THE MALLARD. 157 
unperceived, with something over his head and shoulders, pre- 
cisely similar to something that the fowl are accustomed to 
see floating about, and which thus enables him to move about 
up to his neck in water, but with his head above this, and yet 
quite screened from sight. For this purpose they use, in some 
places, large earthen vessels, (chattzes, or gharrahs,) in some 
large gourds, in some baskets stuck about with rushes, so as 
to look like floating lumps of these. In Sindh, as I noted 
many years ago, they use the skin of a Pelican. I said talking 
of the Silver-grey or Dalmatian Pelican:— 
“This is the Pelican that the fishermen on all the inland 
waters keeptame. As with the Herons, so with the Pelicans, 
they generally sew up the eyes, and fasten them, by a string 
tied to the leg, to the roots of some bunch of rushes, or to a 
stake driven in below water level. They thus serve as decoys 
to other water-fowl, who, knowing how wary Pelicans usually 
are, readily settle where they see one or more of these birds 
sailing slowly about backwards and forwards, and are thus 
netted or captured in other ways. These Pelicans serve the 
fishermen, who are fowlers also, in another way: they skin them 
carefully, and cutting away the abdomen, in fact the greater 
portion that would be below water-level in the live bird, line 
the skin with a frame of thin basket work. They are very 
clever in mounting the birds, especially in dyeing the pouch 
and colouring it with turmeric so as to look exactly as in the 
live bird, and also in imitating the eyes which they manu- 
facture out of lac. When ready, the fisherman places it on his 
head, gets into the water, and progresses slowly and softly, mak- 
ing the skin, which conceals his head, sail about in the water in 
the most natural way imaginable, until he reaches the spot 
where some of his blinded and tethered Pelicans are surrounded 
required amount above the surface of the water. This line is thickly set with horse- 
hair nooses, at all possible angles, So that a duck can scarcely swim under the line 
without getting its head through some noose or other. This line is set in one of 
those jhils in which ducks come to feed at night, and after they have settled, they 
are gently worked to and fro, backwards and forwards. under the line, never being so 
pressed as to lead to their rising, only sufficiently to make them swim away. Natives 
have continually assured me that they have caught hundreds in a night this way, 
with a really long line. and I believe that there is no doubt that they do thus capture 
large numbers, but owing to some blundering on my own or my people’s part, I have 
never succeeded in making any hauls this way. It seems so reasonable, that I had a 
beautiful line made fully 500 yards in length with between 30and 40 thousand 
nooses on it, and I had it set, time after time (a very troublesome and laborious 
business, as each noose has to be put in a proper position), and I never caught 
above a dozen birds in any night, though thousands of fowl must have passed under 
that line a dozen times at least. Others may manage better. 
Another plan is to peg down a strong line along some foreshore where fowls feed 
at night close to the waters’ edge. The line is pegged about every yard, and from 
each point, where a peg is put down, a thin line, a yard or so long, is led out at right 
angles into the shallow water. Each line carries two or three strong fish hooks which 
are baited with worms, large water crickets, small frogs, fish, and the like. The 
lines and pegs are covered with sand, only the baits are left showing. I have never 
tried this, but especially on sea coasts, where large bodies of fowl feed regularly 
in particular spots, it is said to be very effective. 
