THE CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 15 
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CHAPTER: Xave 
THE CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 
THE Canvas-Back, while the best known of the nu- 
merous varieties of duck in certain localities, in others 
are comparatively strangers. In the East, in and around 
Chesapeake Bay, they have been known from the ear- 
liest recollection of the inhabitants. Their habits, their 
feeding grounds, their places of resort, the various de- 
vices and means to effect their capture, whether by 
toling, the captor benefiting by the inquisitiveness of 
the bird, the bringing them down in point shooting, 
the shooting them over decoys, from sink boxes, killing 
them from sailing boats, or the destructive way of 
slaughtering them during the night by poachers with 
enormous swivel guns, lashed to strong boats, burning 
heavy charges of powder and hurling with murderous 
effect the leaden hail into the sleeping ranks of the un- 
suspecting birds, killing scores of them at one discharge 
while the wounded escape in the darkness to die a lin- 
gering death,—these methods are familiar to every 
reader of sporting literature. 
In the West they are not so well known and are 
recognized as a rara avis when found along the Missis- 
sippi. On the inland lakes and river of the West they 
are frequently found, and goodly “bags” are made. 
Excellent shooting is had at times in Ilinois, Iowa, 
Nebraska and other western States. At and around 
