that they will be at home when wanted.

I hope that in this chapter I have succeeded in showing how wild ducks
can be fed in the best and also most economical manner, and I shall
endeavour in the concluding one to give my readers some hints as to how
the birds can be made to show reasonably good sport.

SHOOTING

[Illustration: _W.L. Colls, Ph. Sc._

"_Quite tall enough._"]

CHAPTER IV

SHOOTING

The chief difficulty confronting a host who desires to give his guests
good sport lies in the fact that it is no easy matter to get young
hand-reared wild ducks to fly well, and I propose in this chapter to
endeavour to show how it can best be done.

I say _young_ birds, as I think it will be admitted that wild duck, if
shot in late October or November, will nearly always fly well. Many
sportsmen will, however, for various reasons, not want to keep their
birds so long, either on the score of expense or for fear of their
straying from home. Young wild ducks hatched about the second week in
April should, if properly fed, be in good plumage and fit to shoot by
the first week in September; and why, their owner naturally asks, should
they go on eating their heads off when they are ready to be shot and
eaten themselves. Partridge driving has not begun and the first edge has
been taken off the grouse, so why should not the ducks be shot now;
moreover, if fed well they will fetch a good price in the market at this
time, as they will be in the nature of a treat so early in the season.
The methods of shooting hand-reared wild ducks may be divided into
four:--

1. Posting the guns at different spots on the margin of a lake or near
it, and flushing the ducks by means of dogs and beaters.

2. Teaching the ducks to take a particular line of flight by means of a
horn, and then, without using the horn on the day of the shoot,
intercepting them during their flight.

3. Catching the ducks beforehand, liberating them in convenient numbers,
and then driving them over the guns.

4. Flight shooting.

To deal first of all with No. 1 method. Let it be imagined that the host
is fortunate enough to possess a lake or piece of marshy ground of
considerable extent, and bordered by reeds or flags, which form good
cover. Possibly the lake may narrow at some part, and if so our host's
dispositions are easy; he places his guns on either shore at the "neck,"
and if there is room he fastens a punt in the water, midway between the