DUCK-SHOOTING. 379 



ciently near, he directs his piece, and fires at a venture, and 

 instantly catching up another gun, discharges it where he 

 supposes the flock to be rising on the wing ; he then hastens 

 to the spot with his mud-pattens, and gathers up the profits 

 of his toil. 



We suspect, indeed, that the birds have seceded from the 

 whole line of the river Dee ; for the flights now seen are not 

 to be compared with those which are spoken of as frequent a 

 few years ago, when a couple of experienced Duck-shooters, 

 we believe from the fens of Lincolnshire, spent some weeks 

 on the coast, and realized a considerable sum by supplying the 

 Chester and Liverpool markets. Their plan was this : One of 

 them had a small flat-built boat, without any keel, about six- 

 teen feet long and three feet broad, drawing about three-and- 

 a-half inches water. It was managed by a pole, twelve feet 

 long, made about six inches broad at each end, which the man 

 held in the centre, and dipping each end in, propelled his boat 

 along ; and when he got near his prey, used two small paddles, 

 only three feet in length, by which he guided his skiff. His 

 gun, which was fixed on a rest, consisted of two immense 

 barrels, about nine feet long, an inch and a quarter in 

 diameter, requiring three-quarters of a pound of powder and 

 two pounds of shot to load both barrels, which were fired 

 together. His success in .one week was a hundred and three 

 Ducks and eleven Geese, besides smaller birds. At one shot 

 he had been known to kill two hundred and one Sea-Purres. 

 He earned about ten pounds per week, and his companion 

 rather more, by a similar plan. 



But the exploits of our British fowlers are insignificant, 

 when compared with the grand scale on which this warfare 

 is carried on in Mexico, where a great Tiro de Patos, or 

 Duck-shooting, is, we are assured,* one of the most curious 

 scenes that it is possible to witness. The Indians, by whom 

 it is principally conducted, prepare a battery composed of 

 seventy or eighty musket-barrels, arranged in two rows, one 



* WARD'S Mexico. 



