WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 349 
of no less than ten feet, abound on the waters and morasses. 
There is also a variety of brant, known as Hutchins’ 
brant, and a large winter duck, nondescript I believe, until 
I described it myself after a visit to the great Georgian 
bay of Lake Huron in 1849, found in great numbers in the 
same regions of which the snow goose, Anas hyperboreus, 
and the white-fronted goose, Anas crythriopus, are occa- 
sional autumnal visitants. 
The methods of hunting wild ducks and wild geese on 
inland streams and marshes are threefold: First, to beat 
the marshes and reed lands along the margins of slow- 
running, sedgy streams, with one or more well broke, mute 
water-spaniels, trained to hunt close and to retrieve. 
This is a beautiful and scientific sport, the best mode of 
pursuing which, as well as of breaking dogs for it, is 
described at length under the head of water-spaniels and 
retrievers, at pages 213 and 214. 
The second method, one much practised on the streams 
flowing through woodlands into the great northern lakes, 
is to take a stand at nightfall or daybreak, at some spot 
over which they fly, near the river’s mouth, going out to 
the open lake or returning to their roosting-places in the 
inland morasses. The flights last not above an hour, or a 
little over, morning and evening; but during that space 
of time two or three guns may occupy themselves in- 
cessantly, and their bearers will probably return well 
loaded. 
The third and last method, is to paddle slowly and 
silently in a bark canoe, through the shallow rice lakes of 
Canada and the West, with or without a brace or two of 
