304 The Heater-fowl Family 



On these little patches the grass grew thick and 

 high, affording ideal cover. At the height of the 

 tide perhaps a foot of water covered them. With 

 low water they were bare, surrounded by flats 

 that reached out into the bay for miles. An hour 

 or so after the ebb tide we took our places in 

 these clumps, set out a few decoys in the shallow 

 water at their edge and waited for the flight. Al- 

 most on the hour it came : first, blackbreast, fly- 

 ing well up over the water in flocks of ten to 

 fifteen, sweeping over the bay from the high outer 

 beaches where they roosted and spent the time at 

 high tide. I remember the first one I shot: it 

 was one of a flock of a dozen or more, and they 

 came right overhead, flying full with the wind. 



But to get back to the blind and decoys. Gen- 

 erally we waited a half-hour for the tide to reach 

 just the right point ; I marked it with a stake, 

 and just as that stake showed I considered the 

 time had come to keep low. Many a time have I 

 looked out on the water from just over the tops 

 of that clump of grass and seen a string of birds 

 leading up from the east, then crouched back 

 again and endured mosquitoes untold until it 

 came time to be up and doing. One morning I 

 shot twelve blackbreast here at a tide; this 

 doesn't sound very big, but the days when I have 

 killed more since have been few. There is some- 

 thing fascinating about a plover over the decoys. 



