50 DUCK SHOOTING. 



and all around, faintly sweet and musically discordant, 

 always softened by distance, like the sound of far-off 

 harps, of sweet bells jangled, of the distant baying of 

 mellow-voiced hounds. Looking up into the sky above 

 him he sees the serene blue far on high, flecked with 

 tiny white moving shapes, which seem like snowflakes 

 drifting lazily across the azure sky; and down to earth, 

 falling, falling, falling, come the musical cries of the 

 little wavies that are journeying toward the south land. 

 They pass, and slowly the sounds grow faint and 

 fainter, and the listener thinks involuntarily of the well- 

 known lines : 



Oh, hark, oh, hear ! how thin and clear, 

 And thinner, clearer, farther going ! 



Oh, sweet and far from cliff and scar 

 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 



These birds and Ross's geese often stop to rest and 

 feed on the Montana plains during their migration. I 

 have more than once killed them with a rifle at St. 

 Mary's Lake in the late autumn, and have started them 

 from the little prairie pools, where they were feeding on 

 a small farinaceous tuber, which is the root of some 

 water plant. 



