242 A-MEKICAJSr GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 



they merely walk beside a trained horse, mule, or ox, and 

 shoot away at the birds until they have killed all they 

 want, and then send the animal to retrieve them . If a west- 

 ern wag is to be relied on, he had a mule that Avas so expert 

 in this sort of work that it would flush the geese when 

 told to do so, and bring them ashore if they fell into a 

 river or a lake. He offered to show me this wonderful 

 creature, but as I had some doubts about its. cleverness I 

 did not care to see it, for I had had a brief experience of 

 his fondness for jokes. 



The easiest method for shooting geese on the plains is 

 to approach them gradually under cover of a horse or an 

 ox, and open fire on them with a huge weapon, known 

 locally, as a "scatter cannon," until they seek safer 

 quarters. Market hunters have been known to eani as 

 much as a hundred dollars a day by this system of wild- 

 fowling and sometimes more, as the birds are valued 

 at from fifty cents to a dollar each, and from ten to forty 

 are bagged at every discharge of the western piece of ord- 

 nance. I have seen flocks which were so indifferent to 

 the noise of firing that they would merely rise or " clmib," 

 as the jDrofessional hunters have it, a few feet in the air, 

 and, after honking their alarm and their sense of annoy- 

 ance at being disturbed, return to the ground again, and 

 remain there until the shooting made them take to the 

 wing once more. Some persons manage to secure large 

 bags by digging holes in the stubble-fields and covering 

 them with straw, and then blazing away at the geese 

 when they come to feed. These men tie the birds which 

 they have wounded to stakes driven in the ground, and 

 use them as decoys to lure their congeners to destruction, 

 for they are exceedingly clamorous callers. Dead geese, 

 if properly grouped, are also useful decoys, but their at- 

 titudes should be as natural as possible, or they may do 

 more harm than good. 



If the ground is covered with snow, the wild-fowler 



