30 DUCKING DAYS 



where the ducks were feeding, make a blind around the 

 boat of sweet bay, and shoot over blocks. We had 

 seventy blocks, all redheads. It was not long before the 

 ducks began to come back. They came in flocks — big, 

 little and middling. The redhead is first cousin to the 

 canvasback, and except for its stockier build is easily 

 mistaken for the canvasback. Redheads are what Ben 

 Harrison used to come out to Havana, Illinois, to shoot 

 when he was President. Grover Cleveland, like most 

 of us, shot anything with a duck bill, but Ben Harrison 

 wanted what he wanted. The redhead decoys very much 

 like a mallard, but comes in to decoys as a rule with a 

 single turn when it is coming down wind, or straight in 

 like a teal up^vind. It is a prince of ducks, a beauty in 

 the air, a delectable dish. Its failure to weave around 

 in the sky and first reconnoiter all the surroundings, as 

 a mallard does, enables it to take by surprise for a bit 

 one who isn't accustomed to its habit. I used a double- 

 barreled gun, and learned after a little occasionally to 

 get two with one barrel, making possible three. I didn 't 

 always do that, but it was what I was trying to do when 

 ] didn't. You get me, I guess. 



We were content with little that first afternoon, and 

 had redhead for dinner. Some dinner, that. We had 

 sea trout, and whatever else the fat of the coast pro- 

 vided. Then we lighted our pipes and talked about the 

 things duckshooters like. . There would, of course, be 



