1^2 DUCK SHOOTING. 



and the natural result was that the ducks, geese, swans 

 and blue-peters which occupied the open water seemed 

 crowded together as thickly as possible. Much of the 

 day was spent on top of the club house, studying the 

 waters with the glass, watching the movements of the 

 birds, marveling at their inconceivable numbers. All 

 around the horizon, except on the landward side — that 

 is to say, for 270 degrees of the circle — birds were seen 

 in countless numbers. Turning the glasses slowly 

 along the horizon from northwest to north, east, south 

 and southwest, there was no moment at which clouds of 

 flying fowl could not be seen in the field of sight, and 

 yet, notwithstanding the numbers of birds seen on the 

 wing, the air holes seemed to be packed with fowl, and 

 great bunches of geese and swans stood and walked 

 about on the ice. 



"Away to the north were three large air holes, two of 

 which were white with canvas-backs, while in the third 

 one, geese were the prominent fowl, although many 

 canvas-backs were constantly leaving and coming to it. 

 Off to the southeast, at the south mouth of the Little 

 Narrows, was quite an extent of open water occupied 

 by a horde of geese, two large bunches of blue-peters 

 and some thousands of common ducks. In the Little 

 Narrows, a deep but narrow channel flowing close by 

 the house, were great numbers of ducks feeding, and in- 

 deed on that Sunday one might have sat on the boat- 

 house dock and killed from thirty to fifty birds as they 

 traded up and down the Narrows. 



"In the afternoon three or four of us walked down to 



