DOMESTIC POUtTKT. 



an arm's length of a dnct, catches it by the leg, and before it has 

 time to utter a solitary " quack," he whips it under the surface 

 and hangs it to his belt. And in this way, before a half- 

 hour, our duck-catcher has a full belt, and returns to his com- 

 panions. On another part of the coast there is a similar expe- 

 dient practised, only that the head-piece, instead of bemg a 

 calabash, is a kind of cap, made of rushes, which answers the 

 same purpose, a number of them being kept continually float- 

 ing up and down the water : this completely eludes the vigi- 

 lance of the water-fowl, and they are as easily captured as with 

 the above-mentioned trap. The same practice of snaring 

 ducks prevails in China. 



On the American rivers the modes of capture are various. 

 Sometimes half a dozen artificial birds are fastened to a little 

 raft, which is so weighted that the sham birds squat naturally 

 on the water. This is quite sufficient to attract the attention 

 of the passing flock who descend to cultivate the acquaintance 

 of the isolated few, when the concealed hunter with his fowling- 

 piece scatters a deadly leaden shower amongst them. In the 

 winter, when the water is covered with rubble ice, the fowler 

 of the Delaware paints his canoe entirely white, lies flat in the 

 bottom of it, and floats with the broken ice, from which the 

 aquatic inhabitants fail to distinguish it ; so floats the canoe 

 till he within it understands by the quacking and flutter, and 

 whirring of wings, that he is in the midst of a flock, when he 

 is up in a moment with the murderous piece, and dying quacks 

 and lamentations rend the still air. 



The following account of how duck-snaring used to be ma- 

 naged in the fens of Lincolnshire will be found interesting : — 



" In the lakes to which they resorted, their favourite haunts 

 were observed, and in the most sequestered part of a haunt a 

 pipe or ditch was cut across the entrance, decreasing gradually 

 in width from the entrance to the farther end, which was not 

 more than two feet wide. The ditch was of a circular form, 

 but did not bend much for the first ten yards. The banks of 

 the lake, on each side of the ditch, were kept clear from reeds 

 and close herbage, in order that the ducks might get on them 

 to sit and dress themselves. Along the ditch poles were driven 

 into the ground, dose to the edge, on each side, and the tops 

 were bent over across the ditch and tied together. 



" The poles then bent forward at the entrance of the ditch 

 and formed an arch, the top of which was ten feet distant 

 from the surface of the water ; the arch was made to decrease 



