164: MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



dozen ducks was a large day's shooting and one was not 

 considered bad. Day after day no duck was bagged, 

 and a few rail and blackbirds were accepted as better 

 than nothing with the hope of better luck next time. 

 On those trips mud hens and hell-divers, or even a shel- 

 drake, was counted as a duck, and it was a new sensation 

 to be told: "Don't shoot; they're only sawbills." 



Accustomed to taking in everything which came 

 within range, this was something new. The fact that a 

 gunner could sit down in cold blood and select the kind 

 of waterfowl on which to expend ammunition was a nov- 

 elty. Instead of wishing for any sort of duck to come 

 within shooting range, here we were refusing shots to all 

 except a favored (?) few. 



It was cruel shooting cruel because it was waste- 

 ful We shifted our blind so that we shot against the 

 wind as it changed, and the dead ducks drifted to us. A 

 cripple that escaped the first fire could not be chased, for 

 we had only one boat, and if not killed before it got out 

 of range it crept into the marsh to be eaten by mink, 

 gulls or hawks. A philosopher might ask what differ- 

 ence all this made to the duck: whether the mink or the 

 birds got him, or whether his carcass passed into the 

 hands of a hotel chef and was served to a convivial party, 

 with the accompaniment of celery and juice of the vine? 



We shot only at mallards, pintails, widgeon and teal, 

 letting all other fowl pass. At night we counted out 153 

 ducks of these species the number is remembered be- 

 cause it was the most wonderful duck shooting for two 

 guns that I had ever dreamed of and we could have 

 taken in a number of butterballs, whistlers and other 

 ducks if we had wished to kill them, but Billy said they 

 were not worth wasting powder on. 



Heretofore there had never been more game than 



