DUCK IN GENERAL AND IN PARTICULAR ^ 



nets fastened to tall, stout poles, twenty-eight or thirty 

 feet long ; at the bottom of each pole is fixed a box, 

 filled with heavy stones, sufficient to elevate the poles 

 and nets the instant an iron pin is withdrawn, which 

 retains the nets and poles flat upon the reeds, small 

 willow boughs, or furze. Withinside the nets are small 

 pens, made of reeds about three feet high, for the recep- 

 tion of the birds that strike against the nets and fall 

 down ; and such is the form and shortness of the wing 

 of the pochard, that they cannot ascend again from these 

 little enclosures if they would ; besides, the numbers 

 which are usually knocked into these pens preclude all 

 chance of escape from them by the wing. A decoy-man 

 will sometimes allow the haunt of dun-birds to be so 

 great that the whole surface of the pond shall be covered 

 with them previous to his attempting to take one. . . . 

 When all is ready the dun-birds are roused from the 

 pond, and as all wild-fowl rise against the wind, the poles 

 in that quarter are unpinned, and fly up with the nets at 

 the instant the dun-birds begin to leave the surface of 

 the water, so as to meet them in their first ascent ; and 

 they are thus beat down by hundreds. 



Other accounts speak of a trench, instead of pens, 

 at the foot of the nets. According to my own experi- 

 ence, the pochard is the most wary of all our duck, 

 and has a finer sense of hearing than any other. 

 Where little disturbed, pochard evince a strong par- 

 tiality for fresh water. During the winter the 

 pochard is common in nearly every district which 

 provides conditions suited to its mode of life. The 



