WINTER PICTURES 227 



clamor of wings, and the whole bed appeared to 

 take flight. We paused and listened, and presently- 

 heard them take to the water again, far below and 

 beyond us. 



We loaded a boat with the decoys that night, 

 and in the morning, on the first sign of day, towed 

 a box out in position, and anchored it, and disposed 

 the decoys about it. Two hundred painted wooden 

 ducks, each anchored by a small weight that was 

 attached by a cord to the breast, bowed and sidled 

 and rode the water, and did everything but feed, 

 in a bed many yards long. The shooting-box is a 

 kind of coffin, in which the gunner is interred amid 

 the decoys, — buried below the surface of the water, 

 and invisible, except from a point above him. The 

 box has broad canvas wings, that unfold and spread 

 out upon the surface of the water, four or five feet 

 each way. These steady it, and keep the ripples 

 from running in when there is a breeze. Iron 

 decoys sit upon these wings and upon the edge of 

 the box, and sink it to the required level, so that, 

 when everything is completed and the gunner is in 

 position, from a distance or from the shore one sees 

 only a large bed of ducks, with the line a little 

 more pronounced in the centre, where the sports- 

 man lies entombed, to be quickly resurrected when 

 the game appears. He lies there stark and stiff 

 upon his back, like a marble effigy upon a tomb, 

 his gun by his side, with barely room to straighten 

 himself in, and nothing to look at but the sky above 

 him. His companions on shore keep a lookout, 



