MID-DAY MALLARD SHOOTING FALL. 159 



ducks, try to imitate them as near as possible, and 

 you will be well repaid. 



Now as to why we have this good shoot- 

 ing here in the middle of the day : The 

 ducks, you must know, feed mostly during the 

 night and early morning, and would stay in their 

 feeding-places pretty generally during the day, 

 were it not for being driven from them by the 

 hunters, and to such quiet, out-of-the-way places as 

 this they come simply to rest and to avoid their 

 persecutors. Two or three days' banging uses up 

 these places for a time; but in a feeding-place like 

 the rice-pond one may shoot for weeks, of course 

 varying his stand frequently, as the ducks would 

 naturally avoid a point where a hunter was always 

 to be found. When driven from one of these 

 roosting-places or mid -day resorts by continuous 

 shooting, they congregate in another, which the 

 duck-shooter should know and repair to. That 

 big batch of ducks that came in a short 

 time ago was probably put out of some 

 other slough by some trapper or duck-shooter. 

 This I judge by their quacking and the scattered, 

 irregular manner in which they came, as well as 

 by their large numbers. These smaller flocks 

 and single ducks often get up and come back of 



