380 DUCK-DECOYS. 



of which sweeps the water, while the other is a little elevated, 

 so as to take the Ducks as they rise upon the wing. The 

 barrels are connected with each other, and fired by a train ; 

 but the whole apparatus, as well as the man who has charge 

 of it, are concealed in the rushes until the moment when, after 

 many hours of cautious labour, one of the dense columns of 

 Ducks, which blacken at times the surface of the lake, is 

 driven by the distant canoes of his associates sufficiently near 

 to the fatal spot. The double tier of guns is immediately fired, 

 and the water remains strewed with the bodies of the killed 

 and wounded, whose escape is cut off by the circle of canoes 

 beyond. Twelve hundred Ducks are often brought in as the 

 result of a single attack ; and during the whole season they 

 form the ordinary food of the lower classes in the town of 

 Mexico, where they are sold for a trifling sum. 



We have alluded to decoys as the great source of profit 

 and supply with respect to wild fowl ; and with an account 

 of them we shall conclude the history of Ducks. A decoy is 

 generally situated in a marsh, so as to be surrounded with 

 wood or reeds, and if possible both, to keep the water quiet, 

 and that the repose of the wild fowl may not be interrupted. 

 A certain number of Decoy- Ducks is then provided, consist- 

 ing of wild ones, which are bred for the purpose, and which, 

 although they fly abroad, regularly return for food to the 

 decoy-waters, and of tame ones which never quit the water, 

 and are regularly trained to act their part. Their food con- 

 sists of hempseed, oats, and buck-wheat. In what is called 

 working the decoy, the hempseed is thrown in small quan- 

 tities over screens made of reeds, to allure the birds forward 

 towards the pipes, or wicker channels, of which there are 

 several, leading up a narrow ditch, closing at last with a 

 funnel-net. Over these pipes, which grow narrower from the 

 first entrance, is a continued arch of netting suspended on 

 hoops j it is necessary to have a pipe for almost every wind 

 that can blow, as upon this circumstance it depends which 

 pipe the Ducks will take to; and the Decoy-man always 

 keeps to leeward of the flock, taking the additional precaution 





