T HE great increase of wild-fowl already seen in England is
due, in the first place, to the Protection Acts, which prevent the shooting of the birds when nesting ; and secondly, to the recent fashion of breeding artificially enormous numbers of the common wild duck for shooting, in the same way in which pheasants are hand-reared for cover- shooting. One highly desirable result of artificial pheasant- rearing has been to raise the stock on the large estates to such an extent that on some of the best at least half the birds shot are wild-reared, and the owners pride them- selves on the fact. This came about very slowly. But in the case of the wild duck, which is as good a mother as the hen pheasant is a bad one, it was very soon found that the birds left over from the previous season nested in the vicinity. The result has been to establish large numbers of local wild duck on estates from which they had almost disappeared. Where several of these are contiguous and the conditions favourable, there are now a hundred indigenous ducks where twelve years ago there were only ten. These in turn attract the winter• visitors, or " foreign ducks. The close time has also been extended, as a rule till the beginning of September; fresh-water marshes are carefully looked after; and if matters go on as they are doing, we may . leok forward to a time when mallard, teal, and widgeon will be almost as common as pheasants and partridges.
One sign of this improved return in sport and food from our lakes, ponds, and marshes is the revival of the wild-duck decoy, which represents the most finished product of the• ancient art of the fowler. For centuries the decoy was one of the most satisfactory economic adjuncts of an estate in a suitable position, especially if it was near the sea. Lincoln- shire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex were full of them, and there was scarcely a county where they were not worked or failed to pay. The general use of guns and the steady shooting of every kind of duck in the nesting season gradually depleted' their numbers, to such a degree that one by one all but the most favourably placed decoys went out of use. But at. the worst period a few survived, including eleven in. Norfolk and Suffolk.' In Lincolnshire only one is left% at Ashby; formerly there were thirty-eight decoyi in the county, no less than five of them being in the parish of Friskney. In 1886, when Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey published his "Book of Duck Decoys," forty-one were 'still in working order in England and Wales, and three in Ireland. Even then owners contemplated restoring some which had been disused,—one new one was constructed in the same year at Merton on Lord Walsingham's estate (which, we believe, was not a success, but it had only a single pipe). One at Didlington, which is still a success, was only made in 1865; and the decoy at Orwell Park, in Suffolk, was in 1886 under reconstruction. It is now owned by Mr. E. G. Pretyman, M.P., and is in full working order. This beautiful little decoy now yields an average of over three thousand ducks a year, though it is quite close to the new Felixstowe Railway, and there are no other pools or ponds on the estate where the birds collect in any number. The whole of these ducks are drawn there by hearing the calls of those on the pond, and this pond, it should further be noted, is only two and a half acres in extent. This is a most interesting example of a decoy which is designed not only for use, but to add to the interest and beauty of an estate. It is in a slight hollow in a wood, the banks rising rather steeply from the pool. On the banks, reached by a covered way, and com- manding a full view both of the birds on the water, and of the whole process of decoying them up the pipes, either by call ducks or by the use of the perfectly trained decoy dogs, are four summer-houses, each looking over one of the four pipes or channels. Thus the owner or his family and guests can witness without being seen, at close quarters and in perfect comfort, the sight of hundreds, or even a thousand, of fowl swimming, resting, or sleeping, as well as the ingenious and exciting method of decoying them. An entirely new decoy has been made at Netherby, on the edge of Solway Moss, by Sir Richard Graham, whose estate, owing to the owner discovering that ducks which had been reared in enormous numbers would remain where they were bred instead of moving off in a body, has become the greatest preserve of wild-fowl in England. The birds nest freely on the property, and the decoy ground, which is kept absolutely quiet, is a favourite spot with them. It is highly probable that this decoy will attract numbers of "foreign" ducks from the sea, for the Solway' Firth lies at no great distance. One of the most interesting facts about the maintenance of decoys is that their presence always increases the number of fowl in the neighbourhood. Great though their powers of destruction, their powers of attraction are greater.
The most useful discovery in the history of decoys, from the point of view of those making new ones, was due to a. Lincolnshire family of the name of Skelton, the members of which have for a century been the leaders of decoy management and construction. Some of them are still actively engaged as decoymen, and are masters of every secret of the business. The Lincolnshire Skeltons had a decoy, or possibly several, at Friskney; but early in the last century they moved into Norfolk, and there made public their new system. They declared that large ponds, lakes, or meres were not necessary for the attraction of numbers of wild ducks, and that as many could be caught on a pond of from one to three acres, with four " pipes" or decoy ditches, as could be taken on a great mere of over thirty acres, like that at Wretham, with eight pipes. At first the Norfolk decoymen ridiculed the Skeltons and their theories. But the family soon obtained orders to make or alter decoys, and thus proved that they were right.
It has always been deemed an essential condition about a decoy pond that it shall be kept quiet, and that the ducks shall never see men walking near it. To secure this the decoy-maker always plants the pond round with a belt of trees, while an inner belt of shrubs or trees also runs close round the pond with a path just behind it, in order to enable the decoyman to move wherever he likes unseen to reach the different pipes. It seems just possible that in time ducks, if never shot at, would come to the pond almost as well were there no screen of trees. They do so in thousands at Holkham, and will not rise even when people pass them going to church near the lower end of the lake. But the decoy wood is, on the whole, a safe screen, and to this at some decoys, as at Iken, in Suffolk, an outside moat was often added, making it impossible for any one but the possessor of the bridge key to get in or disturb the birds.
The pond may be of any shape or size, but it is preferable that it should be either round or square. In the simplest form of decoy four pipes aro cut. These pipes are the ditches, netted over, up which the birds are enticed, either by decoy ducks, or by the antics of the decoy dog, or by both combined, and their lay-out and design constitute the most important feature in the decoy. In actual plan the pipes, which are some twenty- five feet wide at the mouth, and taper to two feet where the trammel net is attached, must be long enough for the ducks on the pond not to bear the flapping of their comrades' wings as they are driven into the trap at the end, and must have a gentle curve, like that of the Quadrant in Regent Street, so that the deluded ducks are not within sight of those on the pool when they are caught. On the inner side of the curve at the mouth, and for some yards beyond the first arch of the pipe, a flattened step is made, to entice the ducks to sit and sleep there, other parts of the bank of the pond being made upright, so that the birds shall get into the habit of " loitering " near the pipes. On the opposite side are the beautifully made screens of reeds behind which the decoyman works, and where the visitor can also watch the sport. The screen is prolonged beyond the opening of the pipe and for some yards along the bank to a point where the man can see for a long distance down the curve. This place is called the " head show," because when the ducks are far enough up the decoyman runs round by a back path, and suddenly shows himself at the head of the pipe to the birds which have passed up. The high screen intervening between this and the pond prevents the other birds seeing him as he drives the first up. The other screens are arranged diagonally so as to overlap ; but joining each to each at a right angle is a low screen, only some two feet high, called a " dog-jump," the use of which is soon perceived when the dog is working. In conclusion, it should be said that the netting (now usually of wire) is stretched over arches, the first of which is twenty-four feet high, and that each succeeding arch is four feet lower than the one before, until the last, which is only two feet high.
The construction and working of the pipes will be found elaborately explained in Sir R. Payne-Gallwey's " Book of Duck Decoys," a perusal of which will probably enhance the desire to be the possessor of one. There is no reason why the owner should not himself become pro- ficient in the catching of the birds, or even enjoy the pleasure of training as well as working the cleverest of all domesticated animals except the elephant, the decoy dog. But it will be necessary to keep a permanent and skilled decoyman to be on the look out at all hours in order to make the business a success.
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