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' mallards and teals,' and ' 200 dozen of the fowles called 

 zees.' When the forester with crossbow went out to 

 strike a deer he always carried bird-bolts in his girdle. 

 Friesland and Holland, with their wastes of waters, 

 their polders and their canals, intercepted great flights 

 of wild-fowl in their Sittings from the North. The 

 ducks were always a feature at the feasts of the jovial 

 burgomasters, as we learn from the sporting trophies 

 of Snyders and the dead-game pieces of many a 

 painter. Voltaire had a weak stomach and poor 

 digestion, which pointed his sarcasm and explained 

 his cynicism ; otherwise he would hardly have classed 

 in his satirical adieu to Holland the canards with the 

 canaux and canaille. And the duck is perhaps more 

 generally diffused than any other bird. Ducks have 

 helped the adventurous traveller or the hunter through 

 hard shifts on the prairie, the steppes, and the 

 tundras ; and in Europe they have given the roving 

 sportsman capital shooting, from the lagoons of 

 Provence and the Pontine Marshes to the lakes of 

 Albania and the isles of Greece. Mallard, widgeon, 

 and teal swarm on the tanks of Hindustan, and we 

 have heard an old Indian sportsman discourse volup- 

 tuously on the charms of the hunter's pot, an ori- 

 ental variation on Meg Merrilees' cauldron. It was 

 a favourite dish in the shifting encampments when a 



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