Duck-shooting 57 



not wanting. Birds, under these circumstances, 

 are frequently surprised by rounding quick turns 

 in the river; the shooting generally is easy. Some- 

 times the size of the stream is such that the gun- 

 ner can walk through the cover lining the sides 

 and shoot as the ducks rise. In the spring of 

 the year vast tracts of woodland along the larger 

 rivers of the West are flooded, and immense num- 

 bers of mallard, and to a less extent the other 

 varieties of ducks, frequent the inundated woods. 

 Under these circumstances a few decoys help out 

 the shooting. 



In northern Mexico, last year, I enjoyed a 

 novel day's duck-shooting. We started on horse- 

 back, in the early morning, from Laguna, with a 

 Mexican boy to care for the horses. Here the 

 country is one vast arid plain, a continuation of 

 the desert plateau of Arizona and New Mexico. 

 For nine months of the year rain is unknown, 

 and in the spring the only water is found in the 

 shallow mesa lakes, or, rarely, in arroyos, which 

 are river beds cut deep in the soil by the heavy 

 rains of the summer, and at this time well filled 

 with water. At the cessation of the rainy season 

 these rivers quickly run dry, leaving a deep 

 channel. In the few places where water remains 

 in these arroyos, it is resorted to by hundreds of 

 ducks. The river near Laguna, in the spring of 

 the year, is a mere ditch, in places almost dry, 



