BIRDS OF KAlSrSAS 145 



particular entertainments, the Canvas-backs are universal 

 favorites. They not only grace but dignify the table, and 

 their very name conveys to the imagination of the eager 

 epicure the most comfortable and exhilarating ideas. 

 Hence, on such occasions, it has not been uncommon to 

 pay from one to three dollars a pair for these Ducks ; and, 

 indeed, at such times, if they can they must be had, what- 

 ever may be the price. 



" The Canvas-back will feed readily on grain, especially 

 wheat, and may be decoyed to particular places by bait- 

 ing them with that grain for several successive days. Some 

 few years since, a vessel loaded with wheat was wrecked 

 near the entrance to Great Egg Harbor, in the autumn, 

 and went to pieces. The wheat floated out in vast quan- 

 tities, and the whole surface of the bay was, in a few days, 

 covered with Ducks of a kind altogether unknown to the 

 people of that quarter. The gunners of the neighborhood 

 collected in boats, in every direction, shooting them ; and 

 so successful were they, that, as Mr. Beasley informs me, 

 two hundred and forty were killed in on© day, and sold 

 among the neighbors at twelve and a half cents apiece 

 without the feathers. The wounded ones were generally 

 abandoned, as being too difficult to come up with. They 

 continued about for three weeks, and during the greater 

 part of the time a continual cannonading was heard from 

 every quarter. The gunners called them Sea Ducks. 

 They were all Canvas-backs, at that time on their way 

 from the north, when this floating feast attracted their 

 attention, and for awhile arrested them in their course. 

 A pair of these very Ducks I myself bought in Philadel- 

 phia market at the time, from an Egg Harbor gunner, 



—10 



