310 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



the surface of the water, so as to meet them in their first ascent, 

 and are thus beat down by hundreds. At the pond of Mr. Burton, 

 at Goldanger, in Essex, as many poachards have been taken at one 

 drop as filled a wagon, so as to require four stout horses to carry 

 them away ; and the lower birds in the pens have been known to 

 be killed and pressed entirely flat from the numbers of their com- 

 panions heaped above them by the fatal stoppage of the poles and 

 nets." 



