October, 1922 
437 
Waiting in a blind at the mouth of the Connecticut River for a restless black duck to come along 
and usually throws himself backward in 
an attempt to climb upward, giving an 
ideal shot. The mistakes of rising too 
soon and waiting too long are practised 
about equally, I think. If a duck is dart- 
ing toward the decoys he will continue 
unless he sees through the blind or over 
it, so there is no occasion to spoil his 
decision to give you an easy shot, and 
if you wait too long and let him get 
down too low, he wdll skim across the 
surface with surprising speed, presenting 
a difficult cross and angle shot, which 
is an ideal producer of profanity. 
Of course, there are the usual long- 
shots when the duck flys over the blind 
without paying fhe slightest attention to 
the decoys, and at express train speed, 
although on account of his momentum 
and the wind behind him, he seems to 
be moving quite leisurely. It is this 
shooting which gladdens the heart of 
the ammunition manufacturer and has 
very little effect upon the natural in- 
crease of the game in question. 
Regarding this latter point, there is 
no imminent danger of shooting out the 
black-duck. He is hardy and wary and 
does not fall in with the methods which 
result in large kills like his cousins the 
broad-bill and canvas-back. He is large- 
ly a citizen of the state wherein he is 
hunted, having probably been hatched 
and raised on the bank of the very 
pond he is now using for his winter 
quarters. If food becomes scarce or 
the ponds dry up or freeze he migrates, 
but only to more suitable living condi- 
tions. As a' result he is big and fat 
during the beginning of the season, 
which is seldom the case with the 
migrating species after their first fall 
flight from the Arctic regions. 
His worst enemies are spring floods, 
which float the eggs out of the nest, 
and crows, hawks and owls, which not 
only prey upon the young, but are ex- 
ceedingly fond of a diet of duck eggs, 
fresh or otherwise. It is the unwritten 
law of the marsh to pot each and every 
one of these air sharks which come 
within range, even at the risk of spoil- 
ing a prospective shot at a duck, and 
hundreds are killed during each season. 
Added to the duck’s summer enemies 
are the so-called human beings who love 
to kill for the killing sake, and the less 
chance the victim has for escape, or the 
less effort required upon their part, the 
better they like it. I refer to the 
“nimrod” who delights in shooting into 
a flock of half grown ducks in the late 
summer, paddling about in a pond. For- 
tunately this class has become fewer 
each year, as the baymen have learned 
it was to their advantage to protect the 
game for selfish reasons, if no other, 
and reap the benefits when the “sports,” 
as the poor overworked office workers, 
taking a few days vacation, are called 
by them, come clown in the fall with 
open purse and hand. 
Ready to start 
D EGARDING the size of the kills, the 
^ usual ratio between truth and fiction 
prevails, as is usual with all reports as 
to the result of any sport requiring 
prowess and luck. It is common to hear 
of bags of fifty or sixty ducks spoken 
of in an offhand manner by the wor- 
shippers at the shrine of the black-duck, 
but when these tales are true it usually 
happens that four or five were in the 
party and two days’ shooting were en- 
joyed to round out that number. A 
person killing single handed ten black- 
ducks has had a wonderful day and 
need not be ashamed to match hags with 
anyone at the show-down. The legal 
limit in the State of Delaware is twenty- 
five ducks per day, per man, and I can 
safely say that no law among the 
archives of the Diamond State is less 
liable to infraction than this one. I will 
not say how much credit the hunters 
deserve, however, for their law abiding 
tendencies. If the Volstead law \vas as 
little violated there would be a terrible 
increase in deaths from pneumonia and 
influenza, I have no doubt. 
The black-duck is sometimes given a 
more euphoneous title such as a black 
mallard, etc. However, such embellish- 
ments arc entirely unnecessary ; all who 
know him, respect him and his prowess ; 
he is a native son and knows native con- 
ditions, and how to handle them ; he can 
be fooled, but it requires skill, patience 
and no end of hard, cold work, early 
and late, but at the end, when he is 
removed from the piping hot oven of 
the old shipmate range, after a quick 
twenty-minute hake, five pounds of flesh, 
fat and muscle, flavored by the wild 
things which grow upon the wind-swept 
marshes, he may well he called “the 
noblest Roman of them all.” 
