386 THE WILD-FOWLER. 



of Northern Asia appears almost incredible. A family of five or six 

 persons sometimes captures several hundred in a season, which afford 

 them their chief means of subsistence. Of the feathers they make a 

 good price; and the flesh of the geese is preserved by being simply 

 thrown in heaps, into holes dug for the purpose. These, when filled, 

 are covered with earth, which quickly freezes, and forms a crust over 

 the heap. The larder so formed and filled is only opened in the 

 severest weather, when food is scarce ; and the flesh is then found 

 sweet and good as if preserved in hermetically- sealed cases. Whole 

 families are sometimes kept from starving through the stores of a 

 larder of this simple contrivance.* 



Another of the most ingenious and successful methods employed in 

 Siberia for taking wild-fowl is as follows. A spot is chosen for the 

 purpose where a wood happens to stand between two lakes, or 

 between a lake and a river. A straight opening is then made through 

 the wood, from one lake to the other, by felling and clearing away 

 the trees. Wild-fowl soon acquire a habit of passing through a 

 vacuum of this description ; the fowler then provides himself 

 with two, three, or four glade-nets of sufficient breadth and extent to 

 reach across the vacuum : and at night he suspends them on poles as 

 high in the air as the fowl are in the habit of flying as they pass from 

 one lake to the other. As soon as all is ready, the fowler's assistants 

 disturb the ducks on one of the lakes, and cause them to take wing ; 

 when, in passing through the vacuum they fly against the nets and 

 fall captives to his ingenuity. Connected with the nets are small 

 ropes, of sufficient length to reach the arm of the fowler in a place of 

 concealment, where he awaits the arrival of the birds ; and, as soon 

 as he finds they have struck one of the snares in their flight, he pulls 

 a rope which brails up the net, and completely secures the fowl 

 within it. Sometimes, however, the birds are in such a body, and fly 

 with such velocity, that on striking the net it breaks away : the birds 

 then dash through it as if it were a mere cobweb ; though, on such 

 occasions, a few of the leading birds are generally killed on the spot 

 by the severity of the concussion. 



The Siberians, it appears, are not awake to the scientific principles 

 upon which wild-fowl are captured at the English Flight Pond,f or 

 by planting their nets nearer the water, so as to intercept the birds as 

 they leave it, and rise in the air, before any great power of flight is 



* Pennant, p. 551. t !'/</. ,/,//,>, r-haptors 15 and 10. 



