Waterfowl 67 



after leaving the grain fields traveled pretty steadily, 

 only getting out of the wagon once or twice after 

 prairie chickens. At lunch time we halted near a 

 group of small ponds and reedy sloughs. In these 

 were quite a number of teal and wood-duck, which 

 were lying singly, in pairs, or small bunches, on the 

 edges of the reeds, or where there were thick clusters 

 of lily pads ; and we had half an hour's good sport 

 in "jumping" these little ducks, moving cautiously 

 along the margin of the reeds, keeping as much as 

 possible concealed from view, and shooting four teal 

 and a wood-duck, as, frightened at our near ap- 

 proach, they sprang into the air and made off. Late 

 in the evening, while we were passing over a narrow 

 neck of land that divided two small lakes, with 

 reedy shores, from each other, a large flock of the 

 usually shy pintail duck passed over us at close 

 range, and we killed two from the wagon, making 

 in all a bag of twenty-one and a half couple of 

 waterfowl during the day, two-thirds falling to 

 my brother's gun. Of course, this is a very small 

 bag indeed compared to those made in the Chesa- 

 peake, or in Wisconsin and the Mississippi Valley; 

 but the day was so perfect, and there were so many 

 varieties of shooting, that I question if any bag, no 

 matter how large, ever gave much more pleasure to 

 the successful sportsman than did our forty-three 

 ducks to us. 



Though ducks fly so fast, and need such good 

 shooting to kill them, yet their rate of speed, as com- 

 pared to that of other birds, is not so great as is 



