230 PACT AGAINST FICTION. 



tlic spot where tliey are never molested. Thus 

 at my romicl pond or home decoy in smiimer, 

 even when many ducks are there, I can with my 

 gun pick off a house-rat in the evening, and send 

 my retriever over the wire to fetch it without 

 putting one bird to wing.* In fact, as I am the 

 only gunner who shoots frequently at rabbits out 

 at feed, my home-bred ducks know that luJiere 

 that gun is I cwij and that ivliere I am there is 

 always a pocketful of Indian corn. At times, 

 even in the woods, I shall scarce have re-charged 

 my gun, when there is the whistle of a wing in 

 the air, and a duck lights doAvn by my foot. 

 In the fields far from the decoys, — I never saw 

 him in the woods, — during summer, a splendid 

 old pin-tailed drake, caught in and sent me from 

 a decoy in the North, and never pinioned, tlie 

 moment he hears the gun he comes with a little 

 Bahama duck, with whom for the last three years he 

 had selected to pair, and they settle down together 

 at my foot, and will follow me about the field. All 

 this comes from method and knoAvledge of how 



" The same decoy is wired in, not covered in, because at 

 times there are curious and costly birds there from foreign parts, 

 who must be pinioned and scientificall}' cared for. 



