OF A RANCHMAN 



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 compared to that of other birds, 

 is not so great as is commonly supposed. 

 Hawks, for instance, are faster. Once, on the 

 prairie, I saw a mallard singled out of a flock, 

 fairly overtaken, and struck down, by a 

 large, light-colored hawk, which I supposed 

 to be a lanner, or at any rate one of the long- 

 winged falcons ; and I saw a duck hawk, on 

 the coast of Long Island, perform a similar 

 feat with the swift-flying long-tailed duck 

 the old squaw, or sou'-sou'-southerly, of 

 the baymen. A more curious instance was 

 related to me by a friend. He was out along 

 a river, shooting ducks as they flew by him, 

 and had noticed a bald eagle perched 

 on the top of a dead tree some distance from 

 him. While looking at it a little bunch of 



