224 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 



they usually swim with heads high up, or will tire 

 themselves out by making one or two long dives. It is 

 best to shoot them as soon as you see they are crippled. 

 Try at all times to drop them into the water,- — it is the 

 surest way to get them, for if dropped in the wild rice or 

 ' high rushes you cannot find them without a good dog, 

 and it will test a dog's endurance and strength unneces- 

 sarily,— hence if you can shoot them so that they will 

 fall into the open water it is decidedly the better way. 



Always be on the alert, watching for them, for there 

 is no telling when they may drop down, as if from the 

 clouds, or what direction they will come from. If your 

 blind is in the timber, your view will be obstructed for 

 low-flying birds, so whistle their call occasionally, 

 whether or not birds are in sight. You will find them 

 quite erratic at times. Some will approach your decoys,' 

 circle and sail around, then when perhaps sevisnty five 

 yards away, jump back in mid air twenty to thirty feet, 

 as if thrown by a spring, fly away, come back again, and 

 finally light outside your decoys, just out of range ; 

 when they do this rout them out, for swimming around 

 as they will be, they will call other ducks away from 

 your stationary decoys. At other times, they will 

 decoy so nicely that they just won't keep away,^-down 

 they will come from extreme heights, with a waving, 

 rocking motion, first the tip of ofne wing pointing ver- 

 tically, then the other, as the duck reverses its position. 

 This motion is nearly similar to a boy's pointing his 

 right hand and arm up, his left to the ground, then re- 

 versing his position backward and forward, giving a 

 peculiar swinging motion to his head and body, all the 

 time pumping one arm up, while the other must at the 

 same time go down. 



