284 



FINALE. 



hunters very naturally feel disinclined to cater for 

 them when by any means it can be avoided. 



On one occasion they destroyed for myself 

 and companion over forty mallard ducks 'which we 

 had killed one evening and left to be gathered the 

 next morning, when the ice should be stronger, 

 it being at the time we stopped shooting too weak 

 to bear our weight, and yet too strong to be easily 

 broken by our boat. We remained until dark, 

 and, though we were back next morning but a few 

 minutes after sunrise, the crows had arrived before 

 us, and were then at their feast. Out of sixty 

 odd ducks which we counted upon gathering, only 

 fifteen were left us fit to be taken away ; the rest 

 were utterly spoiled. Two or three had been 

 eaten by the minks and owls, as we had expected, 

 and could see by their tracks upon the light snow 

 which covered the ice; but to the crows we were 

 chiefly indebted for our disappointment, and since 

 that time opportunities for cancelling the debt have 

 rarely been neglected. Though 1 have at various 

 times, before and since, had from one to eight 

 ducks destroyed by crows, such wholesale destruc- 

 tion as the above I have seen but once ; and, learn- 

 ing caution from the experience, I mean never to 

 see it again. 



