THE DUCK. 



235 



from whence they descend, is generally of the 

 insect kind. 



As soon as they arrive among us, they are 

 generally seen flying in flocks to make a sur- 

 vey of those lakes where they intend to take 

 up their residence for the winter. In the 

 choice of these they have two objects in view ; 

 to be near their food, and yet remote from in- 

 terruption. Their chief end is to choose some 

 lake in the neighbourhood of a marsh, where 

 there is at the same time a cover of woods, and 

 where insects are found in great abundance. 

 Lakes, therefore, with a marsh on one side, 

 and a wood on the other, are seldom without 

 vast quantities of wild-fowl ; and where a 

 couple are seen at any time, that is a suffi- 

 cient inducement to bring hundreds of others. 

 The ducks flying in the air, are often lured 

 down from their heights by the loud voice of 

 the mallard from below. Nature seems to 

 have furnished this bird with very particular 

 faculties for calling. The windpipe, where it 

 begins to enter the lungs, opens into a kind of 

 bony cavity, where the sound is reflected as in a 

 musical instrument, and is heard a great way 

 off. To this call all the stragglers resort ; and 

 in a week or a fortnight's time, a lake, that 

 before was quite naked, is black with water- 

 fowl that have left their Lapland retreats, to 

 keep company with our ducks who never 

 stirred from home. 



They generally choose that part of the lake 

 where they are inaccessible to the approach 

 of the fowler, in which they all appear hud- 

 dled together, extremely busy, and very loud. 

 What it is can employ them all the day it is 

 not easy to guess. There is no food for them 

 at the place where they sit and cabal thus, 

 as they choose the middle of the lake: and as 

 for courtship, the season for that is not yet 

 come ; so that it is wonderful what can so 

 busily keep them occupied. Not one of them 

 seems a moment at rest. Now pursuing one 

 another, now screaming, then all up at once, 

 then down again ; the whole seems one strange 

 scene of bustle, with nothing to do. 



They frequently go off in a more private 

 manner by night to feed in the adjacent mea- 

 dows and ditches, which they dare not ven- 

 ture to approach by day. In these nocturnal 

 adventures they are often taken ; for though 

 a timorous bird, yet they are easily deceived, 

 and every spring seems to succeed in taking 

 them. But the greatest quantities are taken 

 in decoys; which, though well known near 

 London, are yet untried in the remoter parts 

 of the country. The manner of making and 

 managing a decoy is as follows : 



A place is to be chosen for this purpose far 

 remote from the common highway, and all 

 noise of people. A decoy is best where there 

 is a large pond surrounded by a wood, and 



beyond that a marshy and uncultivated coun. 

 try. When the place is chosen, the pool, if 

 possible, is to be planted round with willows, 

 unless a wood answers the purpose of shading 

 it on every side. On the south and north side 

 of this pool are two, three, or four ditches or 

 channels, made broad towards the pool, and 

 growing narrower till they end in a point. 

 These channels are to be covered over with 

 nets, supported by hooped sticks bending 

 from one side to the other ; so that they form 

 a vault or arch growing narrower and nar- 

 rower to the point, where it is terminated by 

 a tunnel-net, like that in which fish are 

 caught in weirs. Along the banks of these 

 channels so netted over, which are called 

 pipes, many hedges are made of reeds slant- 

 ing to the edge of the channel, the acute 

 angles to the side next the pool. The whole 

 apparatus, also, is to be hidden from the pool 

 by a hedge of reeds along the margin, behind 

 which the fowler manages his operations. 

 The place being fitted in this manner, the 

 fowler is to provide himself with a number of 

 wild ducks made tame, which are called de- 

 coys. These are always to be fed at the 

 mouth or entrance of the pipe, and to be ac- 

 customed to come at a whistle. 



As soon as the evening is set in, the decoy 

 rises, as they term it, and the wild-fowl feed 

 during the night. If the evening be still, the 

 noise of their wings, during their flight, is 

 heard at a very great distance, and produces 

 no unpleasing sensation. The fowler, when 

 he finds a fit opportunity, and sees his decoy 

 covered with fowl, walks about the pool, and 

 observes into what pipe the birds gathered in 

 the pool may be enticed or driven. Then 

 casting hemp-seed, or some such seed as will 

 float on the surface of the water, at the en- 

 trance, and up along the pipe, he whistles to 

 his decoy-ducks, who instantly obey the sum- 

 mons, and come to the entrance of the pipe, 

 in hopes of being fed as usual. Thither also 

 they are followed by a whole flock of wild 

 ones, who little suspect the danger preparing 

 against them. Their sense of smelling, how- 

 ever, is very exquisite ; and they would soon 

 discover their enemy, but that the fowler al- 

 ways keeps a piece of turf burning at his nose, 

 against which he breathes, and this prevents 

 the effluvia of his person from reaching their 

 exquisite senses. The wild ducks, therefore, 

 pursuing the decoy-ducks, are led into the 

 broad mouth of the channel or pipe, nor have 

 the least suspicion of the man, who keeps 

 hidden behind one of the hedges. When 

 they have got up the pipe, however, finding 

 it grow more and more narrow, they begin to 

 suspect danger, and would return back ; but 

 they are now prevented by the man, who 

 shows himself at the broad end below. Thi- 



