THE WILD Dt'CK. 561 



round it, as if to reconnoitre it, and then descend with great precaution. They generally 

 keep at a distance I'roni the shore when they swim ; and when the greater part of them 

 sleep upon the water, with their heads under their wings, some of the party are always 

 awake to watch over the common safety, and to apprise the sleepers of approaching 

 danger. The extreme wariness of these birds renders much patience and ingenuity 

 necessary on the part of the fowler. They rise vertically from the water with loud cries ; 

 and in the niglit-timc their flight over head may be known by the hissing noise they 

 make. Thej' ai'e more active by niglit than by day ; indeed tiiose that have been seen by 

 day have generally been roused by a sportsman, or by some bird of prey. 



.Singular modes of capturing wild ducks are practised in America. In some ponds 

 fre(piented by these birds, live or six wooden figures, cut and painted to represent 

 ducks, and sunk by pieces of lead nailed to their bottoms, so as to float at the usual 

 depth on the surface, are anchored in a favourable position for being raked from a con- 

 cealment of brushwood, &c., on shore. The appearance of these decoys usually attracts 

 passing flocks, which alight, and are soon shot down. Sometimes eight or ten of these 

 painted ducks are fixed in a frame, in various swimming postures, and secured to the bow 

 of the gunner's skiff", projecting before it in such a manner that the weight of the frame 

 sinks the figures to their pro^jer depth ; the skiff" is then dressed with sedge, or coarse 

 grass, in an artful manner, as low as the water's edge ; and under cover of this, which 

 appears like a covey of ducks swimming by a small island, the gunner floats down, some- 

 times to the verj' skirts of a congregated multitude, and speedily pours in a destructive and 

 repeated fire of shot among them. In winter, when detached pieces of ice are occasionally 

 floating in the river, some of the fowlers on the Delaware paint their whole skiff", or 

 canoe, white, and laying themselves flat at the bottom, with their hand over the side 

 silently managing a small paddle, direct it imperceptibly into or near a flock, before the 

 ducks have distinguished it from a floating mass of ice, and generally do great execution 

 amongst them. A whole flock has sometimes been thus surprised asleep, with their heads 

 under their wings. On land, another stratagem is sometimes practised with great 

 success : — a large tight hogshead is sunk in the flat marsh or mud, near the place where 

 ducks are accustomed ta feed at low water, and where, otherwise, there is no shelter. 

 The edges and top are artfully concealed with tufts of long coarse grass and reeds, 

 or sedge. From within this the fowler, unseen and unsuspected, watches the collecting 

 party, and, when a sufficient number ofl'ers, sweeps them down with great eff'ect. 



Among the methods resorted to in different countries for the capture of wild ducks, 

 another is so remarkable as to require particular notice. On the river Gauges, in India, 

 at Ceylon, and in China, a man wades into the water up to his chin, and, having his head 

 co\-ered with an empty calabash, approaches the place where the ducks are, and they not 

 regarding an object so commonly seen upon the water, suffer the man to mingle freelj^ 

 among the flock, when he has nothing to do but to pull them under water by the legs, 

 one by one, until he is satisfied, and then returns to the shore as unsuspected h\ the 

 remainder as when he first came among them. For this purpose the earthei'n vessels 

 used by the Geutoos, called Ivutcharee pots, which are thrown away as defiled after having 

 been once used for cooking rice, are often employed instead of calabashes ; and some 

 authors state that hollow wooden vessels, \\:ith holes to see through, are sometimes used 

 for the same purpose. 



In years that are past there used to be much sport with ducks in the fens of Lincoln- 

 shire. In the lakes, to which they resorted, their favourite haunts were observed. 

 In the most sequestered part ^of a haunt a pipe or ditch was then cut about four yards 

 across the entrance, and decreasing gradually in width from the entrance to the further 

 end, which was not more than two feet wide. The ditch was of a circular form, but did 

 not bend much for the first ten yards. 



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