Waterfowl. 45 



rifle. Once while out riding along the river bottoms, just 

 at dawn, my attention was drawn to a splashing and low 

 cackling in the stream, where the water deepened in a 

 wide bend, which swept round a low bluff. Leaving my 

 horse where he was, I walked off towards the edge of the 

 stream, and lying on the brink of the bank looked over 

 into the water of the bend. Only a faint streak of light 

 was visible in the east, so that objects on the water could 

 hardly be made out ; and the little wreaths of mist that 

 rose from the river made the difficulty even greater. The 

 birds were some distance above me, where the water made 

 a long straight stretch through a sandy level. I could not 

 see them, but could plainly hear their low murmuring and 

 splashing, and once one of them, as I judged by the sound, 

 stood up on end and flapped its wings vigorously. Pretty 

 soon a light puff of wind blew the thin mist aside, and I 

 caught a glimpse of them ; as I had supposed, they were 

 wild geese, five of them, swimming slowly, or rather rest- 

 ing on the water, and being drifted down with the current. 

 The fog closed over them again, but it was growing light 

 very rapidly, and in a short time I knew they would be in 

 the still water of the bend just below me, so I rose on my 

 elbows and held my rifle ready at the poise. In a few 

 minutes, before the sun was above the horizon, but when 

 there was plenty of light by which to shoot, another eddy 

 in the wind blew away the vapor and showed the five 

 geese in a cluster, some thirty yards off. I fired at once, 

 and one of the geese, kicking and flapping frantically, fell 

 over, its neck half cut from the body, while the others, 

 with laborious effort, got under way. Before they could 



