180 FIELD SHOOTING. 



the ducks are as foolish and as thoughtless as 

 themselves. They post themselves in places 

 where the color of their clothes is in strong 

 contrast with everything else around ; and when 

 the ducks sheer off wide as soon as they see 

 them, the shooters in question blaze away out of 

 distance, and never touch a feather. I have been 

 out with men under circumstances in which they 

 said that the ducks all came to me as if they 

 knew me. The simple cause of it was that I 

 lay down in a suit of corduroy, and they were 

 stretched out in clothes black enough for a 

 funeral. If a man going to shoot ducks on the 

 prairie, by the ponds and sloughs, has no corduroy 

 clothes and no duster, let him go to the grocery- 

 store and get a coffee-sack or two to make a 

 smock. That material is just the right color. 



In regard to corn-fields, it must be noted that 

 the ducks appear to frequent those most in which 

 the stalks are broken down. In these no blind 

 can be made. If one is made, the ducks will not 

 come near it. The shooter must be down on his 

 back, his feet towards the quarter from which the 

 ducks are coming, and wait until they get over 

 him. In a field where the corn-stalks are still 

 standing a thin blind may be made of them, but 



