54 “COME DUCK SHOOTING WITH ME” 
chaps paid no attention to any kind of whistle. It 
seemed odd they should change their social habits with 
their coat. Perhaps when traveling they were afraid 
of ‘‘confidence’”’ men. 
A mudhen came flying from the reeds on the marshes’ 
edge, saw the decoys, and pitched down to them, tobog- 
ganning along ten feet on the surface of the water before 
coming proudly to a standstill. The mudhen gave the 
decoys a haughty stare and then turned her back on 
them and began feeding. I picked up a junk of mud 
and threw it at her. Alarmed, with wings widely waving 
and legs paddling, she shot fifteen feet along the 
surface of the water before rising in the air and then 
flew back to the safer shelter of the marsh grass. 
It was warm. The wind had died away, leaving the 
surface of the lake as smooth as glass. There was no 
flight of ducks, but several single birds, a pair of teal 
and four spoonbill, flew in and alighted to the decoys at 
various intervals during the morning. They either 
flew in a minute, or if they stopped longer would begin 
preening their feathers and sometimes pretended to feed 
a little. But all, in every instance, seemed to know 
something was wrong. Gradually they would drift 
sixty yards away from the decoys, then with heads up 
look the decoys over for a minute or two and fly away. 
I did not shoot at any of them. 
There was one wily cock pintail, that was certainly 
puzzled. He circled round and round, out of shot, 
carefully looking over my outfit of decoys a dozen times. 
At last he came in and dropped down within two feet 
of the water, then suddenly changing his mind, he rose 
again on hurried wings and made off, looking back as 
he went as if to say ‘‘you almost fooled me that time.”’ 
Even then he wasn’t satisfied but circled three times, 
