THE DECOY 259 



them as part and parcel of their resorts. The duck- 

 hunter chooses his time, and, putting one of the 

 calabashes, with holes cut for his mouth and eyes, 

 upon his head, wades through the lake, taking care 

 to keep the whole of his body well beneath the 

 surface. He cautiously approaches the unsus- 

 pecting wild fowl, and, catching one of them by 

 the leg, pulls him, with a sudden jerk, beneath the 

 water, causing hardly more commotion of the sur- 

 face than the duck itself often makes when it dives, 

 or plashes, or plunges for its food. He wrings its 

 neck and fastening it to his belt, deals with another 

 and another in the same fashion, till he makes his 

 retreat, equally unnoticed, with a whole girdle of 

 captured wild ducks around his waist ! 



George Eliot, as I have mentioned in an earlier 

 chapter, describes Tom Tulliver as being, like many 

 boys, " fond of birds fond, that is, of throwing 

 stones at them." The naturalist Buffon finishes 

 his account of the robin redbreast with the some- 

 what ambiguous remark, "This amiable little 

 warbler is eaten with breadcrumbs." If, like Buffon, 

 while writing this chapter on the wild duck, my 

 thoughts have, occasionally, strayed to its dainty 

 flavour, when properly served up with lemon and 

 cayenne ; if, as Tom Tulliver might well have done, 



