346 AMERICAIS" GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 



wood they can find, in order to produce as much glare as 

 possible. When the geese see this, they rise in the air in 

 vast clouds and honk their alarm, but, instead of fleeing, 

 they hover over the treacherous beacons until many of 

 them are brouglit down by the concealed fowlers, or the 

 noise of the prolonged shooting scares them away. I 

 heard of a man in Dakota who filled his wagon with 

 birds in two hours by this method; and of another, in 

 Minnesota, who killed three thousand in ten days; but 

 such work is slaughter, not sport, and I refer to it simply 

 to show how numerous the geese are in some portions of 

 the country. Killing the birds in this manner is heavy 

 labor, and often the cause of disease, as the men are Ha- 

 ble to catch severe colds, or be seized with an attack of 

 rheumatism that may cling to them for life. Sink-box 

 shooting is also most disagreeable work, as the weather is 

 often severe enough to almost freeze the wild-fowlers into 

 inanimate statues, and they dare not lift hand or foot for 

 fear of scaring the birds away. The result is, that they 

 are sometimes so benumbed that they cannot handle tlieir 

 weapons, and so stiff from lying in a cramped position 

 on a very hard bed, that they can hardly move for some 

 time after emerging from their coffin. 



AYild geese are exceedingly abundant along the Missouri 

 River from October to December, but about tlie first or 

 the middle of the latter month they begin to seek a more 

 genial climate. Their honking may then be heard at all 

 hours of the day and night, as they move southward m 

 heavy V and W-shaped lines. They are, as a rule, m their 

 winter quarters by Christmas, and from that time until 

 the following spring the bays, lakes, and rivers of Florida, 

 Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and the con- 

 tiguous regions, fairly teem with tliem. They seldom 

 alight in woods when they rest during their migrations, 

 unless they are very weary or liave lost tlieir way in the 

 fog; but when they do, they produce a tremendous up- 



