398 FRENCH HUT-SHOOTING. 



and other towns, with wildfowl, which they shoot, in- 

 stead of taking them by decoys, as in our country. 

 Though the French, in some places, are very expert at 

 catching birds (particularly on that vast tract of wild 

 sand between Crotoi and St. Valery, where I have seen 

 the whole mouth of the Somme spread with nets and 

 surrounded by lines of horse-hair nooses), yet shooting 

 from the hut (la hutte) is the favourite, and most ge- 

 neral, method of getting wild-fowl in France. The 

 common way of making a hut is to dig a hole in the 

 ground by the side of some pool or pond ; and then 

 roof it over with turf, so that not an opening remains, 

 but one hole, into which you crawl ; out of which you 

 fire ; and in front of which are fastened, to three se- 

 parate pegs in the water, two tame ducks, and a drake. 

 The drake must be in the centre, and the ducks one on 

 each side of him, at about five yards interval ; and the 

 birds being thus separated, will, frequently, be calling 

 to each other ; and if so, there will seldom pass a wild 

 one, but will come and drop with them. You cannot, 

 in general, succeed with less than three call birds. In- 

 deed I should recommend having never less than six ; 

 and, if you have twelve, or even more, all the better. 



The chief point, however, to be attended to in Eng- 

 land, is to get, if possible, some young wild-ducks bred 

 up, and pinioned. Or, by way of a makeshift, to select 

 tame birds which are the most clamorous, even if their 

 colour should not be like the wild ones. But in France 

 you have seldom any trouble to do this, as the ducks 

 used in that country are mostly of the wild breed ; and 

 three French ducks, like three Frenchmen, will make 

 about as much noise as a dozen English. 



The Italians, in order to make their call birds noisy, 



