124 
MALLARD. 
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 re- 
peated 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 generally 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 prac- 
tised with great success. A large tight hogshead is sunk in the 
flat marsh, or mud, near the place where ducks are accustomed to 
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, f 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 only his 
head 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 
* Naval Chron. vol. ii, p. 473. 
t Du Halde, Hist. China, vol. ii, p. 142. 
^ Ulloii’s Voy. i, p. 53. 
