4 
began to work In fields whore rioo was still in the shook near De Witt. 
Fields near Stuttgart where daioage by duoke bad been reported were 
visited on Seoerabor 17. The field belonging to £• J. Basye mentioned 
above ae the one where duoka first began to work had an area of 80 acres 
azul rice in the shook was still present on about 60 acres* This rioe was 
cut and shocked about Novombor 15 according to local reports* Shortly 
after ducks began to come in .to feed here at night arriving about dusk 
and leaving before daylight* <^n about the third night recourse was had 
to night shooting to keep the birds out but in this particular ease it 
did little good* lien who were present stated that the birds came liter- 
ally in hordes, do eager were they for food that only those within a 
few yards would rise at a shot and all would alight laasediately* Effort 
was made to thresh this rioe as soon as possible but so little of the 
grain reoibined that after half a day the attempt was abandoned* 
On examining this field critically 1 found that in the upper fourtii 
e 
the grain had been soiaewhat injured by frost while it was maturing so that 
about half of the rioe kernels in each head had failed to mature* In 
the remainder of the field however the yield * as nearly as could be 
Judged* had been heavy and the rioe* of ths variety known as Honduras* 
was of exoellent quality* The ducks had ooiae in here while the ground 
was still soft and from one-sixth to one-fifth of ttm shocks in the field 
had been pulled dovna or trampled down by the birds in feeding* while in 
some instances in low spots the straw had actually been tran^led into 
the mod. Other shooks had had the cap shoaves pulled off and in all 
praotioally the entire yield of rioe had been destroyed* What remained 
was not worth threshing* The heads had been entirely stripped (see fig.f) 
