358 D UCK- CA TCHING. 



bed-quilt sometimes weighing only five pounds three ounces ; 

 of which the linen covering weighs two pounds and a half, 

 leaving two pounds eleven ounces for the Eider-down. 



Shy and difficult of approach as Wild Ducks are, and withal 

 so valuable when obtained, we ought not to be surprised that 

 a good deal of human ingenuity has been exerted in inventing 

 the most efficacious modes of catching them ; and it is curious 

 to perceive how people in very different parts of the world 

 may hit upon the same expedient. Thus, the Indians, who 

 live in villages built on the shallows in the midst of the 

 waters of the great lake of Maracaibo, on the north coast of 

 South America, opening into the Caribbean Sea, practise the 

 same mode as the Chinese. They take care that a number 

 of empty calabashes, a sort of large shell, or rind of a fruit, 

 resembling an empty gourd, are continually floating up and 

 down the lake ; to these the Ducks get accustomed, and allow 

 them to drift down amongst their flocks, without expressing 

 any fear. The Duck-catcher, particularly when, from the state 

 of the wind or situation of the birds, he observes the calabashes 

 floating near a flock, goes into the lake, with a calabash over 

 his head, having holes in it for seeing and breathing. Nothing 

 is seen above the water except the calabash, the Indian taking 

 care to keep the whole of his body immersed. He now steals 

 slowly and quietly towards the unsuspecting birds, and when 

 within arm's length catches one of them by the leg, and' twitches 

 it suddenly under water, before it has time to alarm the rest, 

 by crying or fluttering its wings. He then moves towards 

 another, which he treats in the same way, and so on, till he 

 has collected as many as he can conveniently carry, attached 

 to a belt round his middle, and then he slowly retires, leaving 

 the floating calabashes amongst the Ducks. On another part 

 of the coast the same expedient is practised, excepting that 

 instead of a calabash, they use a sort of cap made of rushes, 

 similar caps being left to float amongst the flocks of Ducks, 

 to which they soon get as much accustomed as those we first 

 mentioned do to the calabashes. 



The Sheldrakes, which, as we have seen, build in rabbit- 



