CANVAS-BACK 141 



a stoutly built gasoline-driven boat, which carries the battery across the gunwales, 

 besides towing a light skiff for the stool ducks. 



Batteries are made both single and double and in two forms, the "lying-down 

 type" and the "sitting-up type." The latter is a little more comfortable for the 

 novice to accommodate himself to, but cannot be used on very shallow waters. 



Restrictions of one sort and another are placed on batteries in different counties. 

 In many places they are prohibited, in others limited in numbers, requiring a special 

 license. Another way was to forbid all non-residents to shoot afloat which gave the 

 market shooters control of the open water. This, however, is being modified, for 

 the former market shooter depends more and more on the visiting sportsman. In 

 the near future, either batteries will have to be limited much more, or else certain 

 water areas will be set aside as permanent sanctuaries. The last method would 

 probably prove the fairest to all concerned. 



The bush blind made by driving cedar bushes and myrtles into the mud around 

 the floating boat is another successful method. These bush blinds were left out 

 through the whole season and were often baited with grain. Nowadays a man is only 

 allowed to use one of these in North Carolina. In some places they used floating 

 bush blinds particularly where the tide was strong. 



An early method, and one given up a great many years ago, was well described by 

 J. J. Sharpless in Doughty 's Cabinet of Natural History, published in 1830-33. 

 This is the primitive practice of tolling ducks toward the shore by means of a spe- 

 cially trained dog playing upon the beach. All the diving ducks respond to the lure 

 of a dog, but the Scaups and Red-heads come even more readily than Canvas-backs. 

 Often all three species were tolled at the same time. Tolling on the Chesapeake 

 must have been given up long ago or else used early in the season only, for it requires 

 of course undisturbed waters and lazy ducks. No doubt the idea was borrowed from 

 the decoy men of England or Holland. E. J. Lewis says that the method was dis- 

 covered quite by an accident. A sportsman who was watching a flock of ducks sud- 

 denly found that they became attracted by a fox playing on the shore. This tolling 

 was also practised in old times on Martha's Vineyard Island in Massachusetts and 

 doubtless in other places where conditions favored it. At times ducks could be 

 brought within shot merely by waving a red flag from a concealed position, or using 

 the flag and the tolling dog at the same time. 



There were many other methods of getting at Canvas and other ducks in the old 

 days. Gill nets were sunk a short distance under water but it was found that the 

 flesh of ducks so taken was inferior. All sorts of craft crept upon the vast flocks, es- 

 pecially at night, and great execution was made with huge muzzle-loading swivel 

 guns. These were forbidden by law early in the last century, but it was a long time 

 before the practice was really stopped. Another practice was in vogue on Lake Erie 

 (Long Point Bay) where the wild-fowler anchored out a big fleet of decoys and 



