CHAPTER IX. 



THE ART OF D U C K - D E C O Y I N G . 



OF all the contrivances invented by the ingenuity 

 of man for the caj^ture of wildfowl, I think a 

 Duck decoy is at once the most interesting and the 

 most deadly. The first one made, and worked by 

 enticing the birds into it, in this country was, it 

 is believed, that constructed by Charles II. in St. 

 James's Park. 



Some idea may be gathered of the effective 

 natm^e of this engine of destruction when it is 

 mentioned that about a century ago no less than 

 81,000 wildfowl of various species were taken in 

 a single season by ten Lincolnshire decoys. 



The precision of modern firearms and the great 

 increase of gunners of all kinds have almost reduced 

 decoying to a lost art. However, there are still a 

 few pipes, as the contrivances are called, worked 

 in different parts of the country; and the man who 

 looks after those I am about to describe — three in 

 number — succeeded last winter in killing 1,500 

 head of wildfowl, despite the fact that he was not 

 working upon an ideal piece of water, and was 

 continually harassed by a number of flight shooters, 

 who waited for his birds in some adjoining property, 

 over which he had no control, and blazed off at them 

 almost every morning and evening, as they came in 

 from and left again for the mud flats by the sea. 



