32 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 



cellent shooting may be had in a certain locality, while 

 at other times in the same place, under apparently the 

 same circumstances, no shooting wiU be found. This 

 is explainable. The first time they found plenty of 

 water and food ; the second, they found neither ; or, 

 perhaps the water and no food. Mallards want plenty 

 of water ; they must have it and will have it. If they 

 cannot find it in a place they are accustomed to frequent, 

 they will seek other places and keep going until they 

 do find it. This water they don't want to drink, but 

 they want it to live in, to moisten up the soil, to soften 

 the mud, so they can get at the acorns, to make rank 

 rushes and rice roots, to cause a place where wild rice 

 and berries and smart-weed can and will float on the 

 surface, so they may swim through and among the rice 

 stalks feeding as they go. 



There is a marked difference in the flesh of mallards. 

 This difference is noticeable among those killed in 

 wooded places, where they feed on seeds, larvae, and 

 acorns, and those which feed exclusively in corn fields, 

 — the latter are much finer eating, more juicy, and when 

 ready for baking, th&ir plump bodies present a golden 

 appearance, precisely the color of the corn they had 

 eaten. I do not wish to be understood as saying that 

 those killed on timbered rivers are not fat and good 

 eating, but they will not average as well in fatness as 

 their corn-fed cousins. The plumpest, heaviest lot 

 of mallards I ever saw were killed by a friend of mine 

 and myself, while hunting in Western Iowa some years 

 ago. We killed one hundred and thirty-six, and they 

 were the handsomest lot of ducks I ever' saw, — before 

 or since. They were shot in the stubble and cornfields 

 in Hamilton county. It was in the month of November ; 



