Duck Shooting in Sind. 
The greater part of the province of Sind is 
irid and waterless. There are certain districts 
vhere reedy marshes stretch in all directions as 
ar as the eye can reach. To these fenlands the 
vildfowl resort in countless myriads, and there 
he sportsman can enjoy some of the finest duck 
hooting in the world. 
Some years since I spent three days with a 
riend at Shadipally, some seventy miles from 
Karachi. We put up at the little rest house close 
o the station, and went to and from our shoot- 
ng ground each day on camels. Good riding- 
amels are somewhat difficult to find, and the 
wo we hired proved rather slow and rough. 
3 ne soon, however, gets used to the peculiar 
iction; personally, I have always found the 
waying motion very soporific, when coming 
lome after a long day. 
The first morning we went to a marsh known 
is the Little Chaylee Jheel, about five miles from 
Shadipally. There we found a large stretch of 
eeds eight or nine feet high, standing in a 
ouple of feet of water. We posted ourselves 
ome 200 yards apart at the edge, while half a 
lozen coolies walked through the reeds in line. 
This first attempt was unsuccessful; there were 
lot many ducks in the jheel, and the few that 
:ame over us were high. I got only a single mal- 
ard, while B. shot two shovellers, a pintail and a 
vidgeon. 
Close at hand was some ground which looked 
ikely to hold snipe, so, as the reeds did not con- 
ain many ducks, we each went off in different 
lirections with a couple of coolies apiece to look 
’or the snipe. Among our native attendants 
| here was a very intelligent man named Allah- 
ukaya; he had brought with him his two little 
;ons, exceedingly sharp lads of twelve or thir- 
een. The elder, Rubayunoo, attached himself to 
1 ne, and during our three days among the Shadi- 
ially j heels acted as my retriever. Rubayunoo 
vas agile of limb and sharp of eye, and the re- 
1 :overy of many a wounded duck was entirely 
due to this keen little fellow. 
The old rice fields through which we walked 
leld a fair number of snipe, and I killed twelve 
:ouple; some half dozen of them were jacks and 
he rest all pintails. I have no note of how many 
| 3 . shot, but, as far as I can remember, he ob- 
ained about the same number as I did. The 
ollowing day we went to Burra Chaylee Jheel, 
i marsh of very large extent, about seven miles 
rom Shadipally. On arriving at the ground we 
ound some quite open flooded fields at the edge 
)f an immense marsh covered with high reeds. 
There were several flocks of ducks and teal in 
he shallow pools in the fields, but as the ground 
vas absolutely open there did not seem much 
fiance of getting to terms with them. As the 
inly possible way we made a detour and got 
| >etween the ducks and the reeds, leaving the 
:oolies behind to try to drive them over us. 
The operation was not a success, and B. and I 
] >nly got a teal apiece. 
! We then collected forces and walked along an 
embankment which led for a certain distance to¬ 
ward the center of the reeds. At the end of it 
was deep water, and there we embarked in grass 
boats. These curious and primitive craft are 
simply large cylinders of grass, bound with grass 
rope to keep them together. One end is 
pointed, and to the point a stick is tied handle- 
wise by which the boat is towed. One has to 
sit very carefully, for, being circular in section, 
these grass boats roll around and shoot one off 
on the slightest provocation. Having both em¬ 
barked in our quaint craft, we were pushed and 
pulled across several pools amid the forest reeds 
to our appointed stations. Sometimes the coolies 
were up to their necks in the water and occasion¬ 
ally for a few yards they had to swim. At last 
our boats would go no further and we waded 
on, thigh deep, to our butts. My station came 
first, in a small open space at the edge of an 
impenetrable jungle of io-foot reeds; B. was 
taken some 300 yards further on. Some one else 
had been stationed at the same spot a few days 
before, for lying on a bed of beaten-down reeds 
were a number of empty cartridge cases. 
Our coolies had made a circuit and were now, 
though still a long way off, advancing toward us 
in line. Soon I could see ducks flying about in 
the distance, and at last I heard a shot from B. 
Suddenly a mallard appeared just over the reeds, 
coming straight for me. It was like shooting at 
a driven grouse. I pulled and heard the bird 
strike the water behind with a heavy splash, 
while a little cloud of feathers drifted down 
upon me with the breeze. Soon the teal began 
to come, with occasional shovellers and 
pochards. Once a great gray goose sailed over, 
and though I hit him hard with both barrels, 
and saw him come down in the dim distance he 
was, alas! never recovered. Later came the 
spotbills, those splendid big gray ducks so 
prized by sportsmen in the East. They seemed 
easy to shoot after the pochards and teal, and 
once when four came together I killed two 
drakes with my right and a duck with the left 
barrel. There were mallards, too, and I bagged 
four of these, two being fine drakes. One of 
my last shots was at a black-backed goose or 
Nukta comb duck; this came down winged, and 
was caught by Rubayunoo after an exciting chase. 
When the flight was at last over, we set to 
work to gather the birds. My own pickup was 
forty-one, including the teal shot in the open 
fields. These consisted of eight species, viz., 
one black-backed goose, eighteen teal, seven 
spotbill, four mallard, four shovellers, five 
common pochard, one Western white-eyed 
pochard, and one gadwall. B. had not been 
qiute so fortunate, his bag being thirty; he had, 
however, a fine pintail drake, the only specimen 
of this kind bagged that day. 
Our third day was devoted to Little Chaylee 
Jheel and snipe shooting. I was rather lucky in 
my stard, bagging ten mallards, a gray goose, a 
pochard, a widgeon, and a whistling duck. The 
snipe, too, were numerous, and I shot twenty- 
six couple. B. had excellent sport with the 
duck and snipe, and also shot a black partridge. 
The method of driving ducks over the shoot¬ 
ers, as practiced in the Sind jheels, certainly 
gives some exciting sport. The number of 
species seen, and their different modes of flight 
prevents shooting from becoming monotonous. 
Not the least interesting part of the day is 
when, the shooting over, one goes through the 
collection of eight or ten kinds of ducks and 
teal, picking out for careful examination the 
rarer ones. As will have been observed, the 
common wild duck, or mallard, is numerous in 
Sind, while in many other parts of India it is 
comparatively rare. 
Perfect knowledge of the huge jheels near 
which they spend their lives has made the 
Shadipally coolies extremely expert in getting 
the birds over the guns. Neither B. nor I went 
to Shadipally with a view of making a big 
bag. We began our shooting late and left off 
early, and altogether took things very easily. 
We left perfectly satisfied with our sport, and 
got as many birds as we could dispose of. We 
felt it would have been selfish to shoot more. 
One unfortunate feature about the shooting is 
the number of lost birds. At least 20 per cent, 
of the ducks shot are never gathered. Some 
are no doubt hidden by the coolies for their 
own use, but quite apart from that, the high 
thick reeds prevent many cripples and a fair 
proportion of dead birds from ever being re¬ 
covered. The last day I lost two mallards, 
which fell apparently stone dead in rushes only 
a foot or eighteen inches high. I believe one’s 
bag would be increased and the number of lost 
birds reduced by using an eight-pound 12-bore, 
chambered for the long shell. Many of the 
ducks go over so high that it is practically im¬ 
possible to kill them clean with an ordinary 
12-bore. W. R. Gilbert. 
The Outlook. 
Raleigh, N. C., Aug. 13. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: Now that the season for quail is but 
little more than a hundred days away, sports¬ 
men are beginning to think about the birds and 
what there will be doing. It is found that there 
are plenty of birds in North Carolina and that 
they are well grown. Reports show that the law 
has been well observed. 
Last season the number of sportsmen who 
came here from the North and took out licenses 
was the smallest since the license law was put 
in force, the reason for this being the hard times, 
and it is not yet known what will be the outlook 
in this direction this year. The loss of funds in 
this respect has been no inconsiderable handicap 
to the State Audubon Society, but it has been 
privately aided somewhat and has been able to 
do, in one way or another, a very gratifying 
amount of work. If the business sky clears in 
the North, it is very evident that many men 
will come down and make up for lost time. They 
will find plenty of prosperity in North Carolina 
and lots of good things besides quail. A number 
of these sportsmen, by the way, have made very 
warm friendships in North Carolina and were 
missed last season. Fred. A. Olds. 
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