THE SCIENCE OF SCULLING WILD FOWL. 213 



Take in running water in the timber, with an ordi- 

 nary skiff, there is a clanging of oars ; you row a few 

 strokes, and then jerk them in. First one, then the 

 other pushes against a, tree with an oar, then pulls a 

 limb to help along ; then grasps one tree to keep you 

 from whacking against another. This is the way the 

 ordinary boat goes through the timber, making a racket 

 that scares every bird within a quarter of a mile. Note 

 the difference with a scull-boat, going through the same 

 place. The sculler in the stern sees all before him. 

 The short boat is always under control. He guides it 

 through seemingly impassable places, makes quick turns, 

 avoids all obstructions, and moves along hour after 

 hour without making a noise or hitting a tree. 



It is remarkable how these boats can be handled by 

 an expert. To show how noiselessly they can be run, 

 I once sculled toward a mallard drake that was sitting 

 on an old pile of drift-wood, half asleep. I tried to see 

 how near I could approach him, and actually knocked 

 him off the drift when the bow of the boat struck where 

 he was sitting. It was amusing to see how frightened 

 he was. Another instance to show how nicely one can 

 hunt with these boats when others fail. A few years 

 ago, in running ice, three of us bagged in one day 112 

 mallards and six geese. These were killed in the 

 middle of the day, right in the channel of the Missis- 

 sippi. At this same time, hunters in the islands were 

 getting no shooting at all. The hunter in a scull-boat 

 has an advantage over all others. He is generally in 

 the open river, where he can see the flight on all sides, 

 and mark the spot where ducks light in the pond, tim- 

 ber or rice, and is soon among them with decoys, and 

 shoots them in that manner. 



