. Wild fowl shooting. Containing scientific and practical descriptions of wild fowl: their resorts, habits, flights and the most successful method of hunting them . the GrayDuck, the latter name being the one it is almost alwayscalled by practical hunters. The ducks seldom frequenttimbered country in the north, but much prefer openprairie ponds and lakes, marshy and grassy places tofeed in. Their flight is similar to mallards, possibly a GAD WALL D UCK—GRA Y I) UCK. 173 little swifter, and they are often taken for the femalemallard when shot at and this illusion is only dispelledafter killing
. Wild fowl shooting. Containing scientific and practical descriptions of wild fowl: their resorts, habits, flights and the most successful method of hunting them . the GrayDuck, the latter name being the one it is almost alwayscalled by practical hunters. The ducks seldom frequenttimbered country in the north, but much prefer openprairie ponds and lakes, marshy and grassy places tofeed in. Their flight is similar to mallards, possibly a GAD WALL D UCK—GRA Y I) UCK. 173 little swifter, and they are often taken for the femalemallard when shot at and this illusion is only dispelledafter killing and picking the duck up. They decoynicely in open ponds, whose shores are fringed withrtags, grass or wild rice. Mallard decoys are best touse, except, of course, those of theii own kind. Theseducks I found plenty in the lakes of Dakota, in theearly fall. In winter, they go south, and in late fallare found in abundance, seemingly more plenty thanany other duck. Their call is very similar to a mallardsbeing finer, shriller, and not so vibrating and 6 shot is the best size to use. These birds dieeasily, and when crippled are not hard to I 111If! ^ f i i^ ^|1/f CHAPTKH XVIII. QUAIL SHOOTING. We stood in the marsh one day, Don I,He retrieving duck I liilled almost in the sky.—Great friends were we, chums, just like two boys,—When a whistling quail coaxed us from our decoys. Oftentimes in the sear and yellow fall, when Oc-tober frosts have hli-^lited the green summer sward, Ihave stood in the marsh, my faithful four-footed friendheside me, and he and I have looked away up on theliillside, where golden corn-stalks were bending to the1)reeze, where little thickets stood apart from one an-other in clustered bodies, and the osage hedges formeda line of impenetrable fence. At such times, the clearair bore to our ears the sweetest cry known to the hunt-er,—the call of the quail, whistling for its scatteredmates. We looked at each other, and when I said
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectgameandgamebirds
