456 APPENDIX. 



For days not a bird will be seen in that quarter, either on tlie water 

 or the landings. 



A very simple mode of decoying was successfully practised by a 

 medical gentleman of my acquaintance in the island of South Uist, 

 one of the Hebrides. When in pursuit of wild ducks, he would take 

 a tame duck out to the lakes, with a long string tied to one of its legs. 

 By pulling this string, when desirable, he would make it quacJc, and 

 thus attract others around it. In this way he frequently obtained 

 several at a shot ; on one occasion the tame duck fell a victim at the 

 same time with five or six wild ones. The tame ducks here are very 

 much crossed with the wild birds, and consequently resemble them in 

 plumage. 



The preceding is even more simple than the following manner of 

 decoying Canada geese in the United States, as narrated by Sir Charles 

 Lyell. " On our way back from Plymouth to Boston, we passed near 

 the village of East Weymouth, by a decoy pond, where eight wild 

 geese, called Canada geese, had been shot since the morning. Swim- 

 ming in the middle of a sheet of water, was a tame goose, having one 

 leg tied by a string to a small leaden weight, and near it were a row 

 of wooden imitations of geese, the sight of which, and the cries of 

 the tame goose, attract the wild birds. As soon as they fly down they 

 are shot," &c.* 



Part of the water in St. James's Park, London, was used as a 

 decoy-pond in the reign of Charles II. In Cunningham's ' Handbook 

 of London, 'f various items of the expenses connected with the con- 

 struction of a decoy here are copied from an account signed by the 

 " meiTy monarch " himself. Judging from these, it should have been 

 a very respectable one as to extent. 



NOTES ON HYBKID BIRDS BRED IN A DOMESTIC OU SEMI- 

 DOMESTIC STATE. :J: 



Hybrids, similar to those which have come under my own notice 

 in Ireland, and that of friends who communicated the instances to 



* Sii- C. Lyell's ' Second Visit to the United States of North America,' vol. i. 

 p. 120, 1st edit. 



t Vol. ii. p. 434, 1st edit., as quoted in ' Quart. Rev,' for March 1850, p. 470. 



\ Hybrids bred in a wild state will be found noticed in vol. i. p. 309, and vol. ii. 

 p. 40 ; in the former between the carrion and grey crow, and in the latter between , 



