WATER-FOWL. 225 



Jon with wild fowl. The number of ducks, widgeon, and teal, that 

 are sent thither is amazing. About thirty thousand have been sen* 

 up in one season from ten decoys in the neighbourhood of Wainfleet- 

 This quantity makes them so cheap on the spot, that it is asserted, 

 the several decoy-men would be glad to contract for years to deliver 

 their ducks at the next town for tenpence the couple. 



To this manner of taking the wild-fowl in England, I will subjoin 

 another still more extraordinary, frequently practised in China. When- 

 ever the fowler sees a number of ducks settled in any particular plash of 

 water, he sends off two or three gourds to float among them. These 

 .gourds resemble our pompions ; but being made hollow, they swim on 

 the surface of the water ; and on one pool there may sometimes be seen 

 twenty or thirty of these gourds floating together. The fowl at first 

 are a little shy of coming near them ; but by degrees they come near- 

 er ; and as all birds at last grow familiar with a scare-crow, the ducks 

 gather about these, and amuse themselves by whetting their bills 

 against them. When the birds are as familiar with the gourds as the 

 fowler could wish, he then prepares to deceive them in good earnest. 

 He hollows out one of those gourds large enough to put his head in ; 

 and, rraking holes to breathe and see through, he claps it on his head. 

 Thus accoutred, he wades slowly into the water, keeping his body 

 under, and nothing but his head in the gourd above the surface ; and 

 in that manner moves imperceptibly towards the fowls, who suspect 

 no danger. At last, however, he fairly gets in among them ; while 

 they, having been long used to see gourds, take not the least fright 

 while the enemy is in the very midst of them ; and an insidious ene- 

 my he is ; for ever as he approaches a fowl, he seizes it by the legs, 

 and draws it in a jerk under water. There he fastens it under his 

 girdle, and goes to the next, till he has thus loaded himself with as 

 many as he can carry away. When he has got his quantity, without 

 ever attempting to disturb the rest of the fowls on the pool, he slowly 

 moves off again ; and in this manner pays the flock three or four vi- 

 sits in a day. Of all the various artifices for catching fowl, this seems 

 likely to be attended with the greatest success, as" it is the most prac- 

 tised in China. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



OF THE KING-FISHER. 



I WILL conclude this history of birds with one that seems to 

 unite in itself somewhat of every class preceding. It seems at once 

 possessed of appetites for .prey like the rapacious kinds, with an at- 

 tachment to water like the birds of that element. It exhibits in its 

 form the beautiful plumage of the peacock, the shadings of the hum- 

 ming-bird, the bill of the crane, and the short legs of the swallow. 



