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He directed them suddenly to "hold water," and stop the canoe, at the same time telling them that the birds ahead were the very sort about which they had been conversing the "canvass-backs." He had no doubt of it, judging from their colour, size, and peculiar movements. The announcement produced a new excitement.
Wherever the valisneria grows in quantity, as in the Chesapeake Bay and some rivers, like the Hudson, there the canvass-backs resort, and are rarely seen elsewhere. They do not eat the leaves but only the white soft roots, which they dive for and pluck up with great dexterity.
There was something very odd in all this, and the three boys, thinking so at the same time, were about to communicate their thoughts to one another, when the double crack of Francois' gun drove the thing, for a moment, out of their heads; and they all looked over the bushes to see how many canvass-backs had been killed.
"Shooting the canvass-backs is a source of profit to hundreds of gunners who live around the Chesapeake Bay, as these birds command a high price in the markets of the American cities. Disputes have arisen between the fowlers of different States around the Bay about the right of shooting upon it; and vessels full of armed men ready to make war upon one another have gone out on this account.
They had also heads of a reddish colour, but of a brighter red, and marked by a white band that ran from the root of the bill over the crown. This mark enabled Lucien at once to tell the species. It appeared that the widgeon obtained its food by a regular system of robbery and plunder perpetrated upon the community of the canvass-backs.
They saw that they were not all canvass-backs, but that three distinct kinds of ducks were feeding together. One sort was the canvass-backs themselves, and a second kind very much resembled them, except that they were a size smaller. These were the "red-heads" or "pochards." The third species was different from either.
But the President's levees were about opening for the season; and two or three of those most insufferable of all coxcombs, the attachés of foreign embassies, whisking their dandy rattans and sporting finely curled mustachoes; who, to his unsophisticated observation, appeared to be men of far greater importance than their less-pretending diplomatic masters, and who not unfrequently shared oysters with him during the day at Laturno's, and canvass-backs and champagne at O'Neal's by night, persuaded him to remain a few weeks longer, not much to the advantage of his exchequer, as may well be supposed.
In ten minutes we were all talking like old friends, and the young ladies were making tea. This was soon ready; some bread, without butter, was placed upon the little table; and the meal was the most cheerful and happy imaginable. "Oh, my dear Mr. Blocque!" I could not help saying to myself, "keep your champagne, and canvass-backs, and every luxury, and welcome!
In about a quarter of an hour's time, the canoe, gliding silently along the edge of the sedge which was the wild celery came near the place where the ducks were; and the boys, peeping through the leafy screen, could now see the birds plainly. They saw that they were not all canvass-backs, but that three distinct kinds of ducks were feeding together.
He directed them suddenly to "hold water" and stop the canoe, at the same time telling them that the birds ahead were the very sort about which they had been conversing the "canvass-backs." He had no doubt of it, judging from their colour, size, and peculiar movements. The announcement produced a new excitement.
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