166 "GAME SHOAL-WATER FOWL. 



had better quit and pick up early, or the flashes 

 from your gun after dark will so alarm the ducks 

 that they will forsake it for some other less 

 dangerous place. Many shots will frequently be 

 had at wood-duck, teal, and sprigtails in this sport, 

 more particularly in the rice-ponds, their common 

 favorite feeding-places. 



Now, a hint or two as to picking up your 

 ducks in a rice-pond. Before you leave your 

 blind fasten to the top of the tallest handy stalk 

 of rice a piece of paper, rag, or other conspicuous 

 object, to serve as a guide to direct your course, 

 which you may be the better able to 

 judge when you have gone far enough in any 

 direction. If you have but few ducks down, it 

 will be better to go direct to each one; but if 

 there be fifty, sixty, or more, take a direct course 

 from your blind, in the direction you suppose the 

 greater part to lie, to a distance which will in- 

 clude all the dead in that direction, and, keeping 

 a sharp lookout in front .and on both sides, pick 

 up all you may see. When you have reached 

 your limit of distance, turn squarely to the right 

 or left from fifteen to twenty-five feet, according 

 to the density of the rice, and then take a course 

 back towards your blind parallel to your first one. 



