"I've shot a good many of the common wild-geese in my time," Mr. Marks resumed; "killed nineteen four years ago. I once knocked down ten out of a flock of thirteen by giving them both barrels. I have a flock of eight now in a pond not far away—broke their wings, you know, and so they can't fly. They soon become tame, and might be domesticated easily, only you must always keep one wing cut, or they will leave in the spring or fall."
"How is that?"
"Well, they never lose their instinct to migrate, and if they heard other wild-geese flying over, they'd rise quick enough if they could and go with them."
"Do you think there would be any profit in domesticating them?" asked practical Leonard.
"There might be. I know a man up the river who used to cross them with our common geese, and so produced a hybrid, a sort of a mule-goose, that grew very large. I've known 'em to weigh eighteen pounds or more, and they were fine eating, I can tell you. I don't suppose there is much in it, though, or some cute Yankee would have made a business of it before this."
"How many ducks do you suppose you have shot all together?" Mr. Clifford asked.
"Oh, I don't know—a great many. Killed five hundred last fall."
"What's the greatest number you ever got out of a flock, Marks?" put in
Burt.
"Well, there is the old squaw, or long-tailed duck. They go in big flocks, you now—have seen four or five hundred together. In the spring, just after they have come from feeding on mussels in the southern oyster-beds, they are fishy, but in the fall they are much better, and the young ducks are scarcely fishy at all. I've taken twenty-three out of a flock by firing at them in the water and again when they rose; and in the same way I once knocked over eighteen black or dusky ducks; and they are always fine, you know."
"Are the fancy kinds, like the mallards and canvas-backs that are in such demand by the epicures, still plentiful in their season?" Webb asked.