DUCK-SHOOTING. 
379 
ciently near, he directs his piece, and fires at a venture, and 
instantly catching up another gun, discharges it where he 
supposes the flock to he rising on the wing ; he then hastens 
to the spot with his mud-pattens, and gathers up the profits 
of his toil. 
We suspect, indeed, that the birds have seceded from the 
whole line of the river Dee ; for the flights now seen are not 
to he compared with those which are spoken of as frequent a 
few years ago, when a couple of experienced Duck- shooters, 
we believe from the fens of Lincolnshire, spent some weeks 
on the coast, and realized a considerable sum by supplying the 
Chester and Liverpool markets. Their plan was this : — One of 
them had a small flat-built boat, without any keel, about six- 
teen feet long, and three feet broad, drawing about three and 
a half inches water. It was managed by a pole, twelve feet 
long, made about six inches broad at each end, which the man 
held in the centre, and dipping each end in, propelled his boat 
along ; and when he got near his prey, used two small paddles, 
only three feet in length, by which he guided his skiff. His 
gun, which was fixed on a rest, consisted of two immense 
barrels, about nine feet long, an inch and a quarter in 
diameter, requiring three-quarters of a pound of powder and 
two pounds of shot to load both barrels, which were fired 
together. His success in one week, was a hundred and three 
Ducks and eleven Geese, besides smaller birds. At one shot, 
he had been known to kill two hundred and one Sea-Purres. He 
earned about ten pounds per week, and his companion rather 
more, by a similar plan. 
But the exploits of our British fowlers are insignificant, 
when compared with the grand scale on which this warfare 
is carried on in Mexico, where a great Tiro de Patos, or 
Duck-shooting, is, we are assured,* one of the most curious 
scenes that it is possible to witness. The Indians, by whom 
it is principally conducted, prepare a battery composed of 
seventy or eighty musket-barrels, arranged in two rows, one 
* Ward’s Mexico. 
