INTRODUCTION. 15 



other authors, and contented myself with writing 

 only that which 1 have learned and proved by 

 experience. 1 have aimed to instruct rather than 

 to amuse, leaving it to others more capable to 

 discourse upon the poetry and romance of the 

 sport, and retaining only the less enticing but 

 more profitable philosophy and reason; and, as I 

 am not accustomed to literary pursuits, I trust 

 that anything I may have written that appears 

 egotistical or self-assuming may be ascribed by 

 my generous critics, sportsmen, to a visibly poor 

 acquaintance with the graces of rhetoric and style. 



Before treating of the various methods to be 

 employed in the pursuit of wild fowl, 1 shall 

 first proceed to separate them into two distinct 

 classes, which I shall term respectively the deep- 

 water and shoal-water varieties, taking the Canvas- 

 back as the type of the one, and the Mallard 

 of the other. The habits of the two varieties 

 vary so greatly that many rules which may be 

 employed successfully in the, pursuit of the one, 

 it will be readily seen, might not be applicable 

 to the killing of the other. 



The shoal-water varieties simply immerse the 

 head and neck, but seldom or never entirely 

 submerge the body when feeding, though having 



