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PREFACE. 



In launching this Book about Decoys, I hope to supply a want and 

 afford information to those who are interested in this special and peculiar 

 branch of Fowling. To the Naturalist and Wildfowler, as well as to the 

 Topographer and Antiquarian, I chiefly appeal. But whether the title, 

 one of unknown import probably to nine out of ten people, will attract 

 the attention of Sportsmen at large remains to be proved. My object, 

 con amore, is to place on record the Method of constructing Decoys, as 

 well as the manner of taking Wildfowl therein. 



I shall include also all obtainable data and notes connected with 

 the History of Decoys past and present, before such are for ever lost. 



With this object in view I have taken much trouble in acquiring all 

 possible information on this sport — one rapidly being forgotten ; and one 

 that, for amusement and instruction to all lovers of wild birds, has no 

 equal. That the history of Decoys without some such effort as the present 

 would speedily have been lost, could not fail to be the case, as the old 

 Decoymen die off, and Decoys annually cease to exist. 



No book of any kind has yet been published on the subject, and lest 

 none should appear the present work has been undertaken. 



It may be an interesting matter of surprise, even to those who have 

 some little knowledge of Decoys, to read of the enormous number of 

 Wildfowl taken in them in former days, when Decoying was a trade of 

 astonishing dimensions in England, and the capture of Wildfowl was 

 carried on to an extent little suspected of by the present generation. 



As an example, I may state that in our Eastern Counties alone there 

 formerly existed some loo Decoys, which, at a moderate estimate for those 

 days, took on an average 5,000 Ducks apiece yearly ; in other words, con- 



