AFTER GREENHEADS IN ALBERTA 1 33 



ing with the shooters and game wardens that a man is 

 entitled to 200 ducks in a season, and if he wants to kill 

 his season's shoot in one day he can do so. 



On the second day, while shooting from the rat house, 

 I noticed a fringe of brush about a quarter of a mile 

 from me and at no time during the day when I looked 

 in that direction did I fail to see a long string, not a 

 fioek, of ducks going over the brush. These strings of 

 ducks were from a quarter to a half mile long, thou- 

 sands of them in each string. I do not know what was 

 on the other side of the brush, but presume it must have 

 been a wheat field. There were so many birds coming 

 into the lake where I was that I did not take the trouble 

 to go over and learn what the attraction beyond the 

 brush was. 



One of the greenlicads I shot was as large as a small 

 brant. He was just like some that we get on our Sound \ 

 preserve in Washington and which come from the cross 

 between the Kouen duck and mallard drake. Very j 

 strange if he was raised on our preserve and then shot 

 by me in faraway Alberta. 



I have hunted ducks since 1876 and I truly believe I 

 saw more mallards in the two days' shoot than I have 

 seen in the combined years since I shot my first bird. 



I learned why the boy on the farm could not tell me 

 how many flocks came into the field a day. When they 

 got to his field there was no flock left, just ducks in all 

 directions, and then some more. Do you wonder that I 

 am a little lonesome for the smell of that marsh today? 



