AFTER GEEENHEADS IN ALBERTA I3I 



standing that lie was to return for me at dark. I Avalked 

 out between the lakes and had twelve greenheads in the) 

 grass before he got the team turned around. I spent 

 an hour hunting for them and did not find one, as I had 

 no dog. I told myself that would not do and looked 

 around for another location. Beyond the further lake 

 a wheat field came down close to the lake and the ducks 

 were flying over the lake and into the field. I waded 

 the lake over to the field and on my way over shot six 

 mallards that I dropped in the water and secured. I 

 went into the field and built a blind out of the grain 

 shocks and set my dead ducks on other shocks as decoys. 



In a, moment the flight started, and although I have 

 seen ducks in Wisconsin, Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska as 

 far back as 1876, where thej?e were as thick as I ever 

 supposed they could be, I must confess that I had never 

 known what ducks in nmnbers were. They came into 

 that field just as they arose in a mass from some little 

 lake perhaps twenty miles away and from hundreds of 

 other lakes near and far away, in flocks a half mile long 

 and a quarter mile wide. Birds that had never been 

 shot at and had never seen a man, thousands and mil- 

 lions of them, and every one an overgrown grain-fed 

 mallard. I did not see a duck of another kind in the 

 two days' shoot. My only regret was that I did not 

 have my 22 automatic, as the 16 gauge was too tame. 



To give you an idea of what it was like, will say that 

 I believe I have the record with a 16-gauge pmnp with 



