444 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



Beverley to Driffield. The pool and pipes were visible about 

 fifteen years ago, and the site was well chosen, for even now, 

 when there is an overflow from the river (formerly an annual, 

 now an occasional, occurrence), the duck resort to its vicinity 

 in considerable numbers. 



Holme Decoy was contemporary in its decay with those 

 of Meaux, Watton, and Scorborough, and was placed on Spald- 

 ing Moor, five or six miles S.W. by W. of Market Weight on. 

 This district formerly comprised a large extent of wet moor 

 and fen-land, and there are now several large ponds where 

 wildfowl still assemble in severe weather ; Allen, in his 

 " History of Yorkshire " (1829), alluding to Spalding Moor, 

 remarked that " People then living could recollect when this 

 moor and its neighbourhood was one great morass, extending 

 from Holme to Howden on the river Ouse, ten miles distant." 



Sunk Island. — A Decoy was constructed here about the 

 close of the seventeenth century, but, owing to its exposed 

 position, neither trees nor underwood could be induced to 

 grow round it for shelter, and consequently it was abandoned 

 soon after it was completed (Allen's " Yorkshire," 1829). 

 This Decoy is referred to in Leland's " Itinerary " in a letter 

 from the Rev. Francis Brokesly, according to whom " in 

 1667 .... a Decoy was made upon the Island, which is 

 plentifully stored with wildfowl, especially Ducks and Teal, 

 but it turns to little account for want of trees, which will not 

 grow well here, as the ground is too salt." 



This Decoy was admirably placed, as the neighbouring 

 estuary of the Humber was, and still is, the resort of immense 

 congregations of fowl in hard weather. There is now no trace 

 of the Decoy, though on some maps " Decoy Creek " is marked. 

 Sunk Island is on the north bank of the Humber, twelve miles 

 S.E. by E. from Hull. It was gradually reclaimed from the 

 sea, and is now joined to the mainland, and comprises 7,000 

 acres of Crown land in a high state of cultivation. 



Thorne Waste is four miles south of Goole, in the West 

 Riding. There existed a productive Decoy here, north of 

 the Keadby Canal on the moor some two miles west of Crowle 

 which is just over the Lincolnshire border. There are no 



