438 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



known as Hatfield Chase. This work was undertaken in the 

 year 1626 by Cornehus Vermuyden, a Dutch engineer, who 

 employed almost exclusively Dutch workmen. On the 

 completion of the work Sir Cornelius, for he received the 

 honour of knighthood, was rewarded, along with his partners 

 in the undertaking, which cost them, it is said, £400,000, a 

 grant of 25,000 acres of the reclaimed land. Here he settled 

 down, along with a numerous following of his countrymen, 

 and thus a very considerable Dutch element was imported 

 into, and colonised, this part of Yorkshire. Here in all 

 likelihood they constructed the earliest British Decoys. 

 Indeed, the most ancient decoy, of which any reliable informa- 

 tion has been preserved, is that erected at Doncaster in the 

 year 1657, made, no doubt, in imitation of those which 

 probably then existed on the neighbouring levels of Hatfield. 

 Regarding the suitability of the district for the successful 

 working of the old Doncaster Decoy, it may be remarked that 

 on the southern confines of this ancient borough there existed, 

 up to the closing years of the eighteenth century, a compact 

 and unbroken expanse of carr land, covering no less an area 

 than 4,000 acres, and known as Potterick Carr. Fortunately 

 there is handed down an excellent — perhaps a historic — 

 description of the Carr in its primordial state, made in July 

 1762, by so distinguished a Yorkshireman as John Smeaton, 

 the celebrated civil engineer, whose name will ever live in 

 connection with the Eddystone Lighthouse. In his report 

 to the Doncaster Corporation in that year Smeaton thus 

 describes the place : — " Potterick Carr is a fenny piece of 

 ground, containing, as appears by an old survey of Saxton's, 

 about 2,300 acres. In its present state no brook or spring 

 of any account discharges itself thereupon, so that it is affected 

 only by the downfall waters which fall immediately thereon 

 and from the higher grounds which border upon the same. 

 These downfall waters, however, on account of the natural 

 flatness of its surface, the imperfection of its present drains, 

 and the want of a sufficient outfall to discharge them, generally 

 overflow the whole, or greater part thereof, during the winter 

 season, which waters are partly discharged by drains, and 



