For duck shooting, whether it be practiced in this fashion, by stalking them from the shore while feeding in lakelets or rivers, by following the windings of open and rapid streams in severe weather, or in paddling or pushing on them in gunning-skiffs, as is practiced on the Delaware, a peculiar gun is necessary for the perfection of the sport. To my taste, it should be a double-barrel from 33 to 36 inches in length, at the outside, about 10 gauge, and 10 pounds weight. The strength and weight of the metal should be principally at the breech, which will answer the double purpose of causing it to balance well and of counteracting the call. Such a gun will carry from two to three ounces of No. 4 shot, than which I would never use a larger size for duck, and with that load and an equal measure of very coarse powder—Hawker’s ducking-powder, manufactured by Curtis and Harvey, is the best in the world, and can be procured of Mr. Brough, in Fulton Street, New York—will do its work satisfactorily and cleanly at sixty yards, or with Eley’s _green_, wire cartridges, which will permit the use of shot one size smaller, at thirty yards farther. The utility of these admirable projectiles can hardly be overrated, next to the copper-cap, of which Starkey’s water-proof, central-fire, is the best form, I regard them as the greatest of modern inventions in the art of gunnery. Such a gun as I describe can be furnished of first-rate quality by Mr. John Krider of Philadelphia, Mr. John, or Patrick Mullin of New York, or Mr. Henry T. Cooper of the same city, ranging in price, according to finish, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars, of domestic manufacture; and I would strongly recommend sportsmen, requiring such an implement, to apply to one of these excellent and conscientious makers, rather than even to import a London gun, much more than to purchase at a hazard the miserable and dangerous Birmingham trash, manufactured of three-penny skelp or sham drawn-iron, got up in handsome, velvet-lined mahogany cases, and tricked out with varnish and gimcrackery expressly for the American market, such as are offered for sale at every hardware shop in the country. The selling of such goods ought to be made by law a high misdemeanor, and a fatal accident occurring by their explosion should entail on the head of the sender the penalty of willful murder. The Mallard is found frequently associating in large plumps with the Pintail, or Sprigtail, another elegant fresh water variety, the Dusky-Duck on fresh waters, the Greenwinged Teal in winter to the southward, and with the Widgeon on the western waters.