SOME HARMLESS HUNTING 141 



a slight measure have forgotten the things they 

 learned during the previous fall and winter, on 

 their shot-swept journey to the Gulf and back. 

 The days are now bright and hot, and the birds 

 have a habit of assembling in masses on the 

 mud-bars and the bare shore-line to sun them- 

 selves, thus offering tempting pot-shots for the 

 lens. Also in August the members of the 

 wader tribe are collecting and often share the 

 bars and mud-line with their duck neighbors, so 

 that a camera-shot at this time of the year is very 

 apt to include some of the snipe family. It is 

 true that in the spring the ducks are much more 

 highly colored, and give opportunity for more 

 contrasty negatives, but to offset this advantage 

 the birds then are paired and much scattered 

 and very unapproachable. Also the grass and 

 rushes along the sloughs and ponds have been 

 pounded down by the storms of winter so that 

 the stalker finds it difficult to conceal himself, 

 and to make matters worse for him, the ground 

 with which he must cultivate a very close and 

 clinging acquaintance is usually cold and wet. 



The concourse of things on a mud-bar in the 

 marshes during an August afternoon is an 

 assembly with which any kodak-man or bird- 



