THE MALLARD. 



. 115 



feed at low water, and where otherwise there is no shelter; the 

 edges and top 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. The mode 

 of catching Wild Ducks, as practised in India,^ China,t the island 

 of Ceylon, and some parts of South America,! has been often de- 

 scribed, and seems, if reliance may be placed on those accounts, 

 only practicable in water of a certain depth. The sportsman co- 

 vering his head with a hollow wooden vessel or calabash, pierced 

 with holes to see through, wades into the water, keeping his head 

 only above, and thus disguised, moves in among the flock, which 

 take the appearance to be a mere floating calabash, while sudden- 

 ly pulling them under by the legs, he fastens them to his girdle, 

 and thus takes as many as he can conveniently stow away, with- 

 out in the least alarming the rest. They are also taken with 

 snares made of horse hair, or with hooks baited with small pieces 

 of sheep's lights, which floating on the surface, are swallowed by 

 the ducks, 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 atten- 

 tion of persons of this country residing in the neighbourhood of ex- 

 tensive 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. 



* Naval Chron. vol. ii, p. 473. f Du Halde, Hist. China, vol. ii, p. 142. ij: Ulloa's Voj. 1, p, 53. 

 II Particularly in Picardy, in the former country, and Lincolnshire in the latter. 



