urn away in alarm, or else examine the blind very
cautiously on all sides. If you know now how to wait and sit perfectly
still, the birds will at last fly directly over the stand to look in.
That is your only chance; and you must take it quickly if you expect
to eat duck for dinner.

By moonlight one may sit on the bank in plain sight of his decoys, and
watch the wild birds as long as he will. It is necessary only to sit
perfectly still. But this is unsatisfactory; you can never see just
what they are doing. Once I had thirty or forty close about me in this
way. A sudden turn of my head, when a bat struck my cheek, sent them
all off in a panic to the open ocean.

A curious thing frequently noticed about these birds as they come in
at night is their power to make their wings noisy or almost silent at
will. Sometimes the rustle is so slight that, unless the air is
perfectly still, it is scarcely audible; at other times it is a strong
_wish-wish_ that can be heard two hundred yards away. The only theory
I can suggest is that it is done as a kind of signal. In the daytime
and on bright evenings one seldom hears it; on dark nights it is very
frequent, and is always answered by the quacking of birds already on
the feeding grounds, probably to guide the incomers. How they do it
is uncertain; it is probably in some such way as the night-hawk makes
his curious booming sound,--not by means of his open mouth, as is
generally supposed, but by slightly turning the wing quills so that
the air sets them vibrating. One can test this, if he will, by blowing
on any stiff feather.

On stormy days the birds, instead of resting on the shoals, light near
some lonely part of the beach and, after watching carefully for an
hour or two, to be sure that no danger is near, swim ashore and
collect in great bunches in some sheltered spot under a bank. It is
indeed a tempting sight to see perhaps a hundred of the splendid birds
gathered close together on the shore, the greater part with heads
tucked under their wings, fast asleep; but if you are to surprise
them, you must turn snake and crawl, and learn patience. Scattered
along the beach on either side are single birds or small bunches
evidently acting as sentinels. The crows and gulls are flying
continually along the tide line after food; and invariably as they
pass over one of these bunches of ducks they rise in the air to look
around over all the bank. You must be well hidden to escape those