THE MALLARD. 
189 
country where it frequents, has been employed in 
inventing' stratagems to overreach these wary birds, and 
procure a delicacy for the table. To enumerate all 
these various contrivances would far exceed our limits ; 
a few, however, of the most simple and effective may 
be mentioned. 
In some ponds frequented by these birds, five or six 
wooden figures, cut and painted so as to represent ducks, 
and sunk, by pieces of lead nailed on their bottoms, so 
as to float at the usual depth on the surface, are 
anchored in a favourable position for being raked from 
a concealment of brush, &c. on shore. The appearance 
of these usually attracts passing flocks, which alight, 
and are shot down. Sometimes eight or ten of these 
painted wooden ducks are fixed on a frame in various 
swimming postures, and secured to the bow of the 
gunner’s skiff, projecting before it in such a manner 
that the weight of the frame sinks the figures to their 
proper depth ; the skiff is then dressed with sedge or 
coarse grass in an artful manner, as low as the water’s 
edge ; and under cover 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 
repeated 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 practised 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 tops are artfully 
concealed with tufts of long coarse grass and r6eds or 
