MALLARD-SHOOTING IN THE 
TIMBER 
BY ERNEST McGAFFEY 
ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY.N. L. HOYT 
FP HE mallard is a shoal- 
WA water duck, and, bar- 
ting the wood-duck, no 
fowl of his kind loves 
the timber better. Even 
in the spring, when the 
pintail, redhead and 
other ducks are flying 
over submerged prairies, and alighting in 
vast flocks in the open, the mallards hug the 
woods. They are, like all ducks, great 
gormandizers, and will do more damage 
to a cornfield than a wilderness of pigs; 
but after they have fed, and rise to scek 
the marshes, you will see them string for 
the timber, and the pond-holes in among 
the. willows and the taller trees. Where 

the oak timber has been submerged, and 
the acorns lie thick in shallow water, the 
mallards will come in with such }:ertinacity 
that they can scarcely be driven away, and 
fortunate is the hunter who runs into this 
combination. 
To get a good bag of these fowl! requires 
very moderate ability as a shot, but the 
wisest kind of hunting. The mallard is not 
a bird which is hard to kill once he is 
brought into range, but he is a wary and 
suspicious bird unless the preparations 
made to entice him are scientifically and 
alluringly complete. He will come in to 
wooden decoys, and particularly if the 
hunter is an adept at “calling” with 
a duck “call.”” Good shooting is had in 

Some men are “pushed” to the timber 
