THE SCIENCE OF SCULLING WILD FOWL. ZS 
Take in running water in the timber, with an ordi- 
nary skiff, there is a clanging of oars, you row a few 
strokes, and then jerk them in. First one, then the 
other pushes against a tree with an oar, then pulls a 
limb to help along; then grasps one tree to keep you 
from whacking against another. This is the way the 
ordinary boat goes through the timber, making a racket 
that scares every bird within a quarter of a mile. Note 
the difference with a scull-boat, going through the same 
place. The sculler in the stern sees all before him. 
The short boat is always under control. He guides it 
through seemingly impassable places, makes quick turns, 
avoids all obstructions, and moves along hour after 
hour without making a noise or hitting a tree. 
It is remarkable how these boats can be handled by 
an expert. To show how noiselessly they can be run, 
I once sculled toward a mallard drake that was sitting 
on an old pile of drift-wood, half asleep. I tried to see 
how near I could approach him, and actually knocked 
him off the drift when the bow of the boat struck where 
he was sitting. It was amusing to see how frightened 
he was. Another instance to show how nicely one can 
hunt with these boats when others fail. A few years 
ago, in running ice, three of us bagged in one day 112 
mallards and six geese. These were killed in the 
middle of the day, right in the channel of the Missis- 
sippi. At this same time, hunters in the islands were 
getting no shooting at all. The hunter in a scull-boat 
has an advantage over all others. He is generally in 
the open river, where he can see the flight on all sides, 
und mark the spot where ducks light in the pond, tim- 
ber or rice, and is soon among them with decoys, and 
shoots them in that manner. 
