DECOY ANIMALS.
AMONG the surviving industries of dogs is one dating from an age when the observation of animal idiosyn- crasies was sharpened by the keenest sense of their value as
aide to man. The decoyman's dog is the creature which holds this unique position. There are not more than thirty decoys remaining in England, and in these we may assume that there are not more than the same number of trained decoy men's dogs. Consequently, of the animals brought up to this once flourishing business, this country does not possess more than enough to supply the ordinary demand for pets in the families of a suburban street. The work which the dog has to do has often been described in books of sport.
0 He appears from behind the screens at the month of the little canal or " pipe" leading from the main pool on which the ducks alight, and runs up along the side of the pipe, jumping in and oat from behind the screens. The ducks swim after him, "attracted by curiosity," as the authorities on wildfowling say, and the dog, well trained by his master, leads the dance up the pipe until the birds are driven under the netting. An article in Country Life of Novem- ber 4th, describing one of the two last of the Yorkshire duck decoys, suggests a more probable explanation of this use of the dog, and of the odd attraction which its appearance has for the ducks. This particular decoy has preserved appa- rently a very primitive tradition of decoy dog training. Before being sent out to show itself to the ducks and to pop in and out from between the screens, the dog is dressed up like a fox. It is fitted with a fox's akin and a fox's brush, and then, arrayed as the arch-enemy of all clacks since the Creation, it appears at the mouth of the pipe, and the ducks follow it as gaily as the rats did the Pied Piper of Hamelin. It is usual, by tradition, to use red or liver coloured dogs for this work. But the use and practice of the Yorkshire decoy shows its origin. It is well known that birds of many kinds which can fly will always " mob " a for, and plovers will often " mob " a red dog by mistake. But for ducks the fox's presence has a perfect fascination. They cannot help watching it when in sight, and when it is moving away, as the supposed fox does, up the pipe, they swim after it to see where it is going and to take care that it does not steal a march on them.
The decoy ducks which lie out on the lake itself are only tamed wild ducks, which the others join from the gregarious instinct so strong in birds. The advantage taken of instinct in this case is far less ingenious than the original obser- vation which suggested the use of the pseudo-fox as decoy. The knowledge that birds instinctively join other birds of the same kind led to the use of the whole race of "call birds" employed by bird-catchers and fowlers. Their aid is invoked successfully even by amateurs in the every-day business of pigeon-keeping. If a stray pi geon visits a house it generally perches on some part of the roof, whence it takes a survey of the garden, dogs, and other pigeons there. If a little corn is scattered on a window-sill where the latter are used to be fed, and one of the home birds is thrown up on to the roof, it is certain to fly down again to the food, and with it comes the visitor, who cannot endure to be left alone. If a hawk or falcon is lost, or refuses to come down from a tree, the loosing of another hawk will often bring it again to the lure. Hawks and crows, as well as many small birds, seem to entertain a curious spite against any of their tribe which seem to be in difficulties. If one is taken and pegged down on its back with its feet upwards, another bird of the same species is almost certain to descend upon it and attack it. This is possibly because it imagines that the other bird is offering battle, for if a crow, hawk, or owl is fighting on the ground, it generally throws itself on its back, so as to present its most easily defended side to the foe. It is the means taken by the prisoners in Mr. Rudyard Kipling's story of the Hindoo colony of the living dead to catch crows for food, and is practised in England to-day by people who wish to catch kestrels. The bird fastened to the ground instantly grips the other with its claws, partly to defend itself, and partly, perhaps, to obtain a purchase by which it may raise itself from the ground to which it adheres in some way quite incomprehensible to its experi- ence. Parrots are taken in this way in Australia, and there is very little doubt that if a tame eagle were used as a decoy and "pegged out," without hurting it, on its back on the eagle-haunted hills of Spain, others would be caught in the same way. One pair of these birds which found their way to the Zoo were actually taken when locked in this curious embrace after a fight upon the ground. The progress from the use of these unconscious instruments to the training of animals to become intelligent workers in the hastiness of decoying others into the power of man makes an advance of very many steps up the intellectual ladder of animal intel.
ligence. Yet it is not invariably the creatures credited with higher brain-power than others which are so used. On the cattle ranches of the great West one of the great difficulties of the cowboys is to induce the animals to enter the train quietly. They can be rounded up and driven to the siding by the ordinary mancenvres of the profession, but to induce a mob of obstinate bullocks and cows to " entrain" themselves quietly is so difficult that it is not yet understood even in Ireland, and the question has caused a good deal of correspondence in the papers devoted to the great livestock industry of the island. In Texas they manage this by the use of a trained decoy.
Bullocks are there called "bogeys" for some unexplained reason, and the "decoy bogey" is as necessary at a station as a stationmaster. It leads each lot of cattle into the small "loading pen" next the truck which is to be filled, and having taken them in, backs out, stern foremost, at the word of command, when down goes the slip rail and the " lot " are driven on board.
It may be that the most intelligent and astonishing of all animal collaborators with man in the work of reducing their kind to be his servants are now as rare as the decoymen's dogs in England. So little has been heard of the old system lately that it is quite possible that it is no longer in use in India, and that keddah work has entirely taken its place.
We allude to the method of capturing single wild male elephants by means of trained female decoys. The wild elephants were not necessarily savage or outcasts, but were usually pursued when away from the herd. The decoys carried coils of rope attached to their necks. Their owners rode them till near the scene of action, and they were used whether by day or night. Night was pre- ferred, for the wild elephant was less suspicious, and was easily found by the noise he made when feeding, and by the sound of his striking of the grass which he pulled up against his forelegs to get rid of the earth which clung to it. If discovered by day the tame animals slipped their riders at some distance, and then fed up to the wild one until they could approach and caress him. Then they "kept him in tow" while the noosers slipped up and got the rope fastened to the decoy's neck round the leg of the wild one, the decoy actually assisting in the operation. Something of the kind is done with the half-wild elephants of the King of Siam when these are driven up for their annual inspection at Ayutbia. It may be asked what is the inducement of animals in cap- tivity to take a conscious share in reducing others of their species to the same condition. To us it suggests an act of treachery, or at least of servile submission. The answer is, first, that animals in captivity, as long as they are given employment, do not, as a rule, think themselves unhappy, or dislike their position. On the contrary, they are proud of their association with man, and prefer his com- pany almost invariably to that of their own kind. Even domestic pigeons, when made pets of, will remain with their owners in preference to going with their kind. The more intelligent animals become eager to serve, and proud of their power to be useful. Like the negro in "Peter Simple " who hands a stick to the sailor remarking that it will do to "keep off de oder dam nigger," they are pleased to bring others of their race into line with themselves, and take a pride and interest in working to that end. There are many dogs which, if they knew how, would become regular slave- drivers to other animals, and none of them have the slightest compunction in using all their faculties to bring them into the power of the superior being whom they serve.
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