84. CAMP FIRE REMINISCENCES 
couple of hours or less. It was wonderful—they 
were coming, going and crossing in flocks and in 
singles—giving a choice of shots. It was cus- 
tomary at one time to carry ammunition in large 
buckets. They held an immense number of cart- 
ridges, and at the same time kept them dry even 
though placed in the mud. It was also easy reach- 
ing the ammunition in them, when the birds were 
flying well. 
We lunched when the morning’s work was over, 
feeling that we had done very well and that the 
locality had been correctly named. The return 
journey was more tedious on account of our cargo, 
to which my friend added a pelican when we reached 
the mud banks. On arriving at the club, we found 
that nearly all the members had returned, few of 
them having gone as far as ourselves. Certainly it 
was splendid to hear of the way those men had 
put up their guns the moment the twenty-fifth bird 
fell. One would have expected to find two or three 
less law-abiding than the rest, but a proper spirit 
existed among them all, and I think they felt hap- 
pier for it. I noticed that the sixteen-bore was 
very much in use, and some even used a twenty. 
After dinner, as we sat around relating our ex- 
periences, some one told of dodging a falling mal- 
lard. This led to wonderful accounts of people be- 
ing hit by falling birds, of sportsmen having had 
birds fall in their boats so as to break their water 
bottles, necessitating a return, as thirst is a dread- 
ful thing. Curious stories were told of the diffi- 
culty sometimes experienced in finding birds which 
