MALLARD. 205 



To obtain so valuable a bird as the Mallard, various contrivances have been adopted 

 by sportsmen and others, in order to overcome the natural wariness by which it escapes 

 their ordinary pursuit. The most wholesale, and perhaps certain way of procuring these 

 birds, is undoubtedly by means of the decoy; the working of this, however, scarcely 

 comes within the province of the sportsman, and we shall not therefore enter into a 

 description of the methods of forming and working a decoy; but shall refer those of 

 our readers who may be curious in such matters to "Observations on the Fauna of 

 Norfolk, and more particularly of the district of the Broads," by the Eeverend Eichard 

 Lubbock, published in 1845. 



Many of the various methods used by sportsmen for approaching flocks of \Tild 

 Ducks, have been enumerated by Alexander Wilson, from whose interesting account of 

 these birds we extract the following: — "In some ponds frequented by these birds, five 

 or six wooden figures, cut and painted so as to represent Ducks, and sunk, by pieces of 

 lead nailed to their bottoms, so as to float at the usual depth on the surface, are 

 anchored in a favourable position for being raked from a concealment of brush, etc., on 

 shore. The appearance of these usually attracts passing flocks, which alight and are shot 

 down. Sometimes eight or ten of these painted wooden Ducks are fixed on a frame in 

 various swimming postures, and secured to the bow of the gunner's skiff, projecting 

 before it in such a manner that the weight of the frame sinks the figures to their 

 proper depth; the skiff is then dressed with sedge or coarse grass in an artful 

 manner, as low as the water's edge ; and under cover of this, which 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 skiff 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 distinguished 

 it from a floating mass of ice, and generally do great execution 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 great 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 

 tops are artfully concealed with tufts of long coarse grass, and reeds or sedge. From 

 within this, the gunner, unseen and unsuspected, watches his collecting prey, and, when 

 a sufficient number offers, sweeps them down with great effect." 



"They are also taken with snares made of horse-hair, or with hooks baited with small 



