VICISSITUDES OF SINK-BOX SHOOTING § 57 
shot was at one of the last of the flock. The only result 
was a handful of feathers, white as snow, that floated 
in the air for an instant, then drifted slowly downward. 
I fired again at the same goose, leading him ten feet. 
The shot rattled smartly against his body, but the goose 
flew swiftly onward for two hundred yards as though 
nothing was the matter. Then suddenly after a quick 
upward spring of a dozen feet into the air, the goose 
feel dead. Jimmy came out from the reeds, waved his 
hat, and walking out in the mud and water picked up 
the goose. 
I went out and gathered both geese that fell near me 
and laid them over the edge of the sink box. Their 
white bodies were the most prominent things in the 
landscape. Ducks would see them a mile away. So 
I tucked them up in a corner of the sink box, out of 
sight. Dead ducks are generally allowed to lay where 
they fall and act as decoys in places where the water is 
shallow, except when some of the first victims shot are 
retrieved and set up on stakes as decoys. The grand 
pick up is made at the end of the day when the shooting 
is over. 
There were few ducks in sight. Suddenly to my 
great delight ducks of all sorts and sizes appeared flying 
in every direction. They came in large and small flocks, 
in smaller bunches and single birds. A rowboat was 
coming and it scared up all the ducks in the vicinity. 
Ducks are easily frightened when they see a boat, but 
the same ducks will come readily to decoys, if the hunter 
is out of sight. For this reason some people advocate 
a law preventing the use of decoys in duck shooting, 
in order that the duck crop may be perpetuated. 
Frightened ducks rarely fly in to the decoys, but they 
are attracted by them and often come within shot to 
