“Simple as it may appear to shoot with success into a solid mass of ducks sitting on the water at forty or fifty yards’ distance, yet when you recollect that you are placed nearly level with the surface, the object opposed to you, even though composed of hundreds of individuals, may be in appearance but a few feet in width. To give, therefore, the best promise of success, old duckers recommend that the _nearest_ duck should be in perfect relief above the sight, whatever the size of the column, to avoid the common result of over-shooting. The correctness of this principle I saw illustrated in an instance in which I had toled to within a space of from forty to seventy yards off the shore, a bed of certainly hundreds of ducks. Twenty yards beyond the outside birds of the dense mass, were five Black-heads, one of which was alone killed out of the whole number, by a deliberate aim into the _middle_ of the large flock from a rest, by a heavy well-proved duck-gun. “Before I leave the subject of _sitting-shooting_, I will mention an occurrence that took place in Bush River, a few years since. A man whose house was situated near the bank, on rising early one morning, observed that the river had frozen, except an open space of ten or twelve feet in diameter, about eighty yards from the shore, nearly opposite his house. The spot was full of ducks, and with a heavy gun he fired into it. Many were killed, and those that flew soon returned, and were again and again shot at, till, fearful that he was injuring those already his own, he ceased the massacre, and brought on shore ninety-two ducks, most of which were Canvass-backs.