HISTORY OF DECOYS. 



6S 



worked, although one old man in the neighbourhood can recollect its 

 existence seventy years ago, when some Decoy ducks were kept there, and 

 a good many wild ones used to frequent the pool in winter. 



The Decoy had four pipes, and was a square pond with a small rivulet 

 runnine throueh It. 



Decoys in the County of Cambridge. 



This county, like its neighbour Huntingdonshire, possessed in its 

 northern part a large area of fenlands, consisting of 200,000 acres, or 

 nearly half of the Great Bedford Level. 



The principal Fens were Morris Fen, St. Giles Fen, and Tlioniey 

 Fen, north of the River Nen ; Laddus Fen, Cranmore Fen, White Fen, 

 Wimblington Fen, Block Fen, and Sutton Fen, south of the River Nen, and 

 between it and the Bedford River or Cut. South of the latter were Down- 

 ham, Ashwell, Middle, Blunt, North, and Scdoe Fens, all of which lay round 

 the town of Ely, and adjacent to the rivers Ouse and Cam. 



Though Cambridgeshire contained no meres like Norfolk or Hunt- 

 ingdon, still it was and is a network of water channels, that cover its 

 surface from Cambridge and Newmarket to Peterborough and Wisbeach, — 

 and, like other counties containing parts of the Great Bedford Level, it was 

 frequented by hosts of wildfowl in days gone by. 



It was not, however, a favourable county for Decoys in its Fen dis- 

 tricts, for, like Huntingdon, these were liable to frequent floods, and were 

 destitute of trees and underwood. 



Decoys in use. 

 None. 



Cambridgeshire. 



Decoys not in use. 

 Leverington. 

 Chatteris. 

 Whittlesey. 



Leverington Decoy. 

 Two miles NW. of Wisbeach. A map of i 760 shows a Decoy as then 

 existing in the parish of Leverington. There is still a farm that goes by 



