Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/523

 Decoy Ducks that Quack and Swim

���The ducks are composed of two separable parts which enclose a phonographic con- trivance which emits a natural-sounding quack, or call, at predetermined intervals

WHEN Amos C. Vaughan of Ana- darko, Oklahoma, goesduckshoot- ing he takes with him a sot of his mechanical decoy's and places them in the water in front of his blind. Before doing so, howe\er, he winds them up. When a flock of wild ducks appears his decoys begin to swim about and quack as if they were alive. The result is that the inventor goes home with a full bag, for no wild duck can resist the mechani- cal wiles of his decoy.

His duck is provided with a phono- graphic means for automatically giving at predetermined inter\als a call or cr>-. It swims about in the water with the aid of the propeller and an adjustable rudder, either in circles or in any direction the hunter washes.

The decoy is composed of two parts, bottom and top, which can be opened for cleaning and repairing. A clock-

��work mechanism dri\es the propeller and also the sound-record of the phono- graph. As the mechanism is set in action the stylus, or needle, as well as the propeller is operated. A cylinder or disk is used for the record. A control- ling cam renders the needle inopera- tive at certain intervals, so that the calls or cries are sounded intermittently. Who makes the phonographic record of the quack that leads a duck to its doom? We are baflfled.

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