420 Bailey, Wild Life of an Alkaline Lake. Loct! 



stray bird that we wanted, when it was shot from the tule screen, 

 though the water was cold and so deep that it was necessary to 

 swim for one's game. Our work lay at the feeding ground and in 

 the passes. The passes were a simple matter, for while Mr. 

 Bailey lay in ambush in the sagebrush I went down to whichever 

 lake promised best and by a series of rifle shots kept the black hordes 

 moving across the passes. The only difficulties here were that a 

 corps of men was needed to guard the crossings and that we were 

 without duck shot — empty cartridges of former hunters strewing 

 the ground pointed our discomfiture, for our ammunition was too 

 light to penetrate the thickly padded bodies at their flying height. 

 Work at the feeding ground on the other hand was difficult because 

 of the lack of cover. We could not hope for a census of the 

 water-fowl of the lake, but would do our best to get an idea of the 

 most abundant species. 



The excavated blinds that we discovered along the lake had 

 been turned into wells by the recent rains and a brush blind was 

 at best a suspiciously conspicuous object. It was our only hope, 

 however, so gathering branches of sagebrush and greesewood, 

 Atriplrx, we stuck them into the ground, adding a row of white- 

 seeded weeds that grew along the water's edge to give the touch 

 of nature of which we were so sorely in need. While we were at 

 work on the house no water birds came near the lake, but Blue- 

 birds and a flock of Pipits, now down from the mountain tops 

 making their southward journey, flew around among the sur- 

 rounding brush and weeds. 



When all was ready we entered the blind and after waiting 

 quietly for some time with heads bent low under the screening 

 aromatic branches, through the chinks we saw the ducks begin com- 

 ing back to the lake. Then we would hear the whistling of a flock 

 rushing through the air overhead, and after time enough for the 

 birds to circle around the lake would hear a splash from those that 

 plumped down and a seething sound from those that slipped in 

 more quietly. If a heavy swish of wings made us give a guarded 

 sidelong look upward we might see passing swiftly over a flock of 

 from four to fifty ducks whose long outstretched necks made their 

 wings seem short and set back on their heavy bodies. Teal and 

 Gadwall were most abundant but Baldpates were also numerous. 



