DECOYING WITH FOOD. 27 



Feeding. 



Food is also used to attract the fowl far enough up the pipe to enable 

 the Decoyman to cut off their retreat back again to the pond. 



Feeding is one of the cleverest arts of the Decoyman, and one only 

 learnt by long experience. The secret of it consists in just knowing how 

 to give both the tame ducks, and the wild ones that are following them, as 

 much grain as appeases their hungerybr tJie moment, and the next moment 

 makes them wish for more. As long as the Decoyman can keep the birds 

 exactly in the right state of hunger, he has them, so to speak, under his 

 thumb. 



If too hungry, the tame ducks will rush away from the wild ones up 

 the pipe (who will then fail to follow). If not hungry to a certain extent, 

 they will not come up at all, or if they do, so slowly as to be of little use. 



If the wild ducks get too mAich grain thrown them they will not follow 

 with the tame birds up the pipe, but cluster round the food and remain 

 stationary. All this has to be attended to by the Decoyman when in the 

 act of feeding. 



Tame ducks and wild ducks should be so fed that they mingle together 

 if possible, or at all events swim steadily up the pipe, whether together or 

 separate. 



So that the Decoyman as he walks away from the birds towards the 

 tail of the pipe and behind the screens, gradually, and inch by inch, by 

 judicious throwing of grain over the top of each screen in succession — not 

 too much and not too little — draws the fowl after him. He continually 

 peeps through the screens as he passes along their rear to see how matters 

 are progressing in the pipe. Finall)', he leads the birds a few yards under 

 the net to the spot in the pipe at which he knows their retreat can be 

 barred by his showing himself at its entrance. 



If wild ducks are very hungry they will now and then swim up a pipe 

 after the food without the Decoyman using the tame birds to lead the way, 

 as the latter may be out of reach of his whistle across the pond. 



.. But usually some of the tame Decoys, who are generally paddling 

 about the mouths of the pipes, swim up first, and first commence feeding 

 on the grain thrown into the water, near the entrance of the pipe, by 

 the Decoyman. But should there be none about, they soon catch sight of 



