DECOYS AND WILD-FOWLING IN ESSEX. 53 



for many interesting particulars of the habits of the wild-fowl, and for their per- 

 mission to visit so freely the pond itself; a permission the more valued from the 

 fact that decoys are usually jealously guarded, and strictly closed to all visitors. 

 The reasons for this will be apparent in the following description ; but it may be 

 mentioned that so seldom in former days was anyone but the owner and deco}'- 

 man — often one and the same person — allowed to see a pond in working order, 

 that se\-eral of the accounts that have been published in the works of eminent 

 naturalists, and still quoted at the present day, are absurdly incorrect : one of 

 them, for instance, stating that the birds are taken at nig/it, the very time when 

 the pond is empt}', or when it would be impossible to take them, if in ; and 

 another that the dog drives the birds up the net from behind, the whole secret of 

 the success in using a dog being that he should always be ahead of the birds. 

 As exceptions to these, however, should be mentioned the very minute and accu- 

 rate account of decoys given by Mr. Folkard in his entertaining book, the Wild 

 Fuwler, and that of the Rev. Richard Lubbock in his Fauna of Norfolk. * * * 



Decoy ponds formerly were of great size, those in Norfolk being as much as 

 a hundred acres in extent, the largest nearly a thousand ; but experience proved 

 that, though many thousand birds would come to them, fewer were caught than 

 in those of smaller size, and that actually the most successful of all were not more 

 than two acres in extent. The pond at Tillingham covers about an acre and a 

 quarter. It stands in the marshes, about half a mile from the sea-wall, on the 

 other side of which, at low water, is-a vast expanse of mud extending nearly two 

 miles, and where in severe weather thousands and tens of thousands of Wild 

 Geese, Duck, Widgeon, &c., will congregate, while still more numerous flocks 

 of Plover, Dunlins (Oxbirds), Curlew, &c., skim up and down among them. It 

 is surrounded by large beds of tall-growing rushes and plantations of willow and 

 other trees, which serve at the same time to shelter the wild-fowl, and to hide from 

 them the approach of human beings and other things likely to alarm them. 

 Standing also as they do in a clump on the otherwise bare marshes, the trees are 

 visible a long distance out at sea, and act as a mark to attract and guide the birds 

 to the pond. Wild-fowl are easily alarmed by noise, and a decoy must be away 

 from high roads and houses, or fields where horses are likely to be ploughing. In 

 the precincts of the pond itself silence is necessary, and conversation must hardly 

 be carried on, even in a whisper. Shooting within aconsiderable radius is, of course, 

 strictl}' prohibited ; and several actions at law are recorded where damages 

 have been recovered from punters and others who have caused the birds to " rise " 

 (the technical name for taking flight in alarm) from decoys, by firing off guns 

 in their neighbourhood. In wild-fowl, again, the sense of smell is strongly 

 de\'eloped, and they easily scent and take alarm at anyone approaching on the 

 windward side. It is said that some coastguardsmen, cooking a mutton chop in 

 the wind several hundred yards awa}', once caused the birds to rise from this 

 pond ; and extra preca.tions have to be taken in the kitchen of the nearest larm- 

 house, though quite a quarter of a mile distant, when the wind blows from it to 

 the pond. The sight of the birds is also remarkably quick, and the decoyman 

 not only must keep himself hid, but must take care that his shadow even does 

 not fall across the water. The necessity for taking these precautions is the 

 excuse for the usual rule of "no admittance to visitors," the effluvia from an 

 engineer's oily jacket, or a "swell's" sealskin coat, being enough to alarm 

 the birds in some moods ; and when once frightened out of a pond, they are 

 shy about returning to it again. 



The water in the pond is supplied from a brook running near, and is 

 kept fresh and clear, and at a consistent level, the depth being from three to 

 four feet in the centre, but gradually lessening towards the sides. Several 

 landing-places on the banks, and in the mouths of the pipes, are neatly turfed, and 

 on these the fowl delight to sit and bask — banking, as it is called —the Widgeon also 

 being especially fond of eating the short grass. The pond itself is in the form of a 

 star-fish, with six (sometimes more or less) arms or ditches extending from it 

 in semicircular shape to different points of the compass. These arms — techni- 

 cally called pipes — are about 70 yards in length by 8 in breadth where they 

 leave the pond, gradually narrowing to half a yard at the other extremity. Over 

 their whole length, and inclosing on both sides a small strip of the bank, is 



