CORNFIELD SHOOTING. 373 



of the first hatching go away in the autumn, migrating 

 with the wild birds, and return again next spring to 

 their northern home, apparently without having lost 

 much of their tameness. If no decoys are to be had, 

 the gunners call with the voice, or use duck calls. 



Usually, even though no decoys are out, the ducks, 

 in circling about over the cornfields before alighting, 

 pass over the wet places to examine them, and so some 

 shots are had. As soon as a duck is killed, the gunner, 

 breaking off a stiff weed stalk, places the duck in the 

 water, thrusts the stalk through the skin of the neck, 

 and, pressing the other end into the mud, makes a life- 

 like decoy. Other ducks coming in, see the decoys and 

 come down to them. 



The birds killed are at first chiefly mallards, but 

 later in the season the brant come into the cornfield, 

 though they generally alight where the corn grows 

 small, so that they can see over it pretty well. The 

 brant shooting in the cornfields is chiefly practiced in 

 spring. The brant come along late in the spring, after 

 the mallards have gone, arriving usually in great flocks, 

 and alight in the middle of the big field. Sometimes 

 these fields contain i6o acres — a whole quarter section, 

 and as by spring the corn stalks have all been cut down, 

 there is really no cover. The gunners must lie down in 

 the furrows between the rows of corn stubble, and, 

 making themselves as small as possible, wait for the 

 brant to come within shot. Often they are obliged to 

 shoot lying on their backs, and when the ground is hard 

 and the gun heavily charged, the shock to the shoulder 



