DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 185 



killed twenty or thirty, while the man in the 

 blind never got a duck. Sometimes the man in 

 the blind seeing this would make shots out of 

 all distance, more for the purpose of scaring the 

 ducks from me than with any hope of bringing 

 them down himself. When that has been the 

 case, I have left him to his own devices, and 

 gone to another part of the field altogether. It is 

 necessary to remark for the information of Eastern 

 readers that the corn-fields of Illinois are commonly 

 very large, and not like the small enclosures of 

 the Atlantic States. The former sometimes con- 

 tain as much as a thousand acres without any 

 intervening fence. Production on this great scale 

 tends to keep game plentiful in two or three 

 ways. The farm-houses are far apart, which is 

 one thing. As long as the corn-stalks are stand- 

 ing green these fields afford capital cover for 

 pinnated grouse and quail, as remarked hereto- 

 fore. Another thing is that they afford abundance 

 of food for grouse, quail, turkeys, geese, ducks, 

 etc. Some parts of the summer the birds get a 

 plentiful supply of insects in the corn. In the 

 fall of the year and winter, and in the following 

 spring, the grouse, geese, and ducks feed largely 

 on the corn itself, there being always some scat- 



