!;i 



CHAPTER IV. 



Some Final and General Directions in the Management of a Decoy, 



AND in Catching the Ducks. 



I WILL first speak of the wind as being the most important subject 

 connected with the working of a Decoy. 



Never try to work a pipe straight down and out of the entrance of 

 which, or from the screens to the entrance, or from yourself when walking 

 behind the screens, to the ducks about its entrance, the wind blows. 



If luck is veiy much in your favour, this rule may at a pinch some- 

 times be discarded, though always at a risk. 



It is never safe to act thus, for a failure is courted if you stand or move 

 in a Decoy with such keen-scented birds as wild ducks dead to leeward of 

 you. 



This rule applies whether you have or have not a piece of smouldering 

 turf in use to conceal the smell of the breath or clothes.* 



The diagram afterwards given shows the only winds with which to 

 work a pipe really successfully {see p. 57). The arrows are drawn on the 

 folding plan of the Decoy pipe to point up wind, and so show the direction 

 it should blow from to work the pipe. 



Outside every Decoy, on a mast, or else on the top of some tall tree 

 hard by, should be fixed a weathercock, to indicate the true direction of 

 the wind at the time it is wished to make a catch. 



Remember the ducks when they rise invariably face the wind, and at 

 all times incline to fly against it when first they are flushed. 



Therefore, when you appear at the show place in order to drive the 

 birds up the pipe, and the wind is blowing from the ducks to you, much 



* In the fens of Lincolnshire turf was largely burnt before coal came into use, and it 

 was supposed the wildfowl, being accustomed to its smell, did not mind it when used by the 

 Decoymen to hide " their natural odour." 



