IX THE MARSH. 127 



grounds ; they fly aimlessly enjoying their morning ex- 

 ercise, or investigating the surroundings to find a suit- 

 able place to spend the day. We are early on the ground, 

 and it will be a full half-hour before we can see to shoot. 

 Sit still, and I will force the boat into these rushes, so 

 we can both face the east. We must do this, for the 

 first light appears in that direction and we can faintly see 

 ducks coming from the east when we could not see them 

 coming from any other point of the compass. Perhaps 

 you think we have come in a good way, and are far from 

 the Mississippi River. Only about a mile, taking a 

 straight line ; but by the tortuous way we came it is much 

 farther. You don't know much of this place, do you ? 

 Well, in this marsh there has been thrown into the air 

 tons and tons of lead ; there is no place in the West where 

 more ducks have been shot. This locality is a great place 

 for point and decoy shooting, being in the line of flight as 

 they go and return to and from the Mississippi and Wap- 

 sipinicon rivers. I never have been surprised to find 

 plenty ducks here, for it is the place that nature intended 

 for them. In this marsh they get wild rice, bulbous roots, 

 and flags, A flight of a mile brings them to the Missis- 

 sippi, where they regale themselves on buds, larvae, smart- 

 weed, and roost and bask in the sunshine, and lunch off 

 the gravel on the sandbars. Surrounding this spot, with- 

 in a half -hour's flight, corn-fields are found in abundance ; 

 while southwest from here, about seven miles, mallards 

 go after acorns, where the Wapsipinicon rushes along, 

 overflowing its banks, affording the finest timber shoot- 

 ing in the world. 



Did you hear that whizzing noise just now ? it was a 

 flock of blue-bills passing. They are very early risers. 

 Now they have commenced to fly we must look sharp, 



