BOATS. 307 
What kind of a boat a person requires depends en- 
tirely on where he expects to use it. When he has 
fully made up his mind to have a boat, he should as 
fully and knowingly decide what style of boat he wants. 
Remember this, that there 1; a great similarity in 
duck-shooting on all Western waters, whether in tim- 
ber, river, lake or marsh, and a boat that will do in one 
place will do in almost every other. This being the 
ease the hunter should buy or build one that will an- 
swer for all places. Do not expect to combine great 
speed, sea-going qualities, lightness of draught and 
weight, all in one hunting-boat, or you will be disap- 
pointed. These combined, make too many virtues for 
one frail craft to carry. ‘The one great desideratum in 
a duck-boat, the thing to which every other is as 
naught, is safety above all things else. Bear this in 
mind when you select the boat, so that when you are 
possessed of one, your imagination cannot depict to 
you circumstances and times when you will fear dan- 
ger by upsetting or swamping. Your life is dependent 
on the staunchness and build of your boat. I won't say 
skiff, for a skiff isn’t a hunting boat. It is all right for 
what it is intended, but was never intended to hunt 
with, except as a dray for luggage. When you have 
fully made up your mind on a boat, consider that im 
duck-shooting the boat must be used in lakes and riv- 
ers, In ponds and marshes, in swift-flowing streams, 
streams surging and seething from recent rains and 
melted snows; that unaided by human power, the boat 
carried along at five, six, and even eight miles an hour, 
when coming suddenly around some willow point, is 
driven by the torrent of waters entirely beyond your 
control, it shoots ahead and becomes entangled in sticks 
