THE GADWALL. 
147 
the evening. The better to entice the ducks into the pipe, 
hemp seed is strewed occasionally on the water. The season 
allowed, by act of Parliament, for catching these birds in this 
way, is from the latter end of October till February. 
Particular spots, or decoys, in the fen countries, are let to 
the fowlers at a rent of from five to thirty pounds per annum ; 
and Pennant instances a season in which thirty-one thousand 
two hundred ducks, including teals and widgeons, were sold in 
London only, from ten of these decoys near Wainfleet, in Lin- 
colnshire. Formerly, according to Willoughby, the ducks 
while in moult, and unable to fly, were driven by men in boats, 
furnished with long poles, with which they splashed the water 
between long nets, stretched vertically across the pools, in the 
shape of two sides of a triangle, into lesser nets placed at the 
point ,* and, in this way, he says, four thousand were taken at 
one driving in Deeping- Fen ; and Latham has quoted an in- 
stance of tv/o thousand six hundred and forty-six being taken 
in two days, near Spalding, in Lincolnshire ; but this manner 
of catching them, while in moult, is now prohibited.’’ 
THE GADWALL ANAS STREPERA Plate LXXL Fig. 1. 
Le Chipeau, JBriss. vi. p. 339, 8. pi. 33, fig 1 Buff. ix. 187. PI. Enl. 958. — 
Avct. Zool. p. 675 Lath. Syn. iii. p. 515. — PeaWs Museum, No. 2750. 
CHAULIODUS STIiEPi:itA.—SwAmsoN?^ 
Anas strepera, Linn. Syst. i. p. 200 Lath. Ind. Ornith. ii. p. 859. — Bonap. 
Synop. p. 383. — Canard cMpeau, on ridenne, Temm. Man. ii. p. 837. — Gad- 
wall or Grey, Mont. Ornith. Diet. i. and Supp. — Bew. Br. Birds, ii. 350 
Gadwall, Selby s Illust. Br. Ornith. pi. 51. — Anas (cliauliodus) strepera, North. 
Zool. ii. p. 440. — Genus Chauliodus, Swain. Journ. Royal Instit. No. iv. p. 19. 
This beautiful duck I have met with in the very distant parts 
of the United States, viz. on the Seneca Lake, in New York, 
* This beautiful duck is remarkable in presenting, next to the shovellers, the 
greatest developement of lateral laminae of the hill ; it is also an expert diver. 
In Britain they are rare, hut appear more common in the lower countries of 
