The sun., 1903-06-28
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NEW YORK.
sullivan County.

than Of food, and almost all the time they arc
in the water they are swimming around in
swift circles, tugging at the stakes or giving
the fright note.
As they get older they become more
traotable and in the dead Of winter, far
enough south to be out of The ice, some
good shooting may be had over them,
though they never arrive at state when
they will not try all together to get off the
water when the double-barrcl cracks from
the blind thirty yards away. The wings
of these ducks are, of course, kept closely
clipped. but their muscles are so power
full that they will raise themselves from
the water as far as the strings will allow
and scutter about miserably whenever
alarmed.
For these reasons il is hardly worth a
mans while to buy mallard eggs and to
attempt to raise brood Indeed, it seems
uselessly cruel to torture a fowl in this
manner when better results may be obtained
in another way. For duck shooting the bes /
all around decoys are the tame ducks.
They will not bring their wild cousins of
the air to gun so well as wild olecoys would
If they could be induced to stay calm and
to call. There is subtle difference in the
voices of the tame and the wild varieties
and though the human ear is often unable
TO detect it, the wild ducks note it instantly
They do not distrust il, but they know that
the note is not precisely as their own and
they are not so strongly attracted by it.
Yet the tame duck is far better than any
inanimate decoy and properly. colored,
trained and disposed proves to be succe S.
fu. 1t comes in little while to show no
fear of the guns. In fact it soon learns
that when it is put into a boat it is
TO have a swim and it likes this and comes
gladly to call.
Sometimes as many as two dozen are
used near one blind, making an imposing
flock and one certain to be seen for miles
by overhead fowl. They are set out in
water two feet deep. and are tied to
wooden pegs thrurst into the bottom by
cords eight feet long. which pass about one
leg.
The ducks in time seem to acquire a
relish for the sport. When the double
barrels have roared from concealment
and dead wild flyers come tumbling down
among them they set up a loud. pleased
quacking, welcoming the whirling bodies
of their kin, Also they learn soon to call
10 hocks flying over far up and even when
feeding keep an eye cooked up to the clouds
looking for passengers.
Sometimes the ducks get away and Join
fiocks of wild mallards. but they never leave
the lake on which they were reared, and in
a few days they get tired of the wild life
and want the comforts of home. An in
stance of this occurred last winter on Caddo
Lake in northern Louisiana. where the
Ananias Hunting Club has its headquarters
This club has one of the largest fiocks of
live decoys in the South, and they are tended
by an old Scotchman named Cairns, who
thinks as much of them as il they were
his children. He addresses them always
as Honey! Honey!' and they are fond of
him.
Two of his finest ducks. both males, got
loose from the strings one day and swan
away unnoticed. He was on the lake five
days afterward and saw a flock Of mallards,
containing possibly hundred birds a half
mile away.
AS he approached them two detached