THE MALLARD. 77 



under cover of this, -wliicli appears like a party of ducks swimming by 

 a small island, the gunner floats down sometimes to the very skirts of a 

 whole congregated multitude, and pours in a destructive and repeated 

 fire of shot among them. In winter, when detached pieces of ice are 

 occasionally floating in the river, some of the gunners on the Delaware 

 paint their whole skiif or canoe white, and laying themselves flat at the 

 bottom, with their hand over the side silently managing a small paddle, 

 direct it imperceptibly into or near a flock, before the Ducks have dis- 

 tinguished it from a floating mass of ice, and generally do great execu- 

 tion among them. A whole flock has sometimes been thus surprised 

 asleep, with their heads under their wings. On land, another stratagem 

 is sometimes practised with grep-t success. A large tight hogshead is 

 sunk in the flat marsh, or mud, near the place where Ducks are accus- 

 tomed to feed at low water, and where otherwise there is no shelter ; 

 the edges and top are artfully concealed with tufts of long coarse grass 

 and reeds, or sedge. From within this the gunner, unseen and unsus- 

 pected, watches his collecting prey, and when a sufiicient number ofiers, 

 sweeps them down with great effect. The mode of catching Wild 

 Ducks, as practised in India,* China,t the Island of Ceylon, and some 

 parts of South America,! has been often described, and seems, if reli- 

 ance may be placed on those accounts, only practicable in water of a 

 certain depth. The sportsman covering his head with a hollow wooden 

 vessel or calabash, pierced with holes to see through, wades into the 

 water, keeping his head only above, and thus disguised, moves in among 

 the flock, which take the appearance to be a mere floating calabash, 

 while suddenly pulling them under by the legs, he fastens them to his 

 girdle, and thus takes as many as he can conveniently stow away, with- 

 out in the least alarming the rest. They are also taken with snares 

 made of horse hair, or with hooks baited with small pieces of sheep's 

 lights, which floating on the surface, are swallowed by the ducks, and 

 with them the hooks. They are also approached under cover of a 

 stalking horse, or a figure formed of thin boards or other proper mate- 

 rials, and painted so as to represent a horse or ox. But all these methods 

 require much watching, toil, and fatigue, and their success is but trifling 

 when compared with that of the Decoy now used both in France and 

 England, § which, from its superiority over every other mode, is well 

 deserving the attention of persons of this country residing in the neigh- 

 borhood of extensive marshes frequented by Wild Ducks ; as, by this 

 method. Mallard and other kinds may be taken by thousands at a time. 

 The following circumstantial account of these decoys, and the manner 

 of taking Wild Ducks in them in England, is extracted from Be^Yick's 

 History of British Birds, vol. ii., p. 294. 



* Naval Chron. vol. ii., p. 473. f Du Halde, Hist. China, vol. ii., p. 142. 



X UUoa's Voy. i., p. 53. 



2 Particularly in Picardy, in the former country, and Lincolnshire in the latter 



