File:Reptiles and birds. A popular account of the various orders; with a description of the habits and economy of the most interesting. (1873) (14562975818).jpg

Identifier: reptilesbirdspo00figu (find matches)
Title: Reptiles and birds. A popular account of the various orders; with a description of the habits and economy of the most interesting.
Year: 1873 (1870s)
Authors: Figuier, Louis, 1819-1894 Gillmore, Parker
Subjects: Birds Reptiles
Publisher: New York : D. Appleton and Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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ompanied by a boatman, taketheir places in a long, light, narrow, pointed boat, or punt, called afourquette. The two men, lying down in the bottom of the boat,are hidden by brushwood placed in front of them, the muzzle ofthe duck-gun protruding through the twigs. Thus floating downthe river among the ducks, they get an opportunity of shooting themwithout being perceived. Sportsmen in France sometimes employa very odd artifice to baffle the suspicious instinct of these birds : aman disguises himself as a cow by means of an outline of theanimal roughly made of common cardboard. Under favour of thisdisguise he gets near the wild ducks without exciting their fears, ifonly aware how to make good use of his device ; that is, if he de-scribes gentle and graceful curves, so as to advance gradually withoutalarming the timid Palmipedes. But this sport, though productiveenough when skilfully managed, is not unattended with danger. Asportsman, who had dressed himself up in this disguise, happened
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THE DOMESTIC DUCK. 225 inadvertently to find his way among a herd of cattle, which, de-tecting the imposture, immediately ran at him and chased him aboutthe meadow. He thought himself fortunate in escaping with theloss of his disguise, which he abandoned to the fury of his hornedassailants. Large numbers of Ducks are taken by means of nets and varioussnares, which want of space prevents us from here enumerating. The Domestic Duck (Anas domestica) is a descendant of the WildDuck, or, as some think, of the Shoveller. The first tame Duck,the ancestor of a family since so prodigiously multiplied, probablyproceeded from an egg which had been taken from some reedymarsh, and hatched under a hen. The Duck, however, has been reduced to a state of domesticityfrom a very remote period, and has been of incalculable utility tomankind, filling in our poultry-yards no unworthy place. Duckeggs are a wholesome and agreeable article of food, and the fleshof the bird itself is most savoury. Epicures hig

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