268 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 



mate mode of killing canvass- backs. For our- 

 selves, the sport is not much to our taste. We 

 had much rather be paddled on the flocks, not 

 with a ton of iron in the bow. but a sizeable gun, 



7 O ' 



such as a man may readily handle and kill his 

 ducks with at sixty or eighty yards. But as 

 this would be equally objectionable with the 

 sunken batteries, of course it would not be tole- 

 rated if the latter were once put down. If the 

 ducks are thick on a fly and come well up to the 

 point, no doubt they afford considerable amuse- 

 ment for a short time, and require some little 

 knowledge in the art of shooting, to strike them 

 to the best effect in their rapid and rushing 

 course. The sigbt of a falling duck thus stop- 

 ped and precipitated from a vast height, is said 

 to be a fine sight, provided you are cool enough 

 to enjoy it in the thick of the thing, when no- 

 thing but loading and firing a la mode is the 

 order of the hour. 



The singular process of tolling, which was the 

 most successful of all the modes of killing can- 

 vass-backs in the time of Wilson, when the 

 ducks were not only much more numerous, but 

 fed closer to the shore, is now comparatively 

 little resorted to, except on Bush and Gunpow- 

 der rivers, and only for a few weeks in the early 



