ISO DUCK SHOOTING. 



Like many others of our game birds, the canvas-back 

 during the last few years has learned a good deal. Al- 

 ways a shy and wary bird and difficult of approach, it 

 has learned to avoid the shores, and perhaps is grad- 

 ually learning to avoid the bush-blind. As its diving 

 powers are great and it is not obliged to fly over the 

 land to get to its feeding grounds, it spends its time in 

 great rafts, on the shallow open waters of such sounds 

 as Currituck, Pamlico, Core and Albemarle, feeding 

 safe from danger, and during the morning and evening 

 hours taking its exercise by flying great distances up 

 and down the sounds, high in air, far above the reach of 

 any gun. It is only in dull and rainy weather, when 

 the wind blows hard, that the canvas-backs come in 

 from the open water to seek the shelter of a lee of the 

 marsh, but when such weather comes and the gunner is 

 properly located, the canvas-backs will come to his de- 

 coys as readily as any other ducks. In the same way, 

 when — as happens usually at least once each year — a 

 cold snap closes the waters of the sound, leaving only a 

 few air holes, where warm springs or swiftly moving 

 currents keep the waters open, the canvas-back and 

 other fowl resorting to these open spots may be killed 

 in great numbers. On such an occasion, in January, 

 1900, I saw canvas-backs in numbers greater than I 

 ever beheld before. An account of this flight, pub- 

 lished in Forest and Stream, is as follows : 



"I have recently had an opportunity of being brought 

 into what I may call close association with the greatest 

 pi all the wildfowl, the superb canvas-back duck, and 



