394 
July, 1920 
forest and stream 
Oh, Boy! 
“That sure was some storm last 
night. Gee, didn’t it rain? And 
blow, too? A regular gale. But 
we were snug and dry in our 
R. M. C. Tent 
It certainly pays to have a 
reliable tent when you are camp- 
ing. Ours has stood lots of rough 
weather, and is still as good as new. 
Whenever I live out of doors, I 
want an R. M. C. Tent for my 
home.” 
A complete line of Campers’ 
canvas covers and bags. Write to- 
day for Booklet and prices. 
RICHARDS MANUFACTURING 
CORPORATION 
948-52 N. 8th St.. PHILADELPHIA 
PRICES 
Balbriggan$1.25 
Linen(Mesh)$1.50 
I Fine Glove Silk $2.00 ' 
| Heavy Silk(Mesh)$2.5® 
At your dealer's or • , 
' postpaid on receipt of price 
| A. R. CHISHOLM CO. 
NEW YORK, N. Y. 
1 Suite 1089 1328 Broadway 
LINEN $150 
I MESH ) "JLT5-C? 
ALL SIZES 
Extra Sack FREE 
KLEAN E-Z 
Jock Strap $1.25 
GUARANTEED TO KEEP YOU DRY 
in the heaviest rainstorms. The only reliable 
garment for every outdoor requirement. 
Compact. Light, Serviceable 
IT-FITS-THE-POCKET 
FREE catalog of pneumatic goods 
for camp, automobile, hospital, office 
and home requirements. For Sale 
by Sporting Goods Dealers. 
METROPOLITAN AIR GOODS CO. 
vasback. Perhaps a puff of wind car- 
ried the man scent his way stronger than 
he liked. He stretched his neck more 
even than it had already been stretched 
and poised for a quick jump. The rest of 
the ducks bunched and were motionless 
as decoys ; only, as an expert, I never 
would have bought decoys with necks so 
long and heads held so high. Then the 
signal came and the guns cracked. To 
the left, where the writer’s sevens raked 
the flock, the water was full of dead and 
dying ducks, fourteen in all. The toll 
of fives, aimed a bit low, was half a 
dozen, while the fours from the six-gauge 
accounted for eleven, six of which were 
crippled and had to be shot a second 
or third time. Major-domo had learned 
that fine shot will kill, particularly when 
the ducks are bunched and hold their 
heads high. 
After looking over the line of dead 
ducks lying backs down, breasts up on 
the white sand, he remarked, “Well, 
thirty-one ain’t so very bad, but I 
oughter ’ve got more. They was pretty 
well scattered in front of me.” 
No; thirty-one was not so very bad, but 
from a sport standpoint I passed it up 
forever. If it had been ducks one wanted, 
they could have been bought for less 
in the open market than the few that 
Patsy’s owner doled out to us for our 
share cost in the way of expenses. And, 
outside of watching the dog, there was 
little to choose between a trip through the 
market and the hours of waiting in the 
grass by that shore of white sand for a 
pot-shot that might never come, or when 
it did, would be over in a minute. 
It was on a par with shooting from a 
box blind covered with looking glass on a 
Southern lake in a calm day, where every 
duck within sight of the glint and glitter 
of the glass will swim in so fast that it 
appears to the occupant of the box that 
he must defend himself with powder and 
shot, else be ejected in quick order. 
The only thing needed there, as with 
the dog, is patience, and a gunner willing 
to wait can pot many a fine canvasback 
between daylight and dark. 
Half a day of such shooting, however, 
was enough for the writer. He resigned 
in favor of a young man who was a poor 
wing shot — to whom the delightful repose 
he was able to get in that box appealed, 
and it was about all he did get. 
The writer, though, does plead guilty 
to having flagged ducks when decoy shoot- 
ing on open water on occasions when the 
birds were shy, this having been done 
with toy balloons, red ones. These were 
staked out inside of the main bunch of 
decoys to the right and left of the blind. 
If the day was cold, the balloons lost 
buoyancy and did not do well; if very 
windy, they jumped and jerked too much; 
but with conditions just right, they were 
of considerable help to a flock of wooden 
decoys, perhaps because they kept moving 
and so attracted attention, but more like- 
ly on account of exciting the curiosity of 
the ducks, who came in to see what those 
round, red things were, anyhow. 
A mirror set in the forward end of a 
sneak-boat also brought good results. A 
careful handler of a sneak-boat always 
tries to approach a flock of ducks with 
the sun at his back, the idea being that 
the glare blinds them so that they are 
less ready to decide whether the object 
nearing so silently is only a harmless 
drifting log or a contrivance of man made 
to work them harm. 
The mirror experiment was tried with 
a view to throwing a strong reflection of 
the sun’s rays in the ducks’ eyes, so as 
to dazzle them still more, and it worked 
well, not as a dazzler but as a curiosity 
breeder, more with geese than ducks. They 
all were anxious to find out what that 
shining thing was and often swam toward 
it instead of away. 
Prompted by like curiosity, I have seen 
a pair of bluebills swim half a mile to 
get a good look at a bright tin can float- 
ing on the bay, and when they saw, hurry 
away faster than they came. 
These devices all worked well in the 
days of plenty of game and no bag limits, 
at a time when sport was measured by 
the quantity killed and not by the quality 
of the shooting or skill displayed by the 
shooter. No doubt they then helped to 
decrease the numbers of the deer, the 
geese and the ducks, but now they should 
everywhere be prohibited by the law. 
Doing this really is protecting the game 
from itself, for nothing can ever be 
done that will curb the curiosity of a 
deer, a duck or their kind in the wild. 
TALES THE RIVER 
TOLD TO MATT 
(continued from page 375 ) 
with coffee made from the waters of a 
spring which bubbled up from the foot 
of the gravel bank. 
Their very souls were filled with glad- 
ness by it all. Mr. Woodhull’s health 
was rapidly flowing back to him because 
of his basking in God’s free air and sun- 
shine. Mr. Adams was temporarily at 
rest from the cares of his business and 
Matt, the restless, discerning boy with 
nothing escaping his notice, was more 
than glad. A crow sat well across the 
river on a dead tree top sending out an 
occasional complaining caw and the boy 
wondered if there was still a belated, 
not fully fledged, youngster of her care 
which he might find over there some- 
where and look over. A brown throated 
thrush sent out from a nearby thicket 
its notes of melody, which, mingling in 
a strange way with the suppressed gur- 
gle of the stream flowing at their feet, 
made a symphony of sound that city 
streets never knew. The sinking sun at 
their backs sent its rays slanting across 
the headwaters of the little bay, glimpses 
of which might be caught between the 
trees from where they sat and made a 
vista of rest which filled them all with 
content. 
A waking dream filled the boy’s mind 
a long time after the? two others were 
asleep — would he be able, later, to go by 
himself and pass as many days or months 
as he chose in some wilderness of woods 
and waters and there regale himself with 
all the wonders they contained? His 
boyhood wish was wonderfully prophetic 
of the years of mature life. 
