BRITISH COLUMBIA BIRDS 281 



pheasant, having the same habits, but not the same fear 

 of human beings, as this bird has. He will run along 

 the ground or on top of a log, then fly to some near-by 

 tree and sit out in the open ; a whole covey will do 

 this in conjunction, and if the gunner picks off the bot- 

 tom ones, one by one, he may get them all, but let him 

 shoot the topmost one and the remainder will all take 

 flight. 



The " fool hen," or spruce partridge, as we call it in 

 Maine, also abounds here. The ptarmigan, in his coat 

 of white, frequents the high mountains and generally 

 may be found above the timber line. 



Just think of what a fusillade of leaden shot the wild 

 ducks and wild geese will have to pass through before 

 they return again in the spring. A taxidermist tells me 

 that at least two geese out of every six which he 

 mounts have one or more pellets of buck or T. T. shot 

 in their flesh, which have been there from previous 

 flights, the wounds made by the shot being all healed, 

 so that until the birds were skinned the presence of 

 the shot was completely hidden. 



Upon our return we passed several good-sized lakes in 

 Alberta Territory and the Saskatchewan country, 

 some hundreds of miles south of our hunting grounds, 

 and although these lakes were partly frozen over, yet 

 the open water was covered with wild geese and ducks, 

 and the gunners were on hand to welcome them. 



As they fly south through the Dakotas, Minnesota, 



