112 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
periodically flooded, and many varieties of wild fowl 
visited them. Since the improved drainage of those 
parts of the fens, it is seldom that the washes are natur- 
ally flooded, and the fowler’s occupation would be gone 
were not artificial means adopted. This latter mode of 
flooding is by means of a “slacker” or small sluice, 
through which water is admitted, and an area of eight 
to twelve acres is thus covered with water from six to 
eight inches in depth. In one portion of this lake the 
fowler constructs a small island about thirty-six feet in 
length and from four to five feet in breadth. Upon this his 
net is spread, which is stained the colour of the ground, 
and its meshes proportioned to the size of the birds 
he is likely to take; some nets having meshes one 
and a-half inch, and others three inches in size. The 
fowler keeps some live “ decoy ” birds (lapwings or ruffs) 
and a dozen stuffed skins or “stales,’ and these are 
placed on the island, close outside the range of the net. 
The living birds being tethered, are made to flutter their 
wings, whilst the fowler with a whistle imitates the 
call of the birds on the Wash; they are thus tempted 
to alight on the island, and are ultimately captured. 
The net, covering the surface, is so arranged that the 
fowler, who sits at a distance of upwards of two hundred 
yards, by means of a string attached to pullies, throws 
over the net, and the birds are jerked into the water and 
covered by it. The fowler rapidly approaches, and either 
takes the birds alive, or at once breaks their necks and 
et 1 wype, 5d.;” “1 plover et 1 snype, 23d., and in the Northum- 
berland “ Household Book” (1512), it is especially ordered that 
‘“‘wypes be hade for my lordes own mees, only, and to be at jd. a 
pece.”” Again in the “ Household Book” of the Lord North (1577), 
viij doos and x pewytts are entered at vii. xvijs- viijd-; and in a 
list of market prices, quoted by Mr. Lubbock from ‘ Wade’s 
Chronological History of Great Britain,” the cost of a peewit, in 
1633, was tenpence, and a dozen tame pigeons only sixpence? 
