190 
ANAS BOSCHAS. 
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 Cejdon, and some parts 
of South America, J has been often described, and seems, 
if reliance may be placed on those accounts, only 
practicable in water of a certain depth. The sportsman, 
covering his head with a hollow wooden vessel or 
calabash, pierced with holes to see through, wades into 
the water, keeping his head only above, and, thus 
disguised, moves in among the flock, which take the 
appearance to be a mere floating calabash, while, 
suddenly pulling them under by the legs, he fastens 
them to his girdle, and thus takes as many as he can 
conveniently stow away, without in the least alarming 
the rest. They are also taken with snares made of horse 
hair, or with hooks baited with small pieces of sheep’s 
lights, which, floating on the surface, are swallowed by 
the ducks, and with them the hooks. They are also 
approached under cover of a stalking horse, or a figure 
formed of thin boards, or other proper materials, and 
painted so as to represent a horse or ox. But all these 
methods require much watching, toil, and fatigue, and 
their success is but trifling when compared with that 
of the decoy now used both in France and England, § 
which, from its superiority over every other mode, is 
well deserving the attention of persons of this country 
residing in the neighbourhood of extensive marshes 
frequented by wild ducks, as, by this method, mallard 
and other kinds may be taken by thousands at a time. 
The following circumstantial account of these decoys, 
and the manner of taking wild ducks in them in 
England, is extracted from Bewick’s History of British 
Birds , vol. ii, p. 294 : 
* Naval Chronicle , vol. ii, p. 473. 
f Du Halde, History of China , vol. ii, p. 142; 
t Ulloa’s Voyage , i, p. 53. 
§ Particularly in Picardy, in the former country, and Lincoln- 
shire in the latter. 
