WOODEN DECOYS. 5^3 



use, SO that the decoys can be packed in very small 

 compass. 



Sometimes the decoys have glass eyes put in them, 

 and often they are very artistically painted. Quite 

 commonly, however, they are painted with a bright 

 and glossy paint, which glistens and shines in the sun's 

 rays, so that birds approaching them from certain 

 directions instantly recognize that they are not ducks, 

 and decline to come to them. The collapsible decoys 

 had, at one time, quite a vogue. They are open to the 

 objection that they are perishable, and that when holes 

 are made in them, whether by wear or by shot care- 

 lessly fired at them, they are useless. Moreover, they 

 are, of course, very light, and in rough or windy weath- 

 er dance and roll on the water. Under certain condi- 

 tions, however, they are very effective. 



Most practical men seem to prefer the old-fashioned 

 wooden decoys; and, undoubtedly, a stand of good 

 wooden decoys, with two or three or more live decoys 

 toward the head and tail of the stand, forms a combina- 

 tion more efficient than anything else. 



The gunner who finds himself without decoys at a 

 place where the birds are coming well, can often supply 

 the lack by using the birds that he kills. If the water 

 is shallow, canes, stiff weed stalks, or willow shoots, 

 sharpened and passed through the neck of a dead duck 

 up to its head, with the other end stuck in the mud, will 

 make of the dead bird a very good decoy. Some gun- 

 ners always go prepared to make the most of the birds 

 which they kill, in this way. They carry in the boat a 



