76 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 



can be got through any gun dealer. They answer the 

 purpose exceedingly well, and I use them, although 

 should you not haye any, set up your dead ducks as 

 fast as killed,, until you have quite a flock. This you 

 can do by sharpening a small stick at each end, stick 

 one end in the mud, the other thrust into the duck's 

 head just behind the base of the bill, under the chin. 

 Exercise judgment in setting your decoys, but remem- 

 ber, they must assume a natural, easy position, as if in 

 life. Don't point their bills toward the heavens, as if 

 the ducks were trying to discover when the storm 

 would cease. On the other hand, don't turn thek: bills 

 toward the water, with neck outstretched, making the 

 duck look as if it had eaten* something that didn't agree 

 with it ; but having adjusted the head and neck properly, 

 see that the body is all right, draw the wings close to 

 it, smooth the feathers nicely, then step back and look 

 at it. If it looks to you precisely as a live duck does 

 on the water, all well and good ; if not, experiment 

 with it until it does. It's these little attentions to things 

 that to the beginner may seem time thrown away, that 

 go far toward increasing the duck-shooter's bag during 

 a day's shoot. As good shooting as I ever had has been 

 during the progress of hard snow storms, and I know 

 no better way to show the young duck-shooter how to 

 hunt during a snow storm than to give him a descrip- 

 tion of^one I had with an amateur as my companion ; 

 and, in order to make it more plain, I will adopt in 

 part a conversational style, basing the account entirely 

 on facts as they actually occurred, the hunt being the 

 second duck shoot my companion ever participated in. 

 He could look both with pride and pleasure on his 

 business career, but his hunting education had been 



