24 The Water-fowl Family 



shooting at Currituck comes to me as I write 

 these lines. I have shot over many times the 

 first black duck of that afternoon, and probably as 

 often missed that pair of pintail. 



IN THE WILD-RICE FIELDS 



In a large part of our middle western country 

 are shallow marshy lakes, surrounded by vast 

 stretches of high grass and wild rice. These 

 are the natural resorts of wild fowl ; here the 

 countless flocks, wearied by the tiresome jour- 

 ney from the north, gather with the first frosts 

 of fall, to rest and feed and fatten, now in most 

 of the old haunts a poor vestige of the past, but 

 still in vast numbers. Shooting in these places 

 is often without decoys and hence difficult, the 

 birds sweeping over the marsh with speed un- 

 equalled. In such resorts formerly many ducks 

 bred ; at the present time the summer residents 

 are principally a few teal and shovellers, with an 

 occasional mallard. The great throng of breed- 

 ing ducks now pass farther on to more northern 

 sloughs. Early in September comes the first 

 shooting; the birds are mostly teal and the 

 young of the year, just able to jump from the 

 grass a few feet in front of a flat-bottomed skiff 

 pushed through the water. Many are killed at 

 this time, and hardly any bird ranks higher for 

 the table. Along the devious creeks that in 



