242 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 
they merely walk beside a trained horse, mule, or ox, and 
shoot away at the birds until they have killed all they 
want, and then send the animal to retrievethem. Ifa west- 
ern wag is to be relied on, he had a mule that was so expert 
in this sort of work that it would flush the geese when 
told to do so, and bring them ashore if they fell into a 
river or alake. He offered to show me this wonderful 
creature, but as I had some doubts about its cleverness I 
did not care to see it, for I had had a brief experience of 
his fondness for jokes. 
The easiest method for shooting geese on the iia is 
to approach them gradually under cover of a horse or an 
ox, and open fire on them with a huge weapon, known 
locally, as a “‘scatter cannon,” until they seek safer 
quarters. Market hunters have been known to earn as 
much as a hundred dollars a day by this system of wild- 
fowling and sometimes more, as the birds are valued 
at from fifty cents to a dollar each, and from ten to forty 
are bagged at every discharge of the western piece of ord- 
nance. I have seen flocks which were so indifferent to 
the noise of firing that they would merely rise or “ climb,” 
as the professional hunters have it, a few feet in the air, 
and, after honking their alarm and their sense of annoy- 
ance at being disturbed, return to the ground again, and 
remain there until the shooting made them take to the 
wing once more. Some persons manage to secure large 
bags by digging holes in the stubble-fields and covering 
them with straw, and then blazing away at the geese 
when they come to feed. These men tie the birds which 
they have wounded to stakes driven in the ground, and 
use them as decoys to lure their congeners to destruction, 
for they are exceedingly clamorous callers. Dead geese, 
if properly grouped, are also useful decoys, but their at- 
titudes should be as natural as possible, or they may do 
more harm than good. 
If the ground is covered with snow, the wild-fowler 
