mLAND DUCK-SHOOTING IN THE UNITED 



STATES. 



By John G. Smith, 

 Prendent of the Iowa State Spm-tsmen's Association. 



wild duck may be found in almost 

 evei'v part of the United States; 

 and during their flights from 

 ^ the South to the North and 

 "^ from the North to the South, 

 ^jjortsmen, and especially the sports- 

 men who are fond of shooting ducks, think 

 of little else, or care for little else, but their guns 

 and the ducks. 

 Many of the wild ducks leave the South sometime 

 in the latter part of February or the first part of 

 March. Some of the varieties stay there till April. If 

 the season is quite early, the mallards will work their 

 way slowly north, and sometimes arrive in Northern Iowa 

 in February. Some years ago I killed six mallard-ducks 

 on the Des Moines River, in Kossuth County, Iowa, the 

 6th of February. Usually their flight is in the month of 

 March. 



I do not think the mallard-ducks generally make 

 very long flights. They will stop where there are many 

 sloughs. They do not dare to be in the large lakes, as 

 there is no food for them in those places; but in the 

 sloughs and cane-brakes, where the water is shallow, and 

 where the wild grass roots are beginning to sprout, the 

 mallard-ducks find their home. They like it very much 



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