24 
Forest and Stream 
They Never Shoot Loose 
Write for Catalog No. 319 
THE HUNTER ARMS CO., Inc. 
FULTON, N. Y. 
McDonald & linforth 
Pacific Coast Representatives 
Call Bldg., San Francisco, Calif. 
Export Office: 5 State St., New York City 
SMITH GUNS 
You want a gun 
famous for shoot¬ 
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GET A SMITH 
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LAST 
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LUGER CARBINE.16"barrel 
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t — ' -6" J 767mm A &9mm Catalogue 
Long range eg;- ten cents 
sights, 32-shot magazines. V CHR. SCHILLING, 
world famous Mauser sporting rifles. 
PACIFIC ARMS CORPORATION, San Francisco, Calif. 
Tefe ver 
New Lefever Nitro* 
Special only $29.00 
O. K.’ed and purchased in 
quantities by the U. S. 
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considering the 
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Most durable 
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first lock 
fl red 
over 
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Every 
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tested with an 
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A standardized 
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drop. A Lefever won the world’s 
championship at the Olympic 
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stood for service and durability 
for Over 50 yrs. Write for Catalogue 
Lefever Arms Co., Ithaca, N.Y. 
A DUCK HUNT IN HAITI 
WATER BIRDS IN GREAT VARIETY ARE EN¬ 
COUNTERED DURING A MID-WINTER SOJOURN 
By J. DRY DEN KUSER 
TELEPHONE bell 
rings and you struggle 
to awake amidst a 
mass of mosquito net¬ 
ting. You stumble 
across the bare floor to 
learn it is two-thirty; 
and pause to wonder 
why you care what 
hour it is. You re¬ 
member—you are in 
Haiti and it is a duck- 
hunt morning in Janu¬ 
ary. By the light of the setting moon 
you discover first one puttee and then 
another, and a half hour later finds you 
crawling into a Ford filled with guns, 
shells, food, a couple of thermos bottles 
(for Haiti is still “wet”) and other 
paraphernalia. 
About an hour after you have left 
Port-au-Prince and joggled along the 
country, which has changed from culti¬ 
vated and irrigated cane fields to cactus 
desert, you leave the main road and 
branch off on a clearing through the 
cactus. Soon you stop and there is 
much blowing of the horn. After about 
ten minutes or so this results in the 
straggling in of several native blacks. 
Each picks his man and starts through 
the underbrush to the edge of Troucai- 
man, a reed and mangrove filled fresh¬ 
water lake. Here lie in the mud shore 
several “dug-outs” (primitive canoes 
dug out of one piece of tree trunk about 
7 feet long by V/ 2 feet wide). You 
crawl in the front of your particular 
dug-out, the native stands in the rear and 
poles you off into the blackness. 
It takes but a few moments to lose 
track of where your companions have 
gone, and all you see are shadows of 
water birds rising out of the water in 
front of you; others flapping lazily by 
or darting across your path. The moon 
has set and only the lighter blackness 
of the eastern sky tells you that another 
hour will see sunrise. 
Gradually, very gradually, you are 
able to distinguish shape and size in the 
shadows about you. First, beating along 
with much noise, just above the water, 
you know the “poule d’eau,” as they are 
called by the natives. These represent 
three species, the American coot, the 
purple and the Florida gallinules, in the 
order of their abundance. Locally, they 
consider them good game, and your 
guide will always insist that you shoot 
them. They are not bad to eat, as a 
matter of fact, but for sport, shooting 
them is like catching a sparrow after 
having put the proverbial salt on its tail. 
The larger, slower shadows which 
you have seen now begin to divide them¬ 
selves into black shadows and white 
shadows (if we can ever call a shadow 
white). You see, from then on, the 
hundreds and hundreds of white shad¬ 
ows of American egrets, and a few of 
the smaller snowy egret. Here in the 
heart of Haiti, there is no Audubon 
Society to protect them; but, thankfully, 
there are practically no plume hunters 
to worry them. 
The darker shadows of the same size 
are, of course, herons, mostly the 
Louisiana, but with great-blue, an occa¬ 
sional black-crowned night, and many of 
the familiar green heron, the little 
“shitepoke” of our summer marshes. 
A flock of smaller birds rush by like 
bullets, and not at first recognizing 
them, you ask your guide. 
“Cecele, cecele!” he cries excitedly. 
This means the blue-winged teal, of 
which you see more later, and are lucky 
enough to get one bird out of the next 
flock, which comes nearer to you. 
A winding road over the mountains in Haiti 
In writing to Advertisers mention Forest and Stream. It will identify you. 
