100 GAME-BIRDS AT HOME. 



down upon me. Over the bluffs on the west 

 where the land rolled into the vast expanse of 

 the prairie they came, no longer single spies but 

 in battalions, and swifter than the wind itself 

 thousands came riding the last beams of the sink- 

 ing sun. The sky above was dotted with con- 

 verging strings or wedge-shaped masses from 

 which fell the sonorous Honk of the Canada goose 

 or the clamorous cackle of brant. And in all di- 

 rections single ducks, ducks in pairs and in small 

 bunches, were darting and whizzing. Wilson's 

 snipe was pitching about in tortuous flight, plover 

 drifted by with tender whistle, blue herons, bit- 

 terns, and snowy egrets with long necks doubled 

 up and legs outstretched, flapped solemnly across 

 the scene, while yellowlegs and sandpipers filled 

 in the openings. 



A wild and wondrous scene this '* evening 

 flight," and quite incredible to-day the numbers 

 in which the Avater-fowl once thronged at night- 

 fall the choice resorts of the West. Yet what I 

 had so far seen was but the advance-guard of an 

 army whose numbers were beyond concep- 

 tion. 



When I shot the last of the two blue-winged 



