218 Sporting Sketches 



ponds, etc., near together, while the stream extends 

 for miles above. Then it is no bad scheme to take 

 post on the bank of the stream and, say, a mile 

 above the night resorts. The ducks usually follow 

 the stream until they are close to their chosen spot ; 

 hence a man in the right place may have chances 

 at all the fowl of a group of night resorts. I well 

 remember one old " hide " of mine. It was on the 

 very crest of a cliff-like bank of a narrow river. 

 About a mile below were two big ponds in the 

 open fields and beyond them nearly one hundred 

 acres of wet woodland. These places were in 

 high favor, and toward sunset the ducks would 

 come streaming down from feeding-grounds higher 

 up. 



Then the sport depended upon how the fowl 

 arrived. If, as sometimes happened, they came in 

 large groups, or too closely following smaller lots, the 

 shots at the first were apt to alarm others and so spoil 

 the fun. But frequently they came straggling along 

 in well-separated fives, sixes, and sevens, with an odd 

 one, or a pair, every now and then. Then was there 

 exceeding great joy in the hide, swift action, and the 

 keenest of watches upstream, for it might happen 

 that twenty or more shells would be used before the 

 light failed, and the fellow who uses that many shells 

 upon wood-ducks and doesn't have fun and inci- 

 dentally knock down a fair percentage of fowl, 

 should be deprived of his yellow jacket. 



The last bird I killed will not soon be forgotten. 

 It was in October, yet the weather was like mid- 

 summer. 



" Too late, man what ye thinkin' about ? " ex- 



