OZ WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 
cellent shooting may be had in a certain locality, while 
at other times in the same place, under apparently the 
same circumstances, no shooting will be found. This 
is explainable. The first time they found plenty of 
water and food; the second, they found neither; or, 
perhaps the water and no food. Mallards want plenty 
of water; they must have itand will have it. If they 
cannot find it ina place they are accustomed to frequent, 
they will seek other places and keep going until they 
do find it. This water they don’t want to drink, but 
they want it to live in, to moisten up the soil, to soften 
the mud, so they can get at the acorns, to make rank 
rushes and rice roots, to cause a place where wild rice 
and berries and smart-weed can and will float on the 
surface, so they may swim through and among the rice 
stalks feeding as they go. 
There is a marked difference in the flesh of mallards. 
This difference is noticeable among those killed in 
wooded places, where they feed on seeds, larvee, and 
acorns, and those which feed exclusively in corn fields, 
—the latter are much finer eating, more juicy, and when 
ready for baking, their plump bodies present a golden 
appearance, precisely the color of the corn they had 
eaten. I do not wish to be understood as saying that 
those killed on timbered rivers are not fat and good 
eating, but they will not average as well in fatness as 
their corn-fed cousins. The plumpest, heaviest lot 
of mallards I ever saw were killed by a friend of mine 
and myself, while hunting in Western Iowa some years 
ago. We killed one hundred and thirty-six, and they 
were the handsomest lot of ducks I ever saw,—before 
orsince. ‘They were shot in the stubble and cornfields 
in Hamilton county. It was in the month of November ; 
