CUKRITUCK MARSHES. 131 



result was, that before the day was over, reeds and 

 ducks and spots swam before my eyes in prismatic 

 hues. The heavens become alive with them, mixed 

 up with grasses and flowers, the gorgeous colors of 

 condensed sunlight. Scarlet ducks, golden ducks, 

 fiery ducks floated before my bewildered vision, inter- 

 woven with such flaming reeds and rushes as were 

 never seen by mortal eye before. To say that under 

 the circumstances I could not shoot with my accus- 

 tomed skill, is unnecessary ; I could not help occa- 

 sionally mistaking the flaming bird for the natural 

 one, and no doubt would have killed him, had he 

 only been real enough to kill. This was the second 

 occasion when I might have reached my stint of two 

 hundred, if I had only been so fortunate as to locate 

 properly in the first place, or even had had the cour- 

 age to change when I found out that I was wrong. 



There are myriads of wild geese and swans in 

 Currituck Sound and its adjoining waters. The 

 swans are hard to kill, and it rarely falls to the for- 

 tune of any sportsman to bag more than two or three 

 of these beautiful birds in a season, but the geese 

 are shot in immense numbers on favorable days 

 "goosing days," as they are called. Such days are 

 made by a southwesterly wind blowing hard enough 

 to constitute a gale, and the harder the better, which 

 causes the water to rise and enables the geese to reach 

 the beaches where they go to sand. For this shoot- 

 ing a " stand," as it is called, of tamed wild geese 

 are required. The sportsman hides himself in a 

 large, water-tight box, which has been sunk in the 



