14 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



ingly and with such cunning and active vigor as almost always to 

 render the pursuit hopeless. From the great demand for these Ducks, 

 and the high price they uniformly bring in market, various modes are 

 practiced to get within gunshot of them. The most successful way is 

 said to be decoying them to the shore by means of a dog, while the 

 gunner lies closely concealed in a proper situation. The dog, if prop- 

 erly trained, plays backwards and forwards along the margin of the 

 water, and the Ducks, observing his manoeuvres, enticed perhaps by 

 curiosity, gradually approach the shore, until they are sometimes 

 within twenty or thirty yards of the spot where the gunner lies con- 

 cealed, and from which he rakes them, first on the water and then as 

 they rise. This method is called tolling them in. If the Ducks seem 

 difficult to decoy, any glaring object, such as a red handkerchief, is 

 fixed round the dog's middle or to his tail, and this rarely fails to at- 

 tract them. Sometimes, by moonlight, the sportsman directs his skiff 

 towards a flock whose position he had previously ascertained, keeping 

 within the projecting shadow of some wood, bank or headland, and 

 paddles along so silently and imperceptibly as often to approach 

 within fifteen or twenty yards of a flock of as many thousands, among 

 whom he generally makes great slaughter. Many other stratagems * 

 are practiced, and, indeed, every plan that the ingenuity of the expe- 

 rienced sportsman can suggest, to approach within gunshot of these 

 birds ; but of all the modes pursued, none intimidate them so much 

 as shooting them at night, and they soon abandon the place where 

 they have been thus repeatedly shot at. 



" During the day they are dispersed about, but towards evening col- 

 lect in large flocks and come into the mouths of creeks, where they 

 often ride as at anchor, with their heads under their wings, asleep, 

 there being always sentinels awake, ready to raise an alarm on the 

 least appearance of danger. Even when feeding and diving in small 

 parties the whole never go down at one time, but some are still left 

 above on the lookout. When the winter sets in severely, and the 

 river is frozen, the Canvas-backs retreat to its confluence with the 

 bay, occasionally frequenting air holes in the ice, which are some- 

 times made for the purpose, immediately above their favorite grass, 

 to entice them within gunshot of the hut or bush, which is usually 

 fixed at a proper distance, and where the gunner lies concealed ready 

 to take advantage of their distress. A Mr. Hill, who lives near James 

 river, at a place called Herring creek, informs me that one severe 

 winter he and another person broke a hole in the ice, about twenty 



* The favorite method now employed by sportsmen at the well-known ducking- grounds at 

 Havre-de-Grace, Maryland,is the sink-box, a coffin-like structure, furnished with canvas "wings," 

 in which the gunner conceals himself after the box has been anchored amidst two hundred or 

 three hundred decoy ducks, on the feeding-grounds where the Red-heads and Canvas-backs 

 backs daily resort. Warren. 



