374 
DUCK CATCHING. 
swims with them on her hack to some distance, when, making 
a sudden dive, she abandons them to themselves, and re- 
appearing, tempts them to come towards her ; so that, on the 
first trial, they commonly become expert swimmers. When 
the breeding- season is over, they generally stand out to sea ; 
yet numbers are seen frequenting the bays and creeks about 
the coast. 
The eggs furnish excellent food to the inhabitants, and 
the down is bought on the spot at about thirteen or fourteen 
shillings a pound, by merchants, who send it to different 
parts of the world. It is used chiefly for making bed cover- 
ings, on account of its exceeding lightness as well as warmth ; 
a large bed-quilt sometimes weighing only five pounds three 
ounces; of which the linen covering weighs two pounds 
and a half, — leaving two pounds eleven ounces for the Eider- 
down. 
Shy and difficult of approach as Wild- Ducks are, and 
withal so valuable when obtained, we ought not to be sur- 
prised that a good deal of human ingenuity has been exerted 
in inventing the most efficacious modes of catching them ; 
and it is curious to perceive how people in very different 
parts of the world may hit upon the same expedient. Thus, 
the Indians, who live in villages built on the shallows, in the 
midst of the waters of the great lake of Maracaibo, on the 
north coast of South America, opening into the Caribbean Sea, 
practise the same mode as the Chinese. They take care that 
a number of empty calabashes, a sort of large shell, or rind 
of a fruit, resembling an empty gourd, are continually floating 
up and down the lake ; to these the Ducks get accustomed 
and allow them to drift down amongst their flocks, without 
expressing any fear. The Duck-catcher, particularly when, 
from the state of the wind, or situation of the birds, he 
observes the calabashes floating near a flock, goes into the 
lake, with a calabash over his head, having holes in it for 
seeing and breathing. Nothing is seen above the water 
except the calabash, the Indian taking care to keep the whole 
of his body immersed. He now steals slowly and quietly 
