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Show CANVAS" BACK DUCKS. They Can Fly Two Mile. a Minute and Caa Keep It I P- Dr. Charles Macrum, a wealthy retired re-tired physician of Portland, Ore., for the last three years has devoted hit j time to hunting and fishing and writing ; stories for sporting paps. The doc- j tor has made a study of the soed ol. ) the duck and says tho canvas-back can fly faster than any other member of the ! duck family. j The canvas-back can distance any other duck," said the doctor. ' It can ! fly two miles a minute and keep it up for hours. The mallard is the slowest, I but with an effort can go a mile a minute. The gad wade duck is not ' found in the East often, but is numer- i ous in Oregau. The members of this family can travel eighty miles an hour. The broad-bill duck is almost as swift as the canvas-back, but cannot keep the race as long as the other. 'You may think that geese fly slowet than mallard duck. This is not so. With the slow movement of their big wing they do not appear to be flying rapidly, but they travel from 80 to 100 miles an j hour and keep it up for a day." The doctor tells some interesting-stories interesting-stories about his hunting experiences. When hunting near Madison, Wis., last fall he had a narrow escape from being killed by the body of a duck which had fallen at his feet from tho air about 200 yards above him. "A duck sometimes when wounded will circle around in the air and try to get as high up as possible," said the visitor. "I had wounded a big mallard and it started to circle upward directly over my head. I had a charge of buckshot buck-shot in the other barrel and before it got out of range I fired. One of the bullets must have struck a vital part, for it came down instantly. It was directly di-rectly above mo and hud I not dodged my head just in time its b:dy would have struck me square upon tho head. Jt whizzed past my ear with terrific force nnd fell at my side. There was not a bone in its body that was not broken when I attempted to pick it up. I am certain the blow would have crushed my skull had the body struck mo on the top of the head. "A friend of mine named Bancroft, when duck hunting in Florida, also had a close call. It was just getting dark, and we were waiting in our bouts-behind bouts-behind a pile of weeds, for tho ducks to appear. We heard something come buzzing over the lake and my friend suddenly raised himself in his boat to-see to-see what it was. It was a teal duck. The bird must have been going at the. rate of 150 miles an hour. Just aa Bancroft looked up the duck struck him in tho forehead and knocked him over into the water. Tho blow was so-hard so-hard it stunned him and had I not 1 been there to pull him out ho certainly would have drowned. The blow killed the duck. When I fished it out of the water I found that the bird's breastbone breast-bone was broken." Mrs. Macrum is with her husband. ; ",,," She always travels with him on his I hunting excursions, She is also an j expert shot. One day in the lakes near Madison she killed forty-eight ducks. |