WILD-FOWL SHOOTING IN ILLINOIS. 37 



be of that impression, allow me, with all kindly feeling, 

 to take an opposite stand, and assert that there is 

 nothing ' which will more certainly guarantee your 

 success than paying due attention to wearing clothes 

 that at all times harmonise with the colouring of the 

 ground over which you are about to shoot. I have so 

 many times had convincing proofs of the efficacy of 

 attending to this important point, that I consider it 

 scarcely possible to impress it too strongly upon the 

 minds of all. An instance I will state, out of many 

 others I could tell of, which I think will prove that the 

 grounds I take are strong, and beyond opposition. 

 While sojourning West I made the acquaintance of a 

 good-hearted, kind gentleman and thorough sportsman, 

 whom the uncertainty of worldly affairs had reduced 

 much in pecuniary circumstances ; in those days, 

 although I had experience, still, as now, I had much 

 to learn ; my friend was, if anything, my superior 

 as a shot, more particularly on wild fowl. On the 

 breaking up of winter in the spring of '65 in fact, 

 the morning after a decided thaw had set in he 

 arrived at my house at an early hour, and invited 

 me to accompany him on^ the prairie to kill duck. 

 For some time previously all the water that was stag- 

 nant, or had but slight current, had been frozen, 

 and there being in consequence no feeding ground for 



