262 USE OF THE DOG IN SHOOTING. 



duration, they scatter through the woods, and may be found on 

 hill sides, and, in fact, on much the same ground as in the fall. 

 They are a most devoted and fearless bird. While on the nest a 

 person may stand quietly within a very short distance of one, and if 

 no unusual motion or noise is made, the hen-bird will gaze without 

 fear upon the intruder. 



WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 



The shooting of water-fowl is a sport attended with too much 

 labor, fatigue and exposure to render it very attractive to any but 

 experienced and eager sportsmen, who have perhaps become sated 

 with the commoner recreations of grouse, snipe, quail, or wood- 

 cock shooting. Familiarity with this sport is only arrived at 

 through many hardships, if not risks, and exposures in all sorts of 

 weather. Consequently, there are few persons besides those who 

 hunt for a living, who have acquired the necessary knowledge of 

 the habits and natural history of the birds, and the proper methods 

 of circumventing the instinctive wariness of water-fowl, and tak- 

 ing advantage of their pecaliar ways, to shoot them successfully. 

 Yet when a taste for the sport has been once acquired, or the first 

 experience of it has been agreeable, there is no other that becomes 

 more fascinating. 



Water-fowl may be divided into two classes, those which are 

 found in shoal water, and those which inhabit the deep waters of 

 the sounds and inlets of the sea-coast. The mallard and the dif- 

 ferent teals are examples of the former, and the canvas-back is 

 the type of the latter. The shoal water birds rarely go under 

 water when feeding, although they will dive and swim long dis- 

 tances under water, when wounded or alarmed. This class of 

 birds includes the mallard, the blue and green winged teal, the 

 summer or wood duck, the pintail, the grey duck, shoveler, wid- 

 geon, and the black or dusky duck, together with the wild goose. 

 The deep water varieties include the canvas-back, the broad bill, 

 tufted duck, and the buffle head. 



