PIN-TAIL DUCK. 22K 
are limited. In the spring they come in countless 
thousands, and are the first ducks to arrive. Still they 
are not premature in their coming, for their barometer 
is so infallible that when they have once put in an 
appearance, experience warrants us in feeling that 
spring has really come, and the cold weary days of 
winter are over. 
When the snow melts and little rivulets are running 
over the prairie forming broad open sheets of water, 
observable from all points, then these wary birds come, 
and alighting far out in the open, beyond the possibility 
of harm, sit and chatter the long day through. When 
the hunter, with the sky in the background, looms 
up plainly to view, they see him; he may try to 
get near them, but it is useless, for they fly long be- 
fore he can get within gunshot of them. Their food 
consists of seed, acorns, corn and waste materials that 
the spring freshets float over the low lands. They are 
high-flyers, indeed the greatest sky-scrapers of the duck 
species. When they are frightened while feeding or 
resting, they rise to a height of from 80 to 100 yards, 
and then fly over the low lands and timber, just out of 
gun range. I have seen them flying this way for hours. 
How tantalizing they are! The hunter may stand in 
his blind, or he concealed in some grassy spot; flock 
after flock will pass over him, just so high that he can- 
not reach them. They are not silent company, for they 
keep up an incessant chattering and whistling. It is 
not possible to illustrate on paper just how this chatter- 
ing is done, but a faint conception of it may be had by 
saying as fast as one can, ‘ Chuck-a-chuck-a-chuck,” 
repeating at least three times, the tongue must be glib, 
and it must run under 160 pounds pressure, as the 
