20 FIELD SHOOTING. 



bunch of ducks and geese is very heavy to cany. 

 The country about the Sangamon was wild and 

 very sparsely settled. Even now it has no large 

 population, and remains a great resort for ducks 

 and geese, a fine place for snipe, and the quail 

 still abound. There was a fine variety of ducks. 

 The bag would include mallards, bluebills, pin- 

 tails, green-winged teal and blue-winged teal, with 

 some wood-ducks. I consider the mallard the best 

 duck we have in the West, and I doubt very much 

 whether there is any better anywhere else. A 

 great deal is said about the canvas-back, and 

 with justice; but I do not think them any better 

 eating than mallards are in the fall of the year, 

 when they come on large and fat and glorious in 

 plumage from the wild rice-fields of the north- 

 west, away in the British territories. 



After staying on the Sangamon about two years 

 I moved to Elkhart, in Logan County, where I 

 have lived ever since. It is in the heart of the 

 State of Illinois, a hundred and sixty-six miles 

 south of Chicago, eighteen miles northwest of 

 Springfield, and one hundred and fifteen miles from 

 St. Louis. It was then a grand place for game, 

 and is very good now late in the fall, when the 

 pinnated grouse pack and partially migrate. Fif- 



