254 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 
against the toy 20 bore. In my goose shooting I use a 
30 inch barrel, 10 bore, full choke, weighing 10 lbs. 
loaded with 6 dins. powder, well and solidly wadded, and 
1 oz. No. 2 chilled shot. It is a load used by myself 
and companions while goose shooting for years, and 
there has never been any occasion to complain of the 
result, when geese are within distance, and the shooter 
holds right. 
The goose hunter should never carry with him but 
one kind of call—that, the one Nature furnished him 
with. No other that I have ever seen or heard is a 
success. A fair sample of an artificial call such as is 
usually sold, is one that emits indescribable sounds, 
unlike those ever issued from the throat of any bird, 
which gives one a strange conglomeration of noises, imi- 
tating in part a brant, a goose, a wounded crane, a 
squawking duck and a cat-bird, with the brand “ Goose 
Call” onthe stem. The best place for such a call is in 
the shop. Let the hunter have such an one secreted in 
his pocket, let him go with an experienced shooter in a 
scull-boat on the Mississippi, on a sand bar, in a blind 
on the Missouri, ina bunch of straggling willows on the 
Platte River, in the pits, in the stubble fields of Dakota, 
—blow it once when geese are approaching decoys, 
and he will see frightened geese, a disgusted hunter, 
and a * goose-call”’ crushed to pieces, or disappear float- 
ing and bobbing down stream with the current; while his 
companion casts a look of doubt at him, as if mentally 
pondermg whether or not he is compos mentis to 
bring such a thing as that along. 
It is commonly supposed that goose shooting is very 
simple, and that they are an easy bird to hit. This is 
both true and false —true. when they come slowly 
