DECOYS AND WILD-FOWLING IN ESSEX. 51 



it from Suffolk, is the estuary of the Stour, with also some decoys on its banks— 

 a sheet of water but one-third less in size than that of the Blackwater. In the 

 southern part of Essex, between the Blackwater and the mouth of the Thames, the 

 estuary of the River Crouch, with its many arms and backwaters, afforded protec- 

 tion and food to the wild-fowl * * * . The fowl taken in the Essex decoys were 

 — and, indeed, are — chiefly Wigeon, as they are lured to their capture from the 

 sea-coast, whereon these birds always predominate among the duck tribe. For 

 this reason, there are no decoys in Essex distant from the sea, as is the case in 

 several of our other Eastern counties, wherein large meres and fens existed * » » 

 and in which Duck, Mallard, and Teal were abundant, and therefore usually taken 

 in the decoys." 



Sir Ralph quotes a case, known as " Carrington v. Taylor, 1 1 East 

 571. 2 Camp. 258," in which, in 1810, a wild-fowl shooter was sum- 

 moned by the owner of the decoy at Beaumont-cum- Moze for shoot- 

 ing ducks on a creek near the decoy, although he did not come 

 within 200 yards of it. The Court held that the decoy was protected 

 by law, and the verdict was for the plaintiff.* 



For general information as to the construction and mode of 

 working a decoy, the reader must refer to Mr. E. C. Walcott's Guide 

 to the Coasts, of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk (p. 68), to Pennant's 

 British Zoology (vol. ii, p. 595), to Sir Ralph Payne Gallwey's enter- 

 taining Book of Duck Duoys (49) and to Mr. Harting's paper on 

 "Wild-Fowl Decoys in Essex" in the Essex Naturalist for 1888 

 (50. ii. 159). Such information scarcely falls within the scope of a 

 local work like the present ; but apology is hardly necessary for 

 reprinting from the pages of the Field (29. Feb. 15, 1868) the 

 following interesting article, which gives a detailed and graphic 

 description of one of our chief Essex decoys — that at Marsh House, 

 Tillingham, described hereafter — as well as of the mode of working 

 it and decoys in general.f The accompanying cuts, too, will give 

 the uninitiated a very good idea of the general appearance of a 

 decoy. 



Decoy Ponds. — The following particulars * * « are derived more especially 

 from a well-known pond near Tillingham, on the coast of Essex, which the 

 writer has lately, through the kindness of the owners, had the good fortune of 

 visiting, and where he witnessed during several days, at the most favourable time 

 of the year, the operations of catching carried on with great success. To those 

 gentlemen, and to their skilful and obliging decoyman — one of that Skelton family 

 mentioned in almost every treatise or description that has been written on decoys, 

 and who have been hereditary decoymen from father to son, in Lincolnshire, 

 Norfolk, and Essex, for many generations past — he has to tender his best thanks 



* Daniel (6. Suppt. 431) also cites a case in which a decoy-owner sued a gunner for shooting 

 within 100 yards of his decoy, and thus frightening the birds, and he won the day. 



t Mr, Fitch has ascertained that this article, which is simply signed "P." was written by Mr. 

 Jacob L. Pattisson, private secretary to the Rt. Hon. W. Hi Smith. Some of his statements 

 were attacked in the following numbers of the Field (pp. 183, 235, and 245) by Admiral Hickley 

 writing under the noiti-de-phtme of " Decoy Duck," but he was able successfully to hold his own 



E 2 



