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WICE each year with a regularity equaled only by the 

 seasons a great flood of aquatic bird life swings with the 

 sun over the face of our land. They are the wildfowl 

 who constitute this ebb and flow whose pursuit and 

 capture meant so much to our pioneer ancestors and by the same token 

 whose pursuit and capture still mean so much to present day genera- 

 tions, though in another way. 



When with the passing of winter we note the arrowhead flocks drag- 

 ging their harrows northward across the April skies we know them to 

 be the welcome precursors of another vernal season; and again, when 

 later with the dying year their ringing clangor greets our ear as they 

 drift southward toward the land of pine and palm we know with 

 equal certainty another winter is fast following down that flying wedge. 

 America is blest by a wealth of feathered game beyond that of any 

 other country in the world and her sportsmen are in proportion. And 

 of these millions who annually follow the field it is quite within the 

 bounds of truth to assert that the big majority are to be found and 

 numbered in that great brotherhood of game shots known as the fra- 

 ternity of duckshooters. Nor perhaps need this be wondered at, since 

 no class of game birds, may it be said, so excites the admiration and 

 stimulates the interest of the average gunner as do the waterfowl. 



