“Like the Dusky Duck,” says Mr. Giraud, in his very clever and agreeable manual on the birds of Long Island, “when pursued by the sportsman, it becomes shy and feeds at night, dozing away the day out of gun-shot from the shore. “Early in the month of July, 1837, while hunting over the meadows for smaller game, I came upon a pair of Mallard Ducks, moving slowly down the celebrated ‘Brick-house creek.’ The thought occurred to me that they were a pair of tame ducks that had become tired of the monotony of domestic life, and determined on pushing their fortunes in the broad bay. As I advanced they took wing, which undeceived me, and I brought them down. They proved to be an adult male and female. From this circumstance I was led to suppose that they had bred in the neighborhood. I made a diligent search, and offered a sufficient bounty to induce others to search with me—but neither nest nor young could be found. Probably when migrating, they were shot at and so badly wounded as to be unable to perform their fatiguing journey, perhaps miles apart, and perchance only found companions in each other a short time before I shot them.” When the young birds are about three-fourths grown, and not as yet fully fledged or able to fly strongly, at which age they are termed _flappers_, they afford excellent sport over water-spaniels, when they are abundant in large reed beds along the brink of ponds and rivers. When full grown, moreover, when they frequent parts of the country where the streams are narrow and winding, great sport can be had with them at times, by walking about twenty yards wide of the brink and as many in advance of an attendant, who should follow all the windings of the water and flush the birds, which springing wild of him will so be brought within easy range of the gun. The Mallard is wonderfully quick-sighted and sharp of hearing, so that it is exceedingly difficult to stalk him from the shore, especially by a person coming down wind upon him, so much so that the acuteness of his senses has given rise to a general idea that he can detect danger to windward by means of his olfactory nerves. This is, however, disproved by the observations of that excellent sportsman and pleasant writer, John Colquhoun of Luss, as recorded in that capital work, “The Moor and the Loch,” who declares decidedly, that although ducks on the feed constantly detect an enemy crawling down upon them from the windward, will constantly, when he is lying in wait, silent and still, and properly concealed, sail down upon him perfectly unsuspicious, even when a strong wind is blowing over him full in their nostrils.