262 FEATHERED GAME 
have reason to be satisfied still and have had 
your share. Though you have not killed your 
forty or fifty geese, as they tell it in the West, 
you are satisfied. I have noticed that the New 
England gunner generally has to be satisfied 
with smaller game returns than his western 
brother receives for his efforts. 
I remember once coming upon a small flock 
in their northward flight. They had just ar- 
rived from the south and were sorely tired. 
In the marsh where they had settled, the win- 
ter’s ice had swept away every vestige of cover 
and not a stalk of the last season’s rank-grow- 
ing grass remained, save in a few spots well 
above high water mark, where some scanty 
brush and a thin fringe of salt hay was left 
standing after winter’s work. At my approach 
thus unprotected the flock at once took wing 
and scaled away long before I could get within 
gun-shot. An hour passed, and chancing to 
look in the direction in which they had gone I 
saw the whole flock returning and about a mile 
away. Nearer and nearer they came and I at 
once hunted cover where there was none in the 
flat stretch of mud and water. Five hundred 
yards—four hundred—three hundred—and in 
