raft-duck

Definitions

noun The scaup or blackhead duck, Aithyia or Fuligula or Fulix marila: so called in the United States from its flocking closely on the water, as if forming a raft of ducks. Also called bluebill, shuffler, and flocking-fowl. See cut under scaup.

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The sportsman who pitches his tent for a few days on the splendid camping ground of this same shore, will see the pelican, the cormorant, the sea-gull, and gigantic turtles, many of them weighing five hundred pounds; may see the bears exploring the nests for turtles 'eggs; may "fire-hunt" the deer in the forests; chase the alligator to his lair; shoot at the "raft-duck," and fish from the salt-ponds all finny monsters that be.

The Great South; A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland 1875