SHOOTING MALLARDS FROM A SCULL BOAT. 6] 
the snore of that quiet bay, is the home of Johnson, the 
fisherman. Often, in passing the place in the dim 
twilight, those huge reels on which you see the nets 
are set out against the sky so dimly, that a very feeble 
stretch of the imagination brings before me, a Don 
Quixote and some Rozinante charging these wind- 
mill looking reels ; and I can see him repulsed, by the 
impetuosity of his charge, unhorsed, but not discour- 
aged. This island just below us is the dividing point the 
head of Ilinois slough. The slough winds its narrow 
length, serpentine like, and empties into the Mississippi 
fully twelve miles below. 
We will go down the river! The continuous bang- 
ing we now hear will drive the ducks into the river, or on 
the islands in the river, where the hunter with muzzle- 
loader, zulu, and black hat won’t bother them. Certain- 
ly! Inoticed them some time ago. They must be 
holding some kind of a convention, there is such a 
big raft of them right in the channel. Down they go! 
Those were red-heads! Could tell by the way they 
lit. No circling, no flying around ; they flew straight 
and struck the water. The force of their flight sliding 
them along like a boy on ice. Look at those pin-tails ! 
They drop as iffrom the clouds. Those mallards ; how 
they circle, and then, when ready to light, flutter over 
the place picked out as if in doubt. See the blue-bills 
dart in with a swish! Pretty good! That flock of 
blue-winged teal pass them by contemptuously, in 
spite of the frequent calls. Dainty little fellows! 
They are bound for some mud-bank or rice-bed. We 
will hug this bank until the current brings them oppo- 
site, or nearly so; then, holding the bow a little up 
stream, will gradually work out and they will drift 
