are first 
dtig out to a uniform depth of 2 or 3 feet. These are then 
connected by horizontal tunnels and finally with the com- 
mon entrance. Each breeding chamber is closed above 
with a tightly fitting piece of sod, which caif be lifted up 
like a lid when the nest is to be examined and plundered. 
Such a complex burrow may contain from ten to twenty 
nest chambers, but in the latter case there are usually 
two entrances. The birds, which, on account of the pro- 
tection extended to them through ages, are quite tame, 
take very eagerly to the burrows. As soon as the female 
has laid six eggs the egging commences, and every one 
above that number is taken away, a single bird often 
laying twenty or thirty eggs in a season. The birds are 
so tame that, when the lid is opened, the female still sit3 
on the nest, not walking off into the next room until 
touched by the egg gatherer's hand. When no more fresh 
eggs are found in the nest, the down composing the 
latter is also collected, being in quality nearly equal to 
eider down." 
The importance of the wild fowl to the natives of north- 
ern climes has been indicated, and it is well known that 
in the United States the killing of these birds on their 
migrations and during their winter residence is a matter 
of some commercial m.oment, giving employment to many 
men and requiring the investment of not a little capital. 
Years ago, when the birds were far more numerous than' 
now, isolated posts of the Hudson Bay Company in' 
Canada depended for support during a part of the year 
