A WILDFOWLER'S PARADISE. 421 



grow in the West Indies and the southern parts of 

 North America, notably Zizania Miliacea. Wherever 

 it flourishes it attracts multitudes of wildfowl. Mr. 

 Leffingwell mentions that a shooting party of three or 

 four gentlemen, at the foot of Bancroft Lake in Northern 

 Iowa, shot on the rice marshes there for three days; the 

 birds he says, live there in thousands; it was impos- 

 sible to drive them away, so that when the party left 

 they were as plentiful as ever "I believe (says Mr. 

 Leffingwell) I could have killed 1000 ducks in ten 

 days." * 



This will give the reader some idea of the extra- 

 ordinary value of the wild rice in attracting wildfowl. 

 Though this chapter has already spread out beyond 

 the limits we had intended, we think it would be a 

 pity to bring it to a close without some mention of 

 the duck shooting at Long Point on Lake Erie, a 

 place renowned as a sportsman's paradise even long 

 before the British conquest of Canada. The place it 

 seems is now in the hands of a sporting club, or 

 company, for whose use it is exclusively reserved. 

 The preserve consists of an extensive sand spit, jutting 

 out from the Canadian shore for 9 or 10 miles, in a 

 curving form, into the waters of Lake Erie: it varies 

 from 2 to 4 miles in width. The greater part of this 

 tract consists of rice-marshes; and is composed of 

 shallow pools, with channels leading from one to the 

 other, in which the wild rice and other aquatic plants 

 grow in great luxuriance. From time immemorial it 

 has been the home of countless myriads of wildfowl; 

 so great is the fame of this wildfowling ground, that 



* Shooting on Upland, Marsh, and Stream, by William B. Leffing- 

 well, 1890, p. 128. 



