DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 191 



Crease the number, it will be simply all the bet- 

 ter. I make no blind by the pond or slough, but 

 lie on the grass, unless there is brush or a 

 growth of willow to hide in. Neither do I ever 

 wait for the ducks to settle, but shoot while they 

 are still on the wing. One day at Skunk's Island, 

 in the great Winnebago Swamp, I killed a hun- 

 dred and thirty ducks over dead-duck decoys set 

 out after the plan I have described, and in that 

 day's shooting I never hid at all. I sat on a 

 muskrat-house all the time, sometimes, however, 

 lying down. It made no difference whether I lay 

 or sat, for the ducks were flying thick, and in the 

 humor to " come and be killed," as the old song 

 has it, which says : 



" Old Mother Bond got up in a rage, 

 Her pockets full of onions, her lap full of sage ; 

 And she went to the pond, did old Mother Bond, 

 Crying, 'Dill, dill, dill! dill, dill, dill! 



Come and be killed ! 

 The guests are all met, their bellies must be filled.' " 



On the occasion to which I have alluded I was 

 out of ammunition before night. It was late in 

 the fall, when large flocks fly, and two or three 

 ducks may sometimes be killed by one barrel. 



