LET US GO AFIELD 



in fish, he is not going to bother to tramp round a 

 marsh hunting for ducks' eggs; and ducks do not 

 there, any more than with us, make their nests in 

 the dooryard. The great support of the Indians of 

 the north is fish; they take incredible quantities of 

 whitefish, inconnu, and other food fishes. An In- 

 dian busy watching his nets is not going to bother 

 much with gathering ducks' eggs. 



The high cost of ammunition ten cents, twelve 

 and a half cents, fifteen cents for a loaded shotgun 

 shell, and a proportionately high cost of loose am- 

 munition for muzzle-loaders is the best reason 

 why the Indian does not kill more ducks. In the 

 lower posts, when the flight of geese and ducks is 

 on, he will shoot for his winter's meat to some 

 extent; and some of the best duckshots I ever saw 

 were halfbreeds in Alberta and Saskatchewan 

 some of them market shooters for white men. The 

 total number of wildfowl killed by all the Indians 

 of the north does not compare with the number we 

 kill in the winter and spring. 



To begin with, there are not nearly so many In- 

 dians up in that country as you would think per- 

 haps not over fifty families tributary to one post, 

 twice that number to another; we never, even in 

 treaty-payment times, saw over three hundred In- 

 dians together at any one time at any one place. 



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