To make ducks and drakes: a school-boy’s amusement, practised with pieces of tile, oyster-shells, or flattish stones, which being skimmed along the surface of a pond, or still river, rebound many times. To make ducks and drakes of one’s money; to throw it idly away.
Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose.
Duck * Duck F-ck-rNathan Bailey's 1736 Dictionary of canting and thieving slang
John S. Farmer's collection of canting songs and slang rhymes