Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
"Fellow wrote me from Man Trap Lake that he shot seven mallards and couple of canvas-back in one hour!" "That must have been fine," said Erik. Carol was ignored. But Kennicott was blustrously cheerful. He shouted to a farmer, as he slowed up to pass the frightened team, "There we are schon gut!" She sat back, neglected, frozen, unheroic heroine in a drama insanely undramatic.
The Captain pointed out the Rouen ducks, almost exactly like the wild mallards. "Those are my live decoys," said he. For the accommodation of this multitude were cities of nest houses, roost houses, and the like. Huge structures elevated on poles swarmed with doves. A duck pond even had been provided for its proper denizens.
When the sky overhead had faded to an obscure purple, and the flare of the sunset had narrowed to a belt along the horizon, he would hear the distant eerie whistle of wild wings. Nothing could be seen yet, but the sound multiplied. He could distinguish now the roar of a great flock of mallards, circling round and round high overhead, scouting for danger.
It is too dry for small mammals and the mountain slopes are so precipitous, thinly forested, and generally undesirable, that, except for gorals, no other large game would live there. The bird life is decidedly uninteresting. There are no cranes or sheldrakes and, except for a few flocks of mallards which feed in the rice fields, we saw no other ducks or geese.
There were bright, cool days that fall when, lacking work to do, he took his shot-gun and a saddle horse and went for long rambles. Sometimes he would follow the river northward, stalking the flocks of teal and mallards that dozed on the sandbars in the wide, muddy stream, perhaps killing three or four fat birds.
This little circumstance of the mallards always flying over him and away behind, when flushed, presently made Felix speculate on the cause, and he kept a closer watch. As they met him they parted and let him through, or rose and went over. Next he noticed that the small birds on the islands were also travelling in the same direction, that is against the wind.
Eleanor carried the intelligence first of all to Roehampton. In her consultation with the Mallards, it was decided that she, rather than Miriam, should visit Cecily. She left them with this purpose. It was possible that Cecily had already heard.
When the circle broke up she had consented to join the choir, and to meet with them the next Friday night, when they went to the Mallards' to practise. The carriage came for her soon after the last guest departed, and Miss Allison stepped in beside her to take the finished garments over to Rollington. It was the quaintest of little villages, settled entirely by Irish families.
When daylight came, they retrieved them with a boat, but were dismayed at finding that these birds were neither mallards, nor porchards, nor any known form of British duck; their colouring, too, seemed strangely brilliant. Then they remembered the neighbouring Zoo, with its ornamental ponds covered with rare imported and exotic waterfowl, and they realised what they had done.
"You must get your wet things off and into bed at once." This came as a command. "Bed! Where? Whose bed?" Was he an Aladdin with a magic lamp, that could summon comfort in that desolation? "Monsieur," I choked, "I owe you a thousand apologies. I came near killing one of your nine decoys. I mistook them for wild mallards." He laughed softly. "They are not mine," he explained.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking