320 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 



relied shot-guns. He usually shoots first at the ducks or geese 

 while they are in the water, and afterward again and again as 

 they rise and fly. Sometimes he goes ashore, to shoot them 

 while feeding. The geese sjDend the night in the water — gen- 

 erally in a slough or pond — and rise about daybreak, to feed 

 in the fields of grain, grass, or wild oats. They remain there 

 during a considerable part of the morning, return to spend the 

 middle of the day in the water, go back to the fields in the 

 afternoon, and at sunset take to the water again for the night. 

 The ducks get most of their food in the tules, and are not 

 often shot on the land. 



The ox-shooter stalks his game. He has a trained ox, which 

 walks before him and hides him from the geese or ducks until 

 within good shooting-distance. The boat-shooters average 

 thirty ducks a day during the season ; and a good ox-shooter 

 will sometimes kill one hundred and fifty geese in a day. 



Snipe, curlew, and quail, are the game for sportsmen who 

 hunt for their amusement, and the modes of hunting them are 

 the same as those in the Eastern states. 



Hunting is an unimportant interest in California as com- 

 pared with fishing, and must continually decrease in impor- 

 tance, while the fisheries will increase. 



A game-law prohibits the killing of quail, partridge, mallard 

 and summer duck, from the 1st of March to the 15th of Sep- 

 tember; and elk, deer, and antelope, during the first half of 

 the year ; and prohibits the selling of the game slain during 

 the forbidden season. 



§ 231. Honse-huilding. — In the building of houses, the Cali- 

 fornians, like Americans generally, are expert and quick. It 

 is not uncommon to see a wooden dwelling-house commenced 

 and finished within a month. Brick houses are built so fast, 

 that the mortar has scarcely time, to dry and harden as the 

 walls go up. Most of the houses are of wood, aud of the kind 

 called " Balloon" or " Chicago" frames, fastened together with 

 nails, without tenons and mortices, and with no upright posts 

 thicker than two by four inches. This kind of a frame, called 



