Mcallen Daily Monitor

Ducks, says Will J. Tucker, secretary of the game, fish and oyster commission, are good travellers but they like to move by easy stages.

Their journey from winter feeding grounds in Texas and other southern states to the summer breeding territory in Canada and northwestern United States probably has started and will continue through March, he said.

They will fly 100 miles or so in a day, Tucker said, and then rest and eat for several days. Under some conditions they may fly 1,000 miles in a day. The weather is a factor.

Ducks do most of their feeding at night. Geese feed in the day and rest at night.

Hard times struck the duck world in recent years, Tucker said. Between drought and drainage of marsh lands, the supply has been greatly diminished.

"After the World War," he explained, "in the northern half of the United States alone more than 17,000,000 acres of marsh land were drained.

"In many instances the drainage turned it into worthless agricultural areas that had been valuable for duck breeding and feeding. Drainage not only reduced the available supply of ducks but lowered the water table and intensified effects of the drought.

"It has been estimated that marshlands drained were capable of producing 170,000,000 ducks annually. If they actually had produced one-fourth of that number, or 40,000,000, it would have been as many as made the southward migration last year."