OF SHOOTING AND FISHING 83 
of ducks as on this day, and the noise they made, 
rising in their thousands, was extraordinary. 
After leaving the overflow our course was almost 
west, skirting the tules all the way. We passed 
a number of flocks of redheads too young to fly, 
or which did not fly, so we attributed this to their 
youth, and did not interfere with them, but pushed 
on. In appearance the red-head is very much like 
the canvasback and almost as good a bird for table 
use. As food influences the flavour of ducks 
greatly, the celery-fed canvasbacks of Chesapeake 
Bay are probably superior to those shot on the Bear 
River swamps. 
When Slaughter Point was reached, we pushed 
the boat into a little island of tules, to see how 
the birds were flying. They were moving in every 
direction, but principally from the lake, and all the 
ducks in our vicinity appeared to be mallards. We 
now tossed for positions and I took the bow which 
lay to the west. It was unnecessary to conceal the 
boat artificially as the naural growth was sufficient. 
As soon as we had ammunition in our guns, malards 
surrounded us, and the splash of the big birds fall- 
ing, told us we had registered kills, but others were 
coming, so we had no time to attend to the fallen. 
I have never seen ducks flying around me in such 
numbers as they did on this occasion. It was one 
of the days when Davis or Hansen or any of the 
professionals on the swamps would have killed 
three or four hundred birds with ease, had there 
been no limit, but we took it easy and picked our 
shots, each killing his allowance of mallard in a 
