348 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 
where you feel they will give you the best opportunity 
to shoot. 
Drcoys——The reader has noticed the partiality I have 
shown in this book toward decoys. In doing so I have 
no apology to offer, for it has been my constant aim 
and desire to disclose to you the secrets of the art of 
hunting wild fowl successfully, as constant practice, 
unlimited opportunities, and over twenty years’ experi- 
ence has demonstrated to me: and I can confidently 
say there is no other one thing that goes so far toward 
making an expert duck shooter, as a fuil knowledge 
and the proper use of decoys. When a boy, like all 
thoughtless urchins, my success in duck-shooting de- 
pended on luck. Decoys at that time seemed like 
harmless blocks of wood, created for the purpose of ex- 
ercising my patience, when they became tangled to- 
gether (which it seemed to me they always did). Then 
to think of picking them out of the ice cold water. 
Ugh! This thought alone was sufficient to drive cold 
chills down my back, and I studiously avoided their 
use. As later years added experience to my hunting 
education, the follies and errors of my youth Gn this 
respect) were fully apparent, and I have tried to remedy 
them; and now I never go duck-shooting without de- 
coys, and every expert in wild fowl shooting will bear 
me out when I say they are one of the absolute neces- 
sities of a hunting outfit. Of course, at times, they are 
in the way, and inconvenient,—an acknowledged nuis- 
ance; but for all this trouble the fruits of our labor are 
received when we see the decoys floating idly in the 
still water, so quiet, so inactive, with mallards, pin- 
tails, red-heads, and all the shoal water ducks quacking 
out greetings to them, and with lightning swish drop- 
