272 DUCK SHOOTING 



near the shots are fired just the same. They are 

 probably so frightened by the sight of the canoes 

 so close to them and by the sound of the shots that 

 they dive down too deep, and are drowned before 

 they can return to the surface. Whatever may 

 be the cause, after three or four dives they bob 

 up in all directions, some quite dead, others part- 

 ly so. These last, if they have time to rest, re- 

 cover and get away, while others are picked up. 

 Three or four hundred are often captured in 

 one chase. 



Scooters seem to be the only kind of duck that 

 can be drowned like this in wholesale quantities. 



Little attention is paid by our Indians here to 

 the shooting of the black duck, anas obscura, or 

 kindred species. They seem to prefer seabirds, 

 possibly because they are much fatter and easier 

 to kill, or rather, more easily got at, for sea birds 

 will carry off more shot than fresh water ones 

 will. Their mode of shooting these water fowl 

 does not vary, and decoys, either artificial or alive, 

 are never used by the natives. Very few people 

 on the North Shore bother with decoys, relying 

 on their ability to imitate the calls of the birds 

 or lying in wait for them on their lines of flight, 

 which are along the coast line, either up or down. 

 In the winter season, eider ducks of two species, 

 Somateria, Mollissina and Spectabilis, and the 

 old squaws or long-tail, Harelda glacialis, and 

 the golden eye, Buccphala, two species, Clangula 



