THE MALLARD. G11 
which, floating cn the surface, are swallowed by the —)ucks, 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 materials, 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 
neighborhood 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 
Bewick’s History of British Birds, vol. ii. p. 294: — 
“Jn the lakes where they resort,” says the correspondent of that 
ingenious author, “the most favorite haunts of the fowl] are observed : 
then, in the most sequestered part of this haunt, they cut a ditch 
about four yards across at the entrance, and about fifty or sixty yards : 
in length; decreasing gradually in width from the entrance to the far- é 
ther end, which is not more than two feet wide. It is of a circular ; 
form, but not bending much for the first ten yards. The banks of the 
lake, for about ten yards on each side of this ditch, (or pipe, as it i: 
i 
1 
is called,) are kept clear from reeds, coarse herbage, &c., in order 
that the fowl may get on them to sit and dress themselves. Across r 
this ditch, poles on each side, close to the edge of the ditch, are 1 
driven into the ground, and the tops bent to each other and tied fast. if 
These poles at the entrance form an arch, from the top of which to the 
water is about ten feet. This arch is made to decrease in height, as 
the ditch decreases in width, till the farther end is not more than 
eighteen inches in height. The poles are placed about six feet from 
each other, and connected together by poles laid lenethwise across 
the arch, and tied together. Over them a net, with meshes sufficiently u 
small to prevent the fowl getting through, is thrown across, and made i: 
fast to a reed fence at the entrance, and nine or ten yards up the 
ditch, and afterwards strongly pegged to the ground. At the farther i 
end of the pipe, a tunnel net, as it is called, is fixed, about four yards 
in Jength, of a round form, and kept open by a number of hoops about 
eighteen inches in diameter, placed at a small distance from each 
other, to keep it distended. Supposing the circular bend of the pipe 
to be to the right, when you stand with your back to the lake, on the it 
left hand side a number of reed fences are constructed, called shoot- 
ings, for the purpose of screening from sight the decoy-man, and in 
such a manner, that the fowl in the decoy may not ve alarmed while 
he is driving those in the pipe: these shootings are about four yards i 
in length, and about six feet high, and are ten in number. They are 
placed in the following manner : — 
