INTRODUCTION. 17 



one occasion, he avers, the whole great marsh seemed to rise 

 up with a roar, and the water dropping from the Ducks 

 appeared like a heavy rain. The birds, he says, almost 

 obscured the sky.^ 



One clubman at the Palmer Island Club at Currituck 

 Sound, N. C, is said to have killed one hundred and sixty 

 Canvas-backs in a day's shooting.- 



At one small lake on the Pacific coast four men shooting 

 morning and evening made a record of over four hundred 

 Teal, all killed on the wing.^ 



Enormous numbers of wild-fowl formerly migrated to 

 Mexico in winter, and great multitudes still go there. Major 

 Price (1877) stated that " clouds " of wild-fowl were seen by 

 him on the River Santiago; and that even in China, one of 

 the finest countries for Duck shooting in the w^orld, he never 

 saw these birds so numerous.^ 



Duck shooting in Mexico is largely monopolized by the 

 owners of large estates or preserves. One of the most success- 

 ful methods used in market shooting in Mexico is called the 

 armada. It is built in a half circle, just above the water line 

 of some pond. Two hundred to three hundred gun barrels 

 are set so that one half will sweep the surface of the water; 

 the other half are aimed a little higher. The Ducks are 

 baited to the pond with barley and corn, and they are care- 

 fully guarded and fed by men on horseback, who ride around, 

 but do not molest them until the birds become accustomed to 

 their presence. When everything is ripe for the slaughter the 

 Ducks are carefully driven within range, and the two sets 

 of barrels are then fired one after the other, by an ingenious 

 arrangement. The number of Ducks thus slaughtered in 

 Mexico cannot be estimated. At the Hacienda Grande, at the 

 north end of Lake Texcoco, four thousand six hundred and 

 ninety-six Ducks were killed in this way at one discharge. 

 They sold for two hundred and fifty-six dollars. Signora 

 Cervantes de Rivas, owner of the hacienda, said that the net 



1 Huntington, Dwight W.: Our Feathered Game, 1903, p. 211. 



2 Hunter, Alex.: The Huntsman in the South, Vol. I, 1908, p. 289. 



3 Huntington, Dwight W.: Our Feathered Game, 1903, p. 231. 



* Price, Maj. Sir Rose Lambart, Bart.: The Two Americas, London, 1S77, p. 170. 



