MID-DAY MALLARD SHOOTING FALL. 159 



ducks, try to imitate them as Hear as possible, and 

 you will be well repaid. 



Now as to why we have this good shoot- 

 ing here in the middle of the day : The 

 ducks, you must know, feed mostly during the 

 night and early morning, and would stay in their 

 feeding-places pretty generally during the day, 

 were it not for being driven from them by the 

 hunters, and to such quiet, ' out-of-the-way places as 

 this they come simply to rest and to avoid their 

 persecutors. Two or three days' banging uses up 

 these places for a time; but in a feeding-place like 

 the rice-pond one may shoot for weeks, of course 

 varying his stand frequently, as the ducks would 

 naturally avoid a point where a hunter was always 

 to be found. When driven from one of these 

 roosting-places or mid -day resorts by continuous 

 shooting, they congregate in another, which the 

 duck-shooter should know and repair to. That 

 big batch of ducks that came in a short 

 time ago was probably put out of some 

 other slough by some trapper or duck-shooter. 

 This I judge by their quacking -and the scattered, 

 irregular manner in which they came, as well as 

 by their large numbers. These smaller flocks 

 and single ducks often get up and come back of 



