338 WILD PIGEONS AND DOVES 



the gravel is abundant and when the sportsman finds a 

 place much frequented, he may have great sport shoot- 

 ing from a blind. 



I once discovered the doves using a gravel point at 

 the lower end of an island which had a few swamp 

 willow bushes within easy range of their drinking 

 place. Using the willows as my blind I concealed my- 

 self with a retriever, and soon the birds began to arrive 

 and the shooting commenced. They came in small 

 flocks, more often two or three together, or singly, 

 and as they darted over the high river bank and came 

 down to the island on swift wings they presented diffi- 

 cult marks, and those killed usually fell in the stream 

 on either side of the narrow island. The birds kept 

 coming from the fields on either side for several hours, 

 the shooting was rapid and my retriever was most of 

 the time in the water, but he enjoyed it as thoroughly 

 as I did. 



The day was fine, it was September, and there was 

 a suggestion of frost in the shadows and a genial 

 warmth in the sun. At the end of the afternoon I had 

 some twenty odd birds, and my friend, whose gun I 

 heard banging from a point below me on the river, was 

 even more successful and made double my score. The 

 doves were fat and tender, having fed almost exclu- 

 sively on wheat, and the farmer's wife made for us a 

 pot-pie, putting in a dozen birds. Had Forester or 

 Fred Mather partaken of the shooting and the pie I 

 believe I could have easily induced them- to add the 

 dove to their list of game birds. 



A few years ago, when shooting partridges on the 

 neck of land between the White and Wabash Rivers, I 



