Oct. 29, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
695 
Ducks and Duck Shooting. 
Most gunners know—but not all—that nature 
has divided ducks into two broad classes, the 
divers, and the non-divers. Ducks of the first 
class, having their feet or paddles well behind, 
can, by diving, obtain their food from the bot¬ 
tom of even quite deep water. The non-diver, 
on the contrary, feeds on the flats or in water 
so shallow, that the bottom can be reached by 
the head and neck only being put under water. 
The object of these different organizations is 
evidently to increase the range of their food. 
The divers readily reach the marine plants, which 
grow on the bottom, and the smaller Crustacea 
and insects, also found there; whereas the non¬ 
divers consume the food found at or near the 
surface, or on the flats or mud-banks tempo¬ 
rarily left bare. 
The divers needing light for their search for 
food in deep water, feed almost wholly in the 
day time. The non-divers on the contrary, feed 
principally at night, and are guided probably 
to their food by their sense of smell, which in 
most of the class is quite acute. 
Ducks are large feeders. To propel a body 
of several pounds’ weight through the air, at a 
speed of 50 or 60 miles an hour, requires great 
expenditure of muscular energy, which can only 
be supplied by much nourishment. Besides, 
ducks are cold weather birds, and their animal 
heat must be kept up by much fuel in the form 
of food. It is apparent, therefore, how in¬ 
geniously nature has provided for the multipli¬ 
cation and liberal support of waterfowl, by 
doubling as it were their feeding grounds, and 
making the bottom as well as the surface and 
shores of the water, tributary to their support. 
The different habits of these two classes of 
ducks perhaps explain the extraordinary dif¬ 
ference in their mental endowment. The non¬ 
divers are very intelligent birds and in their 
keenness of observation and power of drawing 
inferences as to danger from very slight cir¬ 
cumstances, they are equal to, if they do not 
surpass man. 
The divers, on the contrary, like the sea 
coot, the canvasback, the redhead, the bluebill 
or bay widgeon, etc., are dull birds, with ap¬ 
parently limited observation, and are slow to 
avoid danger. But this class of ducks live and 
feed on broad waters, and can only be ap¬ 
proached by boats which are easily noticeable, 
so that the approach of danger is sufficiently 
obvious, even' to their sluggish observation. 
The non-divers feed near the shore, often 
quite close to high reeds or bushes, which 
allows a stealthy approach of their enemies; a 
constant hazard, to be avoided only by their 
higher organization and the development of 
their powers of observation. 
The diving fowl come more readily to decoys. 
They fly but a few feet above the level of the 
water, and so have a limited range of observa¬ 
tion. They will light among decoys, set near 
an open boat, or a boat slightly concealed by 
bushes. If shot from the shore with decoys, a 
very slight screen is sufficient for the shooter. 
They have apparently little or no sense of 
smell. They rise slowly and heavily from the 
water, and at an acute angle with the surface, 
and although among this class are some ducks, 
like the canvasback, which afford the most de¬ 
licious food, they are far less interesting to the 
sportsman, and require much less of his care, 
patience and skill for their capture. 
They are largely shot in the Chesapeake and 
Currituck waters from batteries, which are 
boxes sunk to the water’s edge, in which the 
shooter lies down for concealment. 
The non-divers, like the mallards, the black 
and gray duck, the bald pate or American 
widgeon, fly high in the air, approach their feed¬ 
ing grounds or the decoys 30 yards or more 
up in the air, and then only after a close 
scrutiny and observation of all surrounding 
objects. They differ from the divers by not 
usually alighting among the decoys and by 
sailing a few yards above them; they come up 
ON THE DUCKING GROUNDS. 
from the leeward and fly either into or across 
the wind, and in so doing, if they detect any 
motion or recognize the artificial character of 
the decoys, they spring into the air, with the 
wind under their wings, and are out of range 
often in less than a second’s time. 
They also have the power, if alarmed when 
sitting on the water, of springing six or eight 
feet up into the air, like a quail or partridge 
when flushed, and making off with great 
rapidity. 
Apparently they have keen power of scent; 
for frequently when the wind drifts them into 
the line of the scent of the sportsman in his 
stand, they will instantly, even at a distance of 
50 or 60 yards, recognize the danger, and 
escape it by rapid flight across the wind. 
M. 
News of the critical illness of Wm. Dutcher, 
President of the National Association of Audu¬ 
bon Societies, will bring sorrow to many hearts 
all over the land. 
On account of Mr. Dutcher’s illness the sub¬ 
scription dinner planned by the National Asso¬ 
ciation of Audubon Societies for the evening of 
Tuesday, Oct. 25, was given up. The annual 
business meeting of the association, however, 
was held on that date at the American Museum 
of Natural History, New Yo^k city, at 2 o’clock. 
Strange that Our Game is Gone! 
In the days when such birds were far more 
numerous than they are to-day, great quantities 
of ducks, geese and shore birds were killed, but 
they were obtained by the use of the muzzleload¬ 
ing gun. In the days of the flint lock the prim¬ 
ing often became damp and the gun ‘ hung fire 
or failed to go off, and the more modern muzzle- 
loader was subject to similar troubles in stormy 
weather. The gunner with the muzzleloader had 
to take time to load, and if hidden in a blind, 
his motions in ramming home the charge often 
betrayed his position. The breechloader does 
away with all this and enables the gunner to 
load quickly. With the automatic gun he can 
shoot charge after charge into a flock of birds 
before they can get out of range. By using live 
decoys he can kill more birds to-day where biids 
are plentiful than could the hunter of old with 
his primitive weapon. It is almost impossible 
to get any figures regarding the number of birds 
shipped to market or sold, but many people now 
living can remember when passenger pigeons and 
prairie chickens from the West were received by 
the ton in our Eastern markets. Dr. D. G. 
Elliot states that a game dealer in New York 
received twenty tons of prairie chickens in one 
consignment in 1864, and that some of the larger 
dealers sold from 150,000 to 200,000 birds in six 
months. Prof. Aughey, who gathered statistics 
regarding the destruction of quail and prairie 
chickens in Kansas from 1865 to 1877, asserts 
that about 450,000 of these birds were killed each 
year on the average in thirty counties of Kansas 
alone. 
Eighty tons of passenger pigeons were sent 
from one county in New York to the market in 
New York city in 1848, and at least 300 tons 
were dispatched from Petoskey, Mich., in 1878. 
Sullivan Cook states that there were caught and 
shipped in forty days from Hartford, Mich., 11,- 
880,000 pigeons. Also that in the two succeed¬ 
ing years one-third more than that number were 
shipped from Shelby or 15,840,000 birds. When 
it is considered that this traffic went on wherever 
the pigeons appeared, and that they were slaugh¬ 
tered at all seasons, particularly while nesting, 
there is no mystery in the extinction of the wild 
pigeon. The demands of our markets are 
greater than ever, but they cannot be supplied. 
The tons of prairie chickens, quail, pigeons, 
Eskimo curlews, golden plover and upland plover 
that once came into Boston and New York mar¬ 
kets in barrels are gone, and the market men 
are reaching out everywhere to find game to 
take their place. They are now getting wild¬ 
fowl, rabbits, guinea hens or anything that can 
be legally sold. J. Henry Rice., Jr., secretary 
of the Audubon Society of South Carolina, 
writes me that he has seen 5,000 mallards and 
black ducks brought into Georgetown for ship¬ 
ment to the north in one day. He has seen 
woodcock hauled to the market in wheelbar¬ 
rows. A single firm in Georgetown has mar¬ 
keted 240,000 rail birds, and 720,000 bobolinks 
have been shipped in one season. Verily the 
markets are in dire straits for game. 
Notwithstanding the many restrictions on the 
marketing of native wild game, enormous quan¬ 
tities of game birds are still sold, and the laws 
protecting them are often violated by unscrupu¬ 
lous dealers. In 1903, 42,759 birds were found 
illegally in the possession of cold storage houses 
