WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. 205 



his gun. The geese start to fly, but they cannot 

 rise down-wind, and, getting up against it, as they 

 must do, they come towards the gun. Then is 

 the time to fire ; but beware of miscalculating the 

 distance. Geese look very large on the prairie. I 

 have seen men shoot at geese, believing them to 

 be within killing distance, when they were certainly 

 not less than two hundred yards away. I have 

 also seen them fired at in flight when they were 

 so high in the air that they passed without no- 

 ticing the shot. Yet a goose may be killed at 

 a great distance with large shot if it happens to 

 be hit in a vital part. 



I once killed one at a hundred and nineteen yards 

 with a BB cartridge. The ground was measured, 

 as I knew it was a very long shot. It was a chance 

 shot. I had driven on the flock two or three times, 

 and had been unable to get within distance. I drove 

 for them again, and, seeing that they were just 

 going to fly, I pulled up and let go one barrel 

 just as they rose. Of late years I have killed as 

 many by driving for them with a smart horse as in 

 any other way. When shooting in this method, 

 I once killed five geese with the two barrels, and 

 have often killed from ten to fifteen a day from the 

 buggy. The greatest number I ever killed in a day 



