Waterfowl 59 



visit one or two of the pools, and have brought home 

 half a dozen flappers, killed with the rifle if I had 

 been out after large game, or with the revolver if 

 I had merely been among the cattle, each duck, 

 in the latter case, representing the expenditure of a 

 vast number of cartridges. 



Later in the fall, when the young ducks are grown 

 and the flocks are coming in from the north, fair 

 shooting may be had by lying in the rushes on the 

 edge of some pond, and waiting for the evening 

 flight of the birds; or else by taking a station on 

 some spot of low ground across which the ducks fly 

 in passing from one sheet of water to another. Fre- 

 quently quite a bag of mallard, widgeon, and pintail 

 can be made in this manner, although nowhere in 

 the Bad Lands is there any such duck-shooting as 

 is found further east. Ducks are not very easy to 

 kill, or even to hit, when they fly past. My duck 

 gun, the No. 10 choke-bore, is a very strong and 

 close shooting piece, and such a one is needed when 

 the strong-flying birds are at any distance; but the 

 very fact of its shooting so close makes it neces- 

 sary that the aim should be very true ; and as a con- 

 sequence my shooting at ducks has varied from bad 

 to indifferent, and my bags have been always small. 



Once I made an unusually successful right and 

 left, however. In late summer and early fall large 

 flocks of both green-winged and blue-winged teal 

 are often seen both on the ponds and on the river, 

 flying up and down the latter. On one occasion 

 while out with the wagon we halted for the midday 



