IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 369 



you waste your fire even upon the mallards, for upon 

 the right the deep-toned honk of the goose sounds most 

 thrillingly near. But, alas! how can the tyro reason 

 calmly when the hiss of a sailing flock of mallards is 

 heard just behind his head before his premises are 

 thought of, and his conclusion is rudely hastened by a 

 deep, dark line of bluebills pouring out of the remnant 

 of the night upon his left ? 



This lasts, however, but a few minutes. As soon 

 as dawn has fairly begun, the wildfowl travel wider and 

 higher ; you must keep yourself well concealed and do 

 your very best shooting. For an hour or two, and often 

 longer, the flight may be strong and steady, and then it 

 will shade gradually off until you may find yourself 

 waiting fifteen minutes for a shot. The evening flight 

 rises by rapid steps to an overpowering climax, while 

 the morning flight tapers away into all the flatness of 

 the anti-climax. 



One scarcely needs to be told that neither the morn- 

 ing nor evening flight is always during duck season 

 such as I have described it. There are days when ducks 

 will not fly as they will on other days, though they still 

 throng both lake and slough in myriads. At such times 

 the flight of those that do move is more over the face of 

 the water than elsewhere, and then I have had rare 

 sport from a big barrel sunk almost to the edge in the 

 mud and water of Swan Lake, a little below the foot of 

 Senachwine. Through a fringe of reeds around the 

 edge of that barrel I have watched great flocks of mal- 

 lards skim low along the water, until the long, green 



