362 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



progresses, large numbers continue South, and take up their abode 

 among the ricefields of the Carolinas, where they become very fat 

 and particularly palatable. Their flesh, at all times when the wea- 

 ther is not very severe, is good, as they feed on vegetable matter 

 in preference to any other kind of food, and only partake of fish 

 when they cannot obtain any thing else. 



Mallards are easily brought within gunshot by means of decoys, 

 used in the way already described under the head of canvas-backs. 

 They are numerous at times on the Delaware, and numbers are 

 killed by shooters hiding themselves in boats and the reeds within 

 range of their stool-ducks, which are set out on the edge of the 

 reeds. They are very fond of the seeds of the wild oats that 

 flourish so profusely on the flats of the Delaware, and their flesh 

 soon becomes delicate and juicy. 



In England and on the Continent many singular contrivances 

 have been invented to entrap these birds ; and so successful are the 

 fowlers now in this lucrative business that many hundreds are 

 often taken at one draw of the net. 



The most destructive way of trapping mallards is the plan 

 adopted on the decoy-ponds of England and France, a full account 

 of which may be found in Bewick's British Birds. 



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