THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
I have elsewhere called the game-ducks— that is, the surface -feeders. 
From the diving-ducks these may always be distinguished by a different 
style of flight. 
The build of the game-ducks is trim and shapely, while their wings are 
relatively large, and each wing-stroke — though by comparison slow — 
is performed by the whole power of the limb from the body outwards. 
Thus their flight is visibly powerful and stately — ^though perhaps less 
imposing than that of the wild geese. 
The diving-ducks, on the other hand, being short, squat, and heavily 
built, with less ample wing-expanse, progress by far more rapid wing- 
strokes, and those largely effected from the carpal joint outwards — that 
is, by the main quills, the inner half of the wing appearing to serve almost 
as much for the purpose of aerial flotation as of propulsion. While watching 
the two styles of flight, contrasted before my eyes, I have roughly esti- 
mated the mallard’s wing-strokes as well under 200 to the minute ; 
whereas droves of pochards and tufted ducks, travelling at similar speed, 
were doing somewhere about double, or more. 
To set down such estimates — mere guesswork — in cold print is perhaps 
unwise, though previously tested time and again. The excuse is that there 
exist no means of actual proof. Photography may solve such points some 
day— and perhaps upset my calculations ! Meanwhile these aerial evolu- 
tions occur high in air beyond all range of camera. 
Whether the calculations be approximately correct or otherwise, the 
description will at least serve to illustrate the essentially different charac- 
teristics presented by the two groups as seen on the wing. 
Another phenomenon characteristic of the diving -ducks should be 
named before passing on to describe them specifically. It may be termed 
their “ hurricane flight.” 
Let the reader, in imagination, place himself far away amidst those 
vast watery wastes which are still existent here and there in outmost 
corners of the earth, and which form the nuclei and the rendezvous of 
wildfowl in millions. To-day the fowl are perturbed, since guns are 
distributed over leagues of marsh; the heavens above are streaked and 
serried with moving masses, and the still air vibrates with pulsating 
pinions. Constantly a rushing sound, as of a mighty wind, strikes one’s 
ear as some great pack sweeps by overhead — often three or four such 
rushes combined. But there occurs and recurs another and more violent 
sound — almost a roar, as when the backwash of heavy surf grinds and 
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