WILD DUCK. 8? 



usually attracts passing flocks, which alight and are 

 shot down. Sometimes eight or ten of these painted 

 wooden Ducks are fixed in a frame in various swim- 

 ming postures, and secured to the bow of the gun- 

 ner's skiff, projecting before it in such a manner that 

 the weight of the frame sinks the figures to their 

 proper depth ; the skiff is then dressed with sedge or 

 coarse grass in an artful manner, as low as the water's 

 edge ; and under cover of this, which appears like 

 a covey of Ducks swimming by a small island, the 

 gunner floats down sometimes to the very skirts of 

 a whole congregated multitude, and pours in a de- 

 structive and repeated fire of shot amongst them. 

 In winter, when detached pieces of ice are occa- 

 sionally floating in the river, some of the gunners on 

 the Delaware paint their whole skiff or canoe white, 

 and laying themselves flat at the bottom, with their 

 hand over the side, silently managing a small paddle, 

 direct it imperceptibly into or near a flock, before 

 the Ducks have distinguished it from a floating mass 

 of ice, and generally do great execution among them. 

 A whole flock has sometimes been thus surprised 

 asleep, with their heads under their wings. On land, 

 another stratagem is sometimes practised with great 

 success : a large tight hogshead is sunk in the flat 

 marsh, or mud, near the place where Ducks are 

 accustomed to feed at low water, and where, other- 

 wise, there is no shelter ; the edges and top are art- 

 fully concealed with tufts of long coarse grass and 

 reeds, or sedge. From within this the gunner, un- 

 seen and unsuspected, watches his collecting party, 



