AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
161 
ing. These birds are numerous, and we have great facili- 
ties for taking them. At this season of the year, and in 
autumn, all the surrounding shores and bays are lined 
with gunners in pursuit of them. At this period, they 
may be seen swimming among the very wharves of the 
city, with as much unconcern as if paddling about in the 
remotest northern ocean. At Nantasket, at Cohasset, or 
Nahant, or Sandwich, we dare say they may now be 
found in abundance. In some places they are taken in 
decoys, into which they are enticed by decoy-ducks. 
These consist of reeds planted in water, and bent over in 
the form of a tunnel, and covered with a net. The man- 
ner of managing a decoy is as follows: As soon as the even- 
ing is set in, the decoy rises, as they term it, and the 
wild fowl feed during the night. If the evening be still, 
the noise of their wings, during their flight, is heard at a 
very great distance, and produces no unpleasant sensation. 
The fowler when he finds a fit opportunity, and sees his 
decoy covered with fowl, walks about the pool, and ob- 
serves into what pipe or tunnel, the birds gathered in the 
pool may be enticed or driven. Then casting hemp-seed 
or some such seed as will float on the surface of the water, 
at the entrance and up along the pipe, he whistles to his 
decoy-ducks, who instantly obey the summons, and come 
to the entrance of the pipe, in hopes of being fed as usual. 
Thither also they are followed by a whole flock of wild 
ones, who little suspect the danger preparing against them. 
The wild ducks, therefore, pursuing the decoy-ducks, are 
led into the broad mouth of the channel or pipe, nor have 
the least suspicion of the man, who is there concealed. 
When they have got up the pipe, however, finding it 
grows more and more narrow, they begin to suspect dan- 
ger, and would return back, but they are now prevented 
by the man, who shows himself at the broad end below. 
Thither, therefore, they dare not return; and rise they 
may not, as they are kept by the net above from ascend- 
ing. The only way left them, therefore, is the narrow- 
funneled net at the bottom; into this they fly and there 
they are taken. 
It often happens, however, that the wild fowl are in 
such a state of sleepiness or dozing, that they will not fol- 
low the decoy-ducks. Use is then generally made of a 
dog who is taught his lesson. He passes backward and 
forward among the reed-hedges, in which there are little 
holes both for the decoy-man to see, and for the little dog 
to pass through. This attracts the eye of the wild fowl, 
who, prompted by curiosity, advance towards this little 
animal, while he all the time keeps playing among the 
reeds, nearer and nearer the funnel, till they follow him 
too far to recede. Sometimes the dog will not attract 
their attention till a red handkerchief or something very 
S s 
striking be put about him. In China, such numbers of 
gourds are at all times floating down their rivers, or on 
the surface of the pool, that the ducks from habit, are not 
startled by them; John Chinaman taking advantage of this 
circumstance, has hit upon a very ingenious device for 
taking them. He hollows out one of these gourds, large 
enough to enclose his head, and with his whimsical head- 
gear, wades into the water, taking care that his body is 
concealed beneath the water. By this method, he manages 
to jerk the whole flock, one after another under the sur- 
face, where strangulation soon deprives them of the power 
to sound the alarm to their comrades. M. 
For the Cabinet. 
UNITED BOWMEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 
“ All by the shady green-wood tree, 
The merry, merry archers roam ; 
Jovial and bold, and ever free, 
They tread their woodland home. 
Roving beneath the moon’s soft light, 
Or in the thick embowering shade, 
List’ning the tale with dear delight, 
Of a wand’ring Sylvan Maid.” 
[. Archers’ Glee in the Maid of Judah 
Such in the olden time was the occupation of the gal- 
lant Bowmen and Forresters gay, when the heart expand- 
ed in the joys of the chase, the limbs grew strong, and 
the pulse beat high in its exulting clamour; or perchance, 
its fatigues were forgotten “in the thick embowering 
shade,” telling “the tale” to some “Sylvan Maid,” who, 
“in dear delight” “list’ning,” scarce knows that a figu- 
rative shaft from that sly archer, the son of Cypria’s 
Queen, has pierced the very red of her heart. But oh! 
these degenerate days, a bare common, the refuge of the 
sheep-boy and his shorn flock, is the melancholy con- 
trast, without a vestige of “ embowering shade.” 
Well, so let it he, there is still enjoyment enough, and 
more than ordinary in the drawing of the bow, and the 
twang of the string, when we remember that our embow- 
ering shade is the west side of the street, five in every 
seven afternoons, through the broiling summer, and our 
“jovial, bold, and free,” is developed in the right to 
elbow, wedge, and work our way, at the expense of sun- 
dry contusions upon our ribs, and a heavy discount for 
perspiration up to the polls, as we all most feelingly expe- 
rienced on the second Tuesday last. 
We live now in an age so artificial, that rural sports and 
the anecdotes of their followers, are listened to as ro~ 
