Arizona republican., 1902-04-07
MIGHTY KILLING OF DUCKS.
Forty-Seven at One Shot the Record
 O. c. Guessaz of Texas

In the southern part of the country. especially along the Gulf of Mexico. the green-winged teals sometimes band in enormous flocks.
 When they take their flight in the morning the sound of their wings is like low roll of thunder and is audi ble more than a mile away
 It takes them some time to get sepa- rated. and even in the middle of tho afternoons flocks are occasionally seen hurling themselves steadily through the air. or stopping and roaring down upon some pond like huge black col umn falling from the sky.
 When a half-dozen duck hawks get above a band of this size they gorge themselves. and the whirling motions of the pursued fiocks which contain more than 5000 teals are not uncom- mon. How they rush through space without collision is one of natures mysteries.
 If man were within easy range of a horde of this kind there is no telling how many he might kill with both bar rels. There is no reason why he should not get half as many of them as he could get from one of the flocks of rice
 
 The people down there call these lit tie fellows blackbirds, and the record on blackbirds is believed to be 343 with two barrels. Anyhow. if a man were within thirty yards of one of these punches of teals with a cylinder-bored ten-gauge gun, loaded with four and a half drams of slow powder and two ounces of No. shot in each barrel maybe he would kill 100.
 O. c. Guessaz of San Antonio is one of the best field shots of the south, and q mighty duck hunter. He was squat ting once in Senna weeds in Arkansas county waiting for something killa ble to come along. It was forenoon and the sky was as clear as a bell-One of those days when a man can see ducks five miles distant and they are all go- ing the other way.
 He had rusted, pitted, old-style ten-gauge Parker, which he had abused for years and it's temper was vicious. Its stock had been broken by wagon wheel rolling over it; it had lain for two days at the bottom of a lake: its right hammer wabbled like a drunken sailor. This gun had been known 70 run into a farmers flock of tame tur- key in the woods and slay one of it's own volition.
 Guessaz, who is a lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard, and chief inspector of its rifle practice, lay low in the damp and thought of the good times he used to have. Suddenly he heard first a murmur, then a roar of wings behind him. and glancing up saw a huge flock of teal down sweeping. Probably a hawk was after them.
 He threw uD the gun as the flock passed over forty yards up, and pulled the forward trigger, the left barrel be- ing empty. as happens in such cases. The band hundred upward and T rain of dead began.
 They struck the shallow water in his front with a succession of rapid splashes and thumped upon the hard ground on either hand. For mile away wounded birds could be seen dropping behind and sinking from the fiOck--
 No effort was made to retrieve them. No effort was made to retrieve dozen or two that fell into the water, bro- ken winged and swam away among the weeds.
 Only the stone dead were recovered and they numbered forty-seven.- Cleveland Plain Dealer.