By moonlight one may sit on the bank in 

 plain sight of his decoys, and watch the 

 wild birds as long as he will. It is neces- J^ tfJ/VJ DucA 



sary only to sit perfectly still. But this is 

 unsatisfactory; you can never see just what 

 they are doing. Once I had thirty or forty 

 close about me in this way. A sudden turn 

 of my head, when a bat struck my cheek, sent 

 them all off in a panic to the open ocean. 

 A curious thing about these birds, as they 

 come in at night, is their power to make 

 their wings noisy or almost silent at will. 

 Sometimes the rustle is so slight that it is 

 scarcely audible ; at other times it is a strong 

 wish-wish that can be heard two hundred 

 yards away. The only theory I can suggest 

 is that it is done as a kind of signal. In the 

 daytime and on bright evenings one seldom 

 hears it ; on dark nights it is very frequent, 

 and is always answered by the quacking of 

 birds already on the feeding grounds, prob- 

 ably to guide the incomers. How they do it 

 is uncertain ; probably in some such way as 

 the night-hawk makes his curious booming 

 sound, — not by means of his open mouth. 



