We made camp at the St. Nicholas Lakes, which are simply large and shallow depressions, and contain a great deal more mud than water. The next day we tramped through and about these lakes, finding thousands of red-breasted snipe and lesser yellow-legs feeding in them. Had it not been for the density of the shrubbery, this would have proved the finest hunting we had seen. But in spite of all the obstruction, we took as many specimens as we could possibly use. Curlews, stilts, snowy herons, spoonbills, ibes, snow-geese, and ducks of several species made the mud their general feeding ground. Hidden behind their screens of rushes and other vegetation, they saw us long before we came within gunshot of them, and our hunting was rewarded principally by the sight of hundreds of the birds rising en masse only to fly a short distance and alight again.
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