THE MALLAED. 
297 
southern states during winter, many of the fields being covered 
with a few inches of water, and the scattered grains of the for- 
mer harvest lying in abundance, the ducks swim about and feed 
at pleasure. 
The flesh of the common Wild Duck is in general and high 
estimation; and the ingenuity of man, in every country where 
it frequents, has been employed in inventing stratagems to 
overreach these wary birds, and procure a delicacy for the ta- 
ble. To enumerate all these various contrivances would far ex- 
ceed our limits; a few, however, of the most simple and efiec- 
tive may be mentioned. 
In some ponds frequented by these birds, five or six wooden 
figures, cut and painted so as to represent ducks, and sunk, by 
pieces of lead nailed on their bottoms, so as to float at the usu- 
al depth on the surface, are anchored in a favourable position 
for being raked from a concealment of brush, &c. on shore. 
The appearance of these usually attracts passing flocks, which 
alight, and are shot down. Sometimes eight or ten of these 
painted wooden ducks are fixed on a frame in various svvimming 
postures, and secured to the bow of the gunner’s skiflf, project- 
ing before it in such a manner that the weight of the frame sinks 
the figures to their proper depth; the skiff is then drest with 
sedge or coarse grass in an artful manner, as low as the water’s 
edge; and under cover of this, which appears like a party of 
ducks swimming by a small island, the gunner floats down 
sometimes to the very skirts of a whole congregated multitude, 
and pours in a destructive and repeated fire of shot among them. 
In winter, when detached pieces of ice are occasionally floating 
in the river, some of the gunners on the Delaware paint their 
whole skiff or canoe white, and laying themselves flat at the 
bottom, with their hand over the side silently managing a small 
paddle, direct it imperceptibly into or near a flock, before the 
Ducks have distinguished it from a floating mass of ice, and ge- 
nerally do great execution among them. A whole flock has 
sometimes been thus surprised asleep, with their heads under their 
wings. On land, another stratagem is sometimes practised with 
VOL. III. — Q q 
