26 DUCK SHOOTING. 



of day in the open water far from the shore and not 

 to visit their feeding grounds until evening or even 

 dark night. In many places along the New England 

 coast it is the practice during cloudy nights, when the 

 moon is large, to visit the hills in the line of flight to 

 shoot at the ducks and geese which fly over from their 

 daily resting place on the salt water to their nightly 

 feeding ground in ponds, rivers and shallow bays, or 

 before daylight in the morning, to resort to the same 

 places, in the hope of getting a shot at the birds as they 

 fly back toward the sea. 



During moonlight nights the birds frequently feed 

 at intervals all night long, and in many places advan- 

 tage is taken of this habit to shoot them either by 

 moonlight or by fire lighting. 



Ducks are found all over the world, and appear 

 equally at home in the tropics and on the borders of the 

 Arctic ice. There are about two hundred known 

 species, of which not far from sixty are found in North 

 America. Their economic importance is due not 

 merely to the fact that they occur in such numbers as 

 to furnish a great deal of food for man, but also be- 

 cause of the feathers and down which they produce. 

 To the inhabitants of many regions they furnish cloth- 

 ing, in part, as well as food. In some parts of the 

 world, whole communities are largely dependent for 

 their living on the products of these birds, subsisting 

 for portions of the year entirely on their flesh and eggs, 

 and deriving a large part of their revenue from the 

 sale of feathers and down. Many examples might be 



