WILD DUCKS, " MANY IN SORT."
IN spite of the rise in the price of all provisions before Christmas, wild ducks and wild geese of all kinds have been cheaper than at any time during the last three years. This is due partly to the few days of hard weather. But some other reason mast be found for the cheapness of this form of food. Wild ducks in any number have been on sale at ls. 6d. each, widgeon at from 9d. to ls., and the pintail duck, one of the best of the whole tribe, could be bought for ls., or about the price of a wild rabbit, and this when English tame ducks were sell- ing at from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d., and a Bordeaux pigeon for ls. 4d. General ignorance of the table value of the different kinds of wildfowl other than teal and the common wild duck accounts partly for these low prices. But the number of the ordinary mallards now in the market has been increased from an unexpected quarter, which sends thousands of these birds to the game-dealers much earlier in the season than was formerly the case when only wild-bred ducks were obtainable. It occurred to some enterprising landowners and proprietors of large areas of shooting that as they bred pheasants from eggs gathered from wild birds, or from eggs laid in aviaries, they might also stock their lakes and pools with hand-reared wild ducks. The experi- ment was first tried on a large scale by a North- Country Baronet, the owner of twenty thousand acres near to the sea. It was a great success. The ducks were much more easily reared than are young pheasants, and remained not only on the large pieces of water, but on all the small ponds and pools in the woods, to which they also attracted genuinely wild birds. The estate became a great duck-preserve. Thousands of eggs are gathered in the spring and sold, as well as reared, and the example has spread as near to London as Tring, where great flights of mixed wild ducks, partly hand-reared, may be seen on the reservoirs, and are regularly shot like pheasants. The "game farms" have also added wild-duck farms to their pheasantries, and the birds are purchased by owners of ponds and pools who like to see wild ducks about their property.
Either because these breed a mixed progeny with tame ducks, or from some source not yet discovered, an excellent "new duck" has recently appeared in the game-shops. It is rather larger than a wild duck, and quite as good in flavour, bat has generally patches of white in its plum age. These birds are crosses between the tame duck and more than one wild breed, though the common wild duck is evidently the pre- dominant partner. In addition, tons of widgeon and teal come from the Dutch and Danish decoys, all fresh and in good condition ; and the market, in the absence of any such general taste for good, fresh wildfowl as obtains for very inferior cold-stored game, is often overstocked. Yet it is the exception to buy a flavourless or unwholesome wild duck, though tasteless frozen partridges or willow grouse are eaten in tons. Any web-footed bird outside the three common ducks, the mallard, widgeon, and teal, are known to the game dealers as "fancy dunks." Some of these have always been rare in this country. Others, on the other hand, have no business to be " fancy " ducks at all, but have decreased because of the destruction or neglect of bird-life in districts where some of these ducks, such as the pochard, a near relation of the canvas-backed deck, were taken literally in cartloads, and where it is quite probable that they will again be numerous. Pintail ducks are occasionally seen on the menu of a club dinner and at hotels, almost never in private houses. Pochards, which were taken in great numbers in the Essex decoys, and are perhaps the best of all wild ducks except teal, are not often seen, and then are seldom purchased. They are a gay, red-headed duck, and may easily be distinguished from the cock widgeon because the head of the male is all red, with no light spot, the breast black, and the body rounder and plumper. Pintail are also very ornamental birds, but as they are entirely sea-ducks in their habits, and are only killed in this country by the punt gunners on the coast, they are not likely to increase. They are equally as good as teal in flavour and much larger. If any one could improve the breed in domestication, pintail would take the same place among ducks as woodcock among the snipe family. There is no difficulty in identifying them, as their long tails and the bright white lines down their sides and necks are sufficient to dis- tinguish the " sea-pheasants " from the rest of their kind.
Pochards, on the other hand, come inland as soon as they arrive in this country, and frequent preserved ponds, where, if undisturbed, they would normally be joined by those which are breeding in increasing numbers in this country. The London supply used to come mainly from Essex, where in the island of Mersea and in the covert marshes they were taken in a manner different from that used to decoy other ducks. Pochards are not subject to the curiosity or fascination which makes other ducks follow the decoyman's dog up the pipes, and special pochard - catching apparatus was used. No doubt it caught other ducks too ; but its disuse accounts for the rarity of this duck in the market. Nets were set round the pond, fastened to high poles, which were lowered by pulleys till they lay flat on the ground. When the birds had collected in sufficient numbers the poles were suddenly raised. and the pochards were scared into the nets. In some of the Essex pochard ponds the flights were occasionally so heavy that they overbore the heavy weights with which the poles were loaded as counterpoises, and threw the whole apparatus to the ground. Other " fancy ducks " to be bought in the market at the present time need more care in selection than the species named above, though several are excellent in flavour, and offer a change from the normal bill-of-fare. Among the piles of ducks sent from Holland may often be found a neat greyish bird, much like our tame duck, but with a white mark on the wing, and with plumage beautifully dappled with grey. This is the gadwall, a species now only found in England in Norfolk, but fairly common in Holland, which country absorbs most of the birds there caught for its own use. The chances of finding a gadwall, or the rather more common and almost equally well-flavoured shoveller duck, among the thousands in the market is a minor form of sport to the seeker for novelties for the table among the stores of Leadenhall. The shoveller has a wide, boat-shaped bill, from which it gets its name, and though the female is sober coloured and the male brilliant white, grey, and chestnut, this easily identified bill is common to both. It is a very common bird in North America, where its merits are fully understood.
Garganey, a kind of teal, sent over in considerable quantity from Denmark, is excellent, and being almost as small as the true teal, is usually sold under that name. All other ducks, or duck-like birds, under whatever name they are sold, should be avoided. The Norfolk labourers by the Wash do, it is said, enjoy the "black ducks," or " scoters." which. as Mr. Stevenson remarked, in "addition to a mixed flavour of fish and fowl, have the advantage of being a fine vehicle for onions." In noting that this is the general characteristic of all other sea-ducks we have said enough by way of warning.
But it is a national waste that birds like the pochard, formerly obtainable in commercial quantity in the county adjacent to East London, a bird which, if properly advertised, would fetch a price equal to American canvas-backed ducks, should no longer be procurable in a county like Esser, with its immense area of saltings, sea-marshes, inland reclama- tions, tidal rivers, and fresh-water pools. The birds gather their food from natural sources, and the proper economic proceeding is that they should eat it, and we them. Now, there are only two working decoys left in Essex where the map shows that on the banks of the river Blackwater alone there were seven. It is quite a mistake to suppose that these duck would not collect there if they were allowed to breed in peace, or if the adjacent coast or waters were kept quiet at certain seasons. Off the coast of Denmark, for instance, in a part quite as populous as South and East Essex, there is a wild- fowl decoy on an island where thousands of teal are taken from September till March. The only special legislation which protects it is an order forbidding shooting within two miles of it at sea. But the great increase of fowl due to this decoy - sanctuary amply compensates the neighbourhood b,.yond its bounds. The Essex County Council have now protected all their ducks and wildfowl daring the breeding season. If means could be found to reserve some parts of the coast as sanctuaries throughout the year, the decoys might once more flourish, and the increase of wild ducks which decoys always bring about might benefit both Essex and London.
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