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412 DUCK SHOOTING. 



than a stalk of cane. Rarely seen by the gunner, the 

 coon lives an easy, lazy life here. Now and then he puts 

 his foot in a marshman's trap, and less often a gunner's 

 dog, hunting for a wounded duck, may suddenly fall 

 upon him, and the sound of the fight will empty 

 the blind, and bring boatman and gunner crashing 

 through the cane to learn the cause of the disturbance. 

 It is in such ways as these that the coon is sometimes 

 killed. 



Next in order after the coon comes the mink — 

 artful, ferocious, daring. Like the coon, he fishes and 

 hunts, but he has ten times the coon's energy. Not 

 satisfied with the wild game of the marsh, he prowls 

 about the blind and may steal a duck, if one is carelessly 

 left at a little distance. He fights the muskrat, and 

 sometimes kills and eats him, and then he goes fishing 

 every day. The mink is rarely killed except by the 

 trapper. 



The muskrat is everywhere, and if you have occasion 

 to walk across the marsh you will now and then plunge 

 thigh deep into one of the holes that it has dug. Some- 

 times as you sit in your blind you will see it swimming 

 toward your decoys, or crossing some lead not far away. 

 It does no special harm except by its burrowing, which 

 breaks away the marsh, destroys ditches that may have 

 been cut, and makes pitfalls for the careless to fall into. 



In the winter, when I see the marsh, its reptiles are 

 safely hidden away in their warm sleeping places. So 

 it is that the snakes, if any there be, and the tortoises are 

 not seen. But in summer, I am told, there are snakes 



