5 6 Life in the Open 



the irrigation ditches were alive with game, and it was a 

 question on some ranches in the San Joaquin how to 

 drive the geese off, so regardless were they of the 

 rights of man. 



This has all changed : almost every foot of good 

 duck shooting in Los Angeles County, and from Santa 

 Monica to Laguna, is taken by private clubs ; were this 

 not so, every duck and goose on the coast would be killed 

 off by the pot-hunter, the running mate of the man who 

 dynamites trout streams. As it is, the birds are pro- 

 tected, and it is not difficult for gentlemen to obtain 

 access to the shooting privileges of some of the clubs 

 along shore. Sport is not alone the object ; the birds 

 are conserved, protected, and fed, and intelligent laws 

 devised for the conduct of the sport. 



While we are digressing, white spots are coming 

 up the channel of the slough, and you see the king of 

 all ducks the canvas-back. The first one I ever shot 

 from a blind in the Chesapeake Bay gave me the duck 

 fever ; it was not the bird, but the fact that a flock of 

 canvas-backs and others covering acres, so it seemed, 

 came swimming around a turn, out into the bay, so 

 that when I sprang to my feet that I might not commit 

 murder on the high seas, the air was filled with climb- 

 ing forms. 



On they come straight for the decoys, and as the 

 white puff drifts away, I see the canvas-back lying 

 among them, while the rest of the flock are whirling 

 away seaward. 



