WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 43 



all flying before the wind, and if a dozen guns had 

 been there instead of one, abundant work would 

 have been found for all. On another occasion, in 

 the same locality, two friends of mine killed, in two 

 or three hours in the evening, and in an hour and a 

 half the succeeding morning, eighty-four wild geese 

 and thirty brace of mallard duck. In the spring of 

 1866, when in Iowa, the first day of thaw, I went for 

 a stroll, scarcely expecting to find game ; but wlien 

 I got on the prairie land, I was perfectly astonished 

 at the clouds of wild-foAvl arriving from the South, 

 some of the ponds being so densely covered with 

 duck that the surface could scarcely be seen. These 

 birds were all coming from the South, where they 

 had passed the winter. If any of my readers intend 

 to go in for work, and not object to roughing it, 

 I should most decidedly say that the wild-fowl 

 shooting is good enough to justify a Western visit; 

 but let him not be induced to keep in the vicinity 

 of settlements; but let him and his attendants 

 commence housekeeping on the margin of one of 

 the northern Minnesota lakes, if in summer (remem- 

 ber one that produces an abundance of wild rice) ; 

 but if the reverse season should be selected, the 

 southern tributaries of the Mississippi will afford 



