DUCK-SHOOTING. 235 
have had them serve me the trick you complain of 
when they were at the last gasp—so nearly dead, 
that I have pushed out and been on the point of 
picking them up. When not so badly hurt, they 
will swim off with their bill only projecting above 
the surface, and if there is the least wind this is 
entirely invisible. The trick is known to others of 
the duck family; even the ingenuous wood-duck 
will have recourse to the same mean subterfuge 
occasionally, as one that was but slightly wounded 
proved to me to-day.” , 
“Is it true, inquired /the fisherman, “that other 
ducks steal from the canvas-backs the wild celery 
that they ‘a Shaaaeakes themselves in procur- 
ing ?” ; fs 
ig eee it 
“The widggons have the credit of doing so; but 
I have never seen, and’somewhat doubt it. The 
canvas-back is too large and strong a duck to be 
readily trifléd with, and is by no means exhausted 
by diving to the depth of a few feet after celery. 
This celery;'as we call it—which has a long, deli- 
cate leaf, ‘resembling broad-grass, and bears the 
name of Zostera’ snerta among the botanists— 
gross in water about five feet deep, and its roots 
furnish the favorite and most fattening food of the 
canvas-backs, red-heads, and, strange to say, mud- 
hens. The widgeon is not a large nor powerful 
duck; can dive no further than to put its head 
under water, while its tail stands perpendicularly 
above the surface ; and, although a terrible torment 
to the weak and gentle mud-hen, would think twice 
