784 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 20, 1913. 
“Shooting up” the Feeding Grounds 
A STORM was in the air, and although my 
barometer forecasted nothing of it, stand¬ 
ing for two days at 30.30, yet the old salts 
along the Plymouth shore predicted it, saying 
with a certainty that left no doubt: "It's coming 
a solid rip off here to the east’ard.” Even the 
ducks in the bay showed by their uneasiness, that 
they, too, felt the lurking threats all about them 
in the atmosphere. The wind was blowing steadi¬ 
ly from the northeast, and over on Long Beach 
the surf was rolling and piling at a great rate. 
Excellent duck weather. The harder the wind 
blows, and the rougher it gets, the better those 
feathered fellows like it. The tide served just 
right in the morning, low water at seven o'clock; 
and Albert and I had been waiting this event for 
two weeks. 
Morning dawned under cold, leaden skies, 
and at 6:15 o’clock we stepped into Albert's mo¬ 
tor-boat, almost at the very spot where the Pil¬ 
grims stepped out nearly three hundred years ago. 
A squirt of gasoline, a couple of turns on the 
fly-wheel, and the old "kicker" jumped into life. 
Then we were off. 
At the mouth of Plymouth Harbor, a little 
to the northward of Long Beach Point, are nu¬ 
merous mussel beds, clam flats, etc., affording ex¬ 
cellent feeding grounds for the ducks at low tide. 
We had been threatening to "shoot ’em up” for 
some time, but owing to Albert’s activities along 
the carpenter line, he had been unable to get off 
for a morning, and he confided to me on the 
By FRANK L. BAILEY 
way down: “Why," he said, “you know some 
lays when I’ve been driving nails, I’d get to 
thinking about those coots off -here, and I’d start 
three nails in a board, then I'd take my hammer 
and make the prettiest triple you ever saw. Yes, 
sir; I’d make believe I was swinging my old 
‘pump’ on a bunch of coots.” Then he gave 
the tiller a couple of notches; and squinted over 
toward Duxbury. 
Already the birds had begun feeding, and as 
we neared the grounds, a bunch of butter-bill 
coots leaped straight into the air and sailed out 
to sea. Choosing an ideal location, with the 
mouth of the harbor on one side and the mud 
flats on the other, we put over the decoys. In 
the string we had eight coot, consisting of butter- 
bills and white-wings, also a varied collection of 
Old Squaws. “Quandies" and some others that I 
wasn't quite sure of. There’s a bird that winters 
here, popularly known as the “Quandy,” at least 
that’s the way it is pronounced. It resembles the 
Lons:-Tail Duck (Old Squaw) in every particu¬ 
lar except that it is smaller, about sixteen inches, 
the Old Squaw being twenty-one; the notes, too, 
of the latter, a confused musical gabbling, is 
missing. Charles K. Reed, in his book on game 
birds, describes the Old Squaw very nicely, giv¬ 
ing the measurement as twenty-one inches. He 
also gives a measurement of sixteen inches, but 
there is nothing to explain the latter. 
The decoys out, we fed shells into our 
“pump” guns, and settled down with a sharp eye 
to w ndward. A long gray wedge of gep' 1 
wended its way inward, and we watched them 
battle against a hard quartering wind, as they 
swung around, slowly, keeping perfect formation, 
and headed up the harbor. I glanced at my 
watch, 6.51—the law was off until sunset, so we 
sat and shivered with the cold, waiting for the 
first victim. 
Albert sighted the first bird. Away off over 
the lashing white-caps, he was coming like a 
bullet. Dead to windward; you can imagine his 
speed. In a moment, with white-barred wings 
held stiff, he was investigating the decoys. My 
companion doubled him up prettily; and the first 
white-wing had paid the toli. Scarcely had we 
picked up the dead coot, when three “Quandies” 
swung in over the decoys. We opened up at 
the same time—and missed. A flash of black 
and white plump bodies, a sharp “crack” of 
smokeless powder as we pumped in more shells, 
and the three ducks were floating breast-up to¬ 
ward us. In a moment we had cast off the halter 
and were picking them up. 
The sea was getting stronger as the day in¬ 
creased, but not being of the seasick kind, we 
did not worry any on that account. It did bother 
our shooting, though, and we scored several 
misses because of it. A “water-witch” came 
along, just skimming the waves, and I told Al¬ 
bert to watch me down him. When I thought 
things were about right I fired, and, as I pulled, 
a big comber threw the boat up sharply, and I 
shot about four feet over the bird’s back, then 
reached around for something to hang on to. 
