372 DUCK SHOOTING. 



birds, and both ducks and geese come to such fields to 

 feed. Often, while gathering the corn, the men will 

 see a flock of ducks fly into the field, and after making 

 a circle or two, alight perhaps in some little pool of 

 water in a low spot. Very likely the gun is standing 

 ready in the wagon, and one of the men takes it, and 

 having lined down the birds, creeps close enough to 

 them to get a pot shot as they are sitting on the water. 

 Or, if the harvest has been gathered, and it is seen that 

 the birds are regularly coming into the fieldc, the gun- 

 ners may go out and lie down on the ground near the 

 feeding places of the birds, and perhaps get a number 

 of shots in a morning. Such shooting, however, is 

 merely incidental — the picking up of a few birds when 

 the opportunity occurs. 



It is after the weather begins to get cool, when the 

 little ponds and sloughs are frozen over, so that the 

 ducks can no longer feed in the shallow water at their 

 margins, that they seem most anxious to get into the 

 cornfields. Often they will come in great numbers, 

 from distant open waters, and for a time will give sur- 

 prisingly good shooting. A few years ago, when birds 

 were much more plenty than they are now, great 

 bags were often made in such situations. 



In the pools which occur in almost every field, decoys 

 are often used. Very frequently wild ducks' nests are 

 found and the eggs taken and set under a hen, so that 

 sometimes the whole brood is reared. These in turn 

 breed the next year, and so a race of more or less do- 

 mesticated ducks is established. Sometimes the birds 



