258 THE WILD DUCK 



and working a decoy has been so often described 

 that it is unnecessary to attempt to do so again 

 now. I would only remark that, here again, the 

 wariness of the wild duck can only be outwitted by 

 the combined intelligence of a carefully trained dog 

 and man, aye, and of some of the ducks themselves. 

 The elaborate preparation of a sheet of water which 

 is to form the decoy, with its quiet and its isolation, 

 its palings and its plantations, its diverging channels 

 and its diagonal screens of reed, its avenues and its 

 hoops of network, its hempseed and buckwheat, its 

 well broken spaniel, its fatally skilful decoy or " call " 

 ducks, its turf, kept burning to prevent the scent 

 of the decoy man from reaching his prey all this 

 paraphernalia of precaution is, in itself, a sufficient 

 testimony to the value and to the wide-awakeness 

 of the creature whom they are intended to over- 

 reach. 



But there is one method of taking wild ducks 

 in considerable numbers, practised in China and 

 in some other semi-civilised countries, which is so 

 amusing in itself, and, I think, so little known, as to 

 deserve a passing notice. The natives take care that 

 a number of large calabashes, or gourds, should 

 always be left floating on the pieces of water 

 frequented by the birds, till they get to regard 



