ve
you a correct impression of it. Sitting in a frozen blind, all at once
you hear the whirring of wings, far off in the sky. Before you can
locate the source of it, "Swish!" an old Can goes by. You look at the
streak of light he leaves in the atmosphere. Then you hear another
far-off alarm. You seize your gun as the gray mark passes overhead at
about 125 miles an hour. You shoot at it and realize that you have shot
just fifty feet behind it. Another one comes by. Bang! again goes the
gun. You have done a little better this time, but you are yet not less
than thirty feet in the rear. Again you try it. Just a few feathers fly.
You are alarmed now, and there comes to you the admonition of an old
duck hunter, who laid down the following three rules for duck shooting,
viz:

"First, lead them considerably.

"Second, lead them a little more than last time.

"Third, still lead them further yet."

The next time you get your bird, a great big, magnificent Can. Kerplunk!
he falls into the water, or with a dull thud, he strikes the ground with
force enough to kill a horse if hit squarely by it. What a bird he was!
How beautifully marked! How bright his wing! How deep his breast,
compared with any other duck in the land! How magnificent the dark
brown, velvet coloring of his head! How soft and satiny the white
streaked back!

All over the valley the guns were booming. Out of the sky, a mile away,
you would see ducks flying rapidly, suddenly crumple up and plunge to
the earth or water.

Ducks Go Skating.

In a lull in the shooting I left my blind and went a quarter of a mile
away to the little lake mentioned before as frozen over. I crept up to
the top of a hill and looked down upon it. Although the sun was high in
the sky, the lake was still frozen. It was surrounded by ducks. I don't
want to say that they were skating on the ice. I saw one old canvasback
drake, however, peck at another duck. The latter squawked and waddled
out of the way, going where the water should have been. When he struck
the ice, he slid for quite a little distance, balancing with his wings
in a most ludicrous fashion. While cautiously watching them, I saw this
performance repeated several times.

There was no hope of my approaching them within shooting distance, so I
stood up to arouse the ducks, hoping to send them to my companions. They
filled the air with a great clatter of wings, and circled off to various
portions of the valley. I heard a gre