RlVEH SHOOTING. 343 



As we rounded a bend I noticed my friend trying to 

 catch a sight on a big mallard which was swimming 

 ahead of him. "Trying to shoot on the water, are you, 



hey?" said I; "see here " "No, I am not. He's 



dived twice. Hold on ! Whoa ! Back water ! Con- 

 found him ; there he goes again !" And that duck was 

 never seen again. After several such experiences we 

 concluded to shoot on sight. With few exceptions the 

 single ducks would dive instead of flying. It was most 

 provoking to get within thirty yards of a fine duck and 

 then, just as you expect to see him start up to meet an 

 honorable death, see him settle down in the most ap- 

 proved hell-diver style, till his eye just showed above 

 water line, and then dive to shot. These "slinkers," 

 as we called them, were all mallards, though I have 

 seen redheads do the same thing. They were nearly 

 all uninjured, so far as we could see. Sometimes we 

 could see two or three skulking along the edge of the 

 river with their heads down, trying to escape notice till 

 they could hide or dive. The day was very cold, ice 

 formed on our oars so thick that we often had to stop 

 and pound it off, and it struck us that the birds were 

 possibly too numb to fly or had their wing tips frozen 

 fast. A friend afterward suggested that these were all 

 crippled birds, driven in by the freeze, but some of their 

 actions and their numbers precluded the idea with us, 

 though the shooting had been very heavy that fall. 



Meantime imagine us gliding down the swirling cur- 

 rent, between long rows of ice-laden, creaking willows, 

 now running full before the wind, now rounding a bend 



