362 DUCK SHOOTING. 



Hitherto the ducks had all come from the level of 

 the horizon. But now, from on high, with a rushing, 

 tearing sound, as if rending in their passage the canopy 

 of heaven, down they came out of the very face of 

 night. With wings set in rigid curves, dense masses of 

 bluebills came winding swiftly down. Mallards, too, 

 no longer with heavy beat, but with stiffened wings 

 that made it hiss beneath them, rode down the darken- 

 ing air. Sprigtails and other large ducks came sliding 

 down on long inclines with firmly set wings that made 

 all sing beneath them. Blue-winged teal came swiftly 

 and straight as flights of falling arrows, while green- 

 wings shot by in volleys or pounced upon the scene with 

 the rush of a hungry hawk. In untold numbers the 

 old gray goose, too, came trooping in, though few came 

 near enough to give us a fair shot. Nearly all of them 

 steered high along the sky until over Senachwine Lake, 

 or Swan Lake — a little below us to the northwest — 

 then, lengthening out their dark strings, they descend- 

 ed slowly and softly in long spiral curves to the bosom 

 of the lake. Brant, too, dotted the western and north- 

 ern skies, marching along with swifter stroke of wing 

 and more clamorous throats, until over the water's 

 edge, then slowly sailing and lowering for a few hun- 

 dred feet in solemn silence, suddenly resumed their 

 cackle, and, like a thousand shingles tossed from a bal- 

 loon, went whirling, pitching, tumbling and gyrating 

 down to the middle of the lake. Far, far above all these, 

 and still bathed in the crimson glow of the fallen sun, 

 long lines of sandhill cranes floated like flocks of down 



