FOREST AND STREAM 
403 
In Jocund Days 
Wandering Thoughts of Duck, Snipe, Woodcock, Quail, Chickens and Other Game Birds 
By Sandy Griswold. 
Jocund indeed, are these early fall days. They 
are the first of the sportsman’s idyl. The turtle 
doves are “packing” and the blackbirds massing 
preparatory to their pilgrimage southward. There 
is a tingle and a tang in the air, and the teal 
are on the wing. The most glorious epoch of 
the year is almost upon us—the time when the 
wild fowl are flying. 
There is a subtle magic in these days that can¬ 
not be understood, let alone be described, yet 
ask any hunter and he will tell you it is because 
the ducks are flying. 
Without a chance for refutation, wild fowling 
is easily the sportsman’s chief delight. Of course, 
there are many who are fonder of chicken and 
quail shooting, but where you will find one 
enamored of this class of gunning you will find 
one hundred willing to take oath that it furnishes 
no comparison with that supplied by the quack¬ 
ing hordes which came down to us from their 
polaric homes in the painted and tingly autumn 
time. At that, a day on ‘the yellowing prairie, in 
the dun stubble or flaming woods, behind a pair 
of good, rangey dogs, is hard to beat. But it 
lacks the exhilarating variety of a flounder in 
the slough or the ducking marsh. Wild fowl 
shooting has an extensive scope. It not only 
includes the many species of ducks, but the geese, 
the crane, the jacks, yellowlegs, willet, plover, 
avocets, godwits and all the waders and affords 
the gunner a wider field of sport than any other 
class of game that can be mentioned. And then, 
there is something so ineffably thrilling about the 
crouching in a reedy blind awaiting the onrush 
of a battalion of mallards or redheads or blue 
or greenwing teal that it claims an overwhelm¬ 
ing majority of sportsmen the world over as its 
devotees. 
The season is just now dawning—the pin 
feathers on the young mallard’s wing are 
strengthening into sturdy quills and the adoles¬ 
cent blue wings are al'ready hurtling up and 
down the marsh and over the checquered smart- 
weed beds, and from now on, until Old Crimp 
fastens his icy fetters on lake and stream, we 
will hear more about the birds and the shooting 
than any other kind of outdoor excitement, 
although the milder pastime with line and rod 
goes merrily on. 
So many men are attracted every autumn, and 
in the boisterous spring time, too, to the lakes 
and lowlands, that the sordid individual, who has 
neither taste for or knowledge of the ecstacies of 
the field, wonders whether it is sport or greed 
that lures so many men from the comforts of 
home and the fascinations of business to brave 
all sorts of hardships and privations on slough 
and stream in the wild fowl season. 
I was down in Billy Townsend’s gun store last 
night and in a talk with an old time ducker, who 
yet occasionally shoulders his beloved Parker for 
a day in the field, I gathered a lot of information 
which I hope will prove interesting to these 
skeptical people. 
One season, oh, it must have been nearly a 
quarter of a century ago, he made a bag of over 
800 mixed ducks, canvasback, redhead, mallard, 
widgeon, bluebill and teal. 
He was then a fair field shot and it required 
a good many forays upon the many adjacent 
ducking grounds to make the final count he did. 
So much for his dexterity as a hunter, but the 
pecuniary benefits did not figure up so promis¬ 
ingly. Say, for instance, that he had killed an 
even sixty-seven dozen birds, and sold them at 
the highest market price, and yet they would 
not have brought him more than $50.00 or $60.00. 
Compare this sum with his expenses, in those 
days fourfold more than they would be to-day. 
Time, $100.00; railroad fare, $50.00; ammunition, 
$50.00; incidentals, $50.00, or a total of $250.00, 
or $200.00 more than the birds would have 
brought him if he had sold them all. 
Another Case of Watchful Waiting. 
