194 FIELD SHOOTimj. 



posite where the State House now stands, before 

 there was a house in Columbus at all ; and his 

 younger sons, Joseph and William, still reside in 

 that city. The Illinois proprietor is the eldest 

 son of the old pioneer. The family is famous for 

 culture, enterprise, and the uncommon personal 

 beauty of its members. They are a tall, power- 

 ful, handsome race ; and probably in all the vast 

 regions of the West not a tribe excels this family, 

 in all its branches, in stature, symmetry, strength, 

 and beauty. Upon this Illinois farm there are 

 three hundred miles of Osage orange hedges, which 

 are yet young. Let the sportsmen remember what 

 has been said of the hedges as affording nesting- 

 places for game-birds, protection against hawks, 

 and facilities for shooters, and they may conceive 

 what these three hundred miles of hedges will do 

 when they have grown tall and thick. Now to 

 come back to the ducks. 



On the' large streams, such as the Mississippi 

 and Illinois rivers, it is commonly necessary for 

 the duck-shooter to use a boat, and it is hardly 

 practicable to use any but decoys of wood, painted 

 to represent the sort of ducks expected. Upon 

 these rivers I have killed canvas-backs, red-heads, 

 mallards, and some few black or dusky ducks. 



