THE ORIGIN OF DECOYS. 



S 



knew of as many as 4,000 birds being taken at one drive at Deeping Fen. 

 Gough, in his edition of Camden, mentions that about i 720 3,000 ducks 

 were to his knowledge driven into a single net at one time. 



There are many accounts extant of this driving of the ducks into nets 

 in summer, and the birds are distinctly described as young or moulting at 

 the time they were taken, and so were driven and hustled into nets by an 

 advancing line of men and boats behind them. We also have a descrip- 



DRIVING WILDFOWL IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 



{From an Old Print in the Author's possession.) 



tion of the nets ■ used. These were V-shaped and placed at a narrow end 

 or point of a mere. They were long and strong, and similar in shape to 

 our modern Decoy pipes, though necessarily much larger. The ducks 

 were beaten out of the reeds and marsh into the water, and then the 

 young birds, being unable to fly at all, and the old ones but little, owing to 

 their " moulting " condition, all were easily edged on to their capture by a 

 compact line of men and boats, just as a net surrounds a shoal of fish. 



The actual nets the birds were taken in were flanked by other nets 



