DUCK SHOOTING. 245 



most so of all to the scientific inquirer. When 

 we reflect that they do not see objects as we do, 

 but with a magnifying power, which, according 

 to the adjustment of the focus of the eye, has 

 been compared to that of the telescope or the 

 microscope, there is no doubt that in each case 

 we have related, the eye of the bird was, so to 

 speak, so filled up with the object on which its 

 vision, for the time, was earnestly bent, that it 

 saw adjoining objects but very imperfectly, just 

 as the falcon has been known to fly in full career 

 against a tree in pursuit of a partridge, and the 

 duck, after twice avoiding the men in the boats 

 near the battery, met its death, at last, over the 

 decoys which it was so desirous to join. 



Taking up some two hundred decoys on a 

 cold, blustering evening, is rather tedious and 

 benumbing work to a novice. While one person 

 manages the oars, the others pick up each duck 

 singly, so as not to entangle it with its fellows, 

 and, after winding the cord round its body and 

 removing the weed from the weight, stow it away 

 in the bow or stern of the yawl. In the mean- 

 time the man in the box, laying aside his guns, 

 secures the few ducks near the wings, turns up 

 the guards, and as soon as the stools are all in 

 the boat, weighs the anchors of the battery, and 

 16 



