380 
DUCK-DECOYS. 
of which sweeps the water, while the other is a little elevated, 
so as to take the Ducks as they rise upon the wing. The 
barrels are connected with each other, and fired by a train ; 
but the whole apparatus, as well as the man who has charge 
of it, are concealed in the rushes until the moment when, after 
many hours of cautious labour, one of the dense columns of 
Ducks, which blacken at times the surface of the lake, is 
driven by the distant canoes of his associates sufficiently near 
to the fatal spot. The double tier of guns is immediately fired, 
and the water remains strewed with the bodies of the killed 
and wounded, whose escape is cut off by the circle of canoes 
beyond. Twelve hundred Ducks are often brought in as the 
result of a single attack ; and during the whole season they 
form the ordinary food of the lower classes in the town of 
Mexico, where they are sold for a trifling sum. 
We have alluded to decoys as the great source of profit 
and supply with respect to wild fowl ; and with an account 
of them we shall conclude the history of Ducks. A decoy is 
generally situated in a marsh, so as to be surrounded with 
wood or reeds, and if possible both, to keep the water quiet, 
and that the repose of the wild fowl may not be interrupted. 
A certain number of Decoy-Ducks is then provided, consist- 
ing of wild ones, which are bred for the purpose, and which, 
although they fly abroad, regularly return for food to the 
decoy-waters, and of tame ones which never quit the water, 
and are regularly trained to act their part. Their food con- 
sists of hempseed, oats, and buck-wheat. In what is called 
working the decoy, the hempseed is thrown in small quan- 
tities over screens made of reeds, to allure the birds forward 
towards the pipes, or wicker channels, of which there are 
several, leading up a narrow ditch, closing at last with a 
funnel-net. Over these pipes, which grow narrower from the 
first entrance, is a continued arch of netting suspended on 
hoops ; it is necessary to have a pipe for almost every wind 
that can blow, as upon this circumstance it depends which 
pipe the Ducks will take to; and the Decoy-man always 
keeps to leeward of the flock, taking the additional precaution 
