INTRODUCTION, 15 
confinement, who enjoys the pure air, the refreshing 
prairie winds, the glad sunshine, far from city life. One 
should not hunt for the purpose of seeing what havoc 
he can make among the feathered tribe, nor participate 
in indiscriminate slaughter on a chosen site, for club 
hunts are barbarous; rather let him go forth for wild 
fowl in the crisp October air, when leaves are fluttering 
to the earth, when the woods and fields assume a sombre 
hue, when sighing winds breathe through the tree tops, 
when the acorns are dropping, and the pattering of the 
shucks beneath some. tall hickory tree tells him the 
fox squirrel is laying in his winter’s store. One who 
cannot enjoy such scenes, destiny did not intend fora 
hunter. 
“Come forth into the light of things, 
Let Nature be your teacher, 
One impulse from the vernal wood 
May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 
Than all the sages can.” 
A creative mind made all animate things subservient 
to the will of man, and if the amateur hunter will but 
try, it is within his power to divine the thoughts of 
wild fowl as readily as the stars are read in the sky. 
A study is therefore necessary of the habits and resorts 
of these birds, where they are going and why, their 
peculiar calls, whether they are cries of fright, or in- 
nocent cacklings of satisfaction. 
As the mallard is the duck universally found through- 
out the West, it is the one most fully treated of. Snipe 
cannot strictly be classifiedas wild fowl, but being found 
in the marsh I have taken the liberty to write of them, 
believing the reader will justify me after reading the 
article. 
