326 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



Nothing is better calculated to drive ducks from their accustomed 

 feeding-grounds than the practice of boating them at night; for, 

 being disturbed during their wonted hours of repose and security 

 by an unforeseen enemy, they soon learn that there is no safety 

 for themselves under any circumstances, and have been known to 

 abandon such places almost entirely after being shot at two or 

 three times in the quiet of the night, when perhaps the whole flock, 

 perfectly unconscious of danger, were wrapped in deep sleep. 



Boating ducks on their feeding-grounds, even with small guns 

 during the daytime, will soon drive them from their accustomed 

 haunts, and force them to find other spots at a distance where they 

 can remain undisturbed. All modes of boating ducks are con- 

 demned by the sportsmen visiting these parts, as well as by those 

 who reside in the vicinity of the bay-shore. 



NETTING DUCKS. 



A very ingenious way of taking canvas-backs was resorted to a 

 few years since by a gentleman living on the bay, and which cer- 

 tainly, for its novelty, requires some notice on our part. This 

 plan consisted in sinking gilling-nets a short distance below the 

 surface of the water, so that the ducks in diving would get their 

 heads and wings entangled in its meshes, and thus miserably perish 

 by drowning. 



Great numbers were secured by this method at first; but the 

 canvas-backs soon entirely forsook the shoals where these nets 

 were placed, and did not return to them again during the same 

 season. But what brought this method more particularly into dis- 

 repute, even among pot-hunters, was the circumstance of the ducks 

 secured in this way being so far inferior to those which were shot, 

 owing to their being drowned and remaining so long a time under 

 the water, as the placing of the nets occupied so much time and 

 labor that it would not pay to examine them oftener than once in 

 twenty-four or forty-eight hours; and many of the ducks, conse- 

 quently, were under the water during a greater portion of this time. 

 The flesh, under these disadvantages, became watery and insipid, and 



