344 
CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 
killed in the waters of the Chesapeake are generally esteemed 
superior to all others, doubtless from the great abundance of 
their favourite food which these rivers produce. At our pub- 
lic dinners, hotels, and particular entertainments, the Canvas- 
backs are universal favourites. They not only grace but digni- 
fy the table, and their very name conveys to the imagination 
of the eager epicure the most comfortable and exhilarating 
ideas. Hence on such occasions it has not been uncommon to 
pay from one to three dollars a pair for these ducks; and, in- 
deed, at such times, if they can they must be had, whatever 
may be the price. 
The Canvas-back will feed readily on grain, especially wheat, 
and may be decoyed to particular places by baiting them with 
that grain for several successive days. Some few years since a 
vessel loaded with wheat was wrecked near the entrance of 
Great Egg Harbour, in the autumn, and went to pieces. The 
wheat floated out in vast quantities, and the whole surface of 
the bay was in a few days covered with Ducks of a kind alto- 
gether unknown to the people of that quarter. The gunners of the 
neighbourhood collected in boats, in every direction, shooting 
them, and so successful were they, that, as Mr. Beasley informs 
me, two hundred and forty were killed in one day, and sold among 
the neighbours, at twelve and a half cents a piece, without the 
feathers. The wounded ones were generally abandoned, as be- 
ing too difficult to be come up with. They continued about for 
three weeks, and during the greater part of that time a continu- 
al cannonading was heard from every quarter. The gunners 
called them Sea Ducks. They were all Canvas-backs, at that 
time on their way from the north, when this floating feast at- 
tracted their attention, and for a while arrested them in their 
course. A pair of these very ducks I myself bought in Phila- 
delphia market at the time, from an Egg Harbour gunner, and 
never met with their superior either in weight or excellence of 
flesh. When it was known among those people the loss they 
had sustained in selling for twenty-five cents what would have 
