344 CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 



killed in the waters of the Chesapeake are generally esteemed 

 superior to all others, doubtless from the great abundance of 

 their favourite food which these rivers produce. At our pub- 

 lic dinners, hotels, and particular entertainments, the Canvas- 

 backs are universal favourites. They not only grace but digni- 

 fy the table, and their very name conveys to the imagination 

 of the eager epicure the most comfortable and exhilarating 

 ideas. Hence on such occasions it has not been uncommon to 

 pay from one to three dollars a pair for these ducks; and, in- 

 deed, at such times, if they can they must be had, whatever 

 may be the price. 



The Canvas-back will feed readily on grain, especially wheat, 

 and may be decoyed to particular places by baiting them with 

 that grain for several successive days. Some few years since a 

 vessel loaded with wheat was wrecked near the entrance of 

 Great Egg Harbour, in the autumn, and went to pieces. The 

 wheat floated out in vast quantities, and the whole surface of 

 the bay was in a few days covered with Ducks of a kind alto- 

 gether unknown to the people of that quarter. The gunners of the 

 neighbourhood collected in boats, in every direction, shooting 

 them, and so successful were they, that, as Mr. Beasley informs 

 me, two hundred and forty were killed in one day, and sold among 

 the neighbours, at twelve and a half cents a piece, without the 

 feathers. The wounded ones were generally abandoned, as be- 

 ing too difficult to be come up with. They continued about for 

 three weeks, and during the greater part of that time a continu- 

 al cannonading was heard from every quarter. The gunners 

 called them Sea Ducks. They were all Canvas-backs, at that 

 time on their way from the north, when this floating feast at- 

 tracted their attention, and for a while arrested them in their 

 course. A pair of these very ducks I myself bought in Phila- 

 delphia market at the time, from an Egg Harbour gunner, and 

 never met with their superior either in weight or excellence of 

 flesh. When it was known among those people the loss they 

 had sustained in selling for twenty-five cents what would have 



