PlONtiiR HUNTERS OK THE KANKAKhL 

 clean miss with tiie second. I waded out and 

 picked up two blacii ducks and here is where I 

 discovered that tliere are two varieties of black 

 ducks just as surely as two and two make four. 

 By ten o'clock it was getting very rough. The 

 waves would splash over the top of the barrel. 

 1 gathered up my decoys and made a bee-line 

 for camp. I had in all forty-six ducks and in 

 that number there were eight varieties of the 

 duck family. /Aany of the varieties that I killed 

 then are now extinct. I would never believe 

 that in fifty years those great myriads of migra- 

 tion ducks could have been exterminated. In 

 years gone by I have often wondered where so 

 many species of the duck family sprang from, 

 so much more so than the dry land birds. The 

 book name of many birds is derived from habits 

 and their dress, as the green-head mallard, the 

 spike-tail which has only two long pointed 

 feathers in their tail. The wood-duck, some- 

 times called the tree-duck from the fact that 

 they build their nests in old snags and hollow 



159 



