DUCK-SfiOOTING. 239 



it is necessary to have recourse to stratagem. Even when suc- 

 cessful in your aim, the shot often fails to penetrate, owing to the 

 thick layers of their downy covering. Various artifices, there- 

 fore, are employed to lure them, all of which require some 

 cleverness. They are shot from a watching-place, being seduced 

 to its neighbourhood by employing Domestic Ducks which act as 

 decoys (Fig. 88). They are also shot from huts on the edge of 

 the water. Sometimes they are attracted by means of lights, or 

 by imitating their call. Many are taken in nets, in decoy- weirs, 

 and in snares ; they are sometimes even taken by means of baited 

 fish-hooks, and many other strange contrivances. 



The ordinary open Duck- shooting, as represented in Fig. 89, is 

 far from being so productive as some of the former methods, but 

 it is much more attractive. No sport is more uncertain, but occa- 

 sionally none is more fruitful, or more full of unexpected successes. 



Duck-shooting from a hut, as represented in Fig. 90, is the 

 method most practised. The sportsmen are hidden in a small hut 

 placed on the edge of some lake or river, or it may be erected in 

 the middle of the water on a heap of stones. Here they lie in wait 

 for the birds in order to get a close shot at them. They generally 

 use fowling-pieces of great length and large calibre, called Duck- 

 guns. Shooting from Duck punts is also practised all round the 

 coast, and on the larger lakes, ponds, and estuaries. 



On the Saone, the gunners, accompanied by a boatman, take 

 their places in a long, light, narrow, pointed boat, or punt, called 

 a fourquette. The two men, lying down in the bottom of the boat, 

 are hidden by faggots placed in front of them, the muzzle of the 

 duck-gun protruding through the faggots. Thus floating down 

 the river among the Ducks, they get an opportunity of shoot- 

 ing them without being perceived. Sportsmen in France some- 

 times employ a very odd artifice to baffle the suspicious instinct 

 of these birds : a man disguises himself as a cow by means of an 

 outline of the animal roughly made of common cardboard. Under 

 favour of this disguise he gets near the Wild Ducks without 

 exciting their fears, if only aware how to make good use of his 

 device ; that is, if he describes gentle and graceful curves, so as to 

 advance gradually without alarming the timid Palmipedes. But 

 this sport, though productive enough when skilfully managed, 



