HISTORY OF DECOYS. 127 



To Edward Storey for money paid to sundry workmen for setting the 

 reeds and poles round the Decoy and wiring it^ ^9 los. 



To Sydrach Hilcus for ye contriving of the Decoy in St. James Park, 



For oatmeal, tares, hempseed, and other corn for the birds and fowles 

 from September, 1660, to June 24, 1670, ^246 i8s. 



To John Scott for carpenters work done in wharfing and making 

 bridges in the Island and borders, and for boards used about the Decoy 

 and other work, ^"45 15s. 4d. (Signed by Charles II.) 



There is no doubt that Charles had many thousand waterfowl, both 

 tame and wild, on the Canal in those days, and he doubtless used the Decoy 

 for catching them from time to time, as required for table use, and to 

 reduce their ever-increasino; numbers. 



It is also quite possible that large numbers of wild duck frequented 

 the Decoy and water, and mingled with the half tame ones, for at that date 

 firearms, in a sporting sense, were few and clumsy, and little used on game 

 or fowl. 



The Thames, and the ereat marshes that bordered its banks, and the 

 outskirts of London as well, would in those days be haunted with wildfowl, 

 and so form a good lead to the Canal and Decoy. Indeed a writer in the 

 " New Critical Review " for 1 736 alludes to the Park and water as on one 

 side being bounded as by a wilderness and desert, though he says its 

 other side is the height of civilization and beauty. 



Le Serre, a French writer, speaking of St. James's Park in 1633, 

 says, after describing the public buildings and houses, " These are bounded 

 by a great Park with many walks, all covered by the shade of an infinite 

 number of oaks This Park is filled with wild animals." 



In 1 66 1, observant and quaint old Pepys remarks in his Diary, "To 

 walk in St. James' Park, and saw a great variety of fowls I never saw 

 before. " 



But perhaps the best description of the birds in the Park in those 

 days is to be found in Evelyn's Diary, March 29, 1665. He says, " I 

 went to St. James' Park, where I saw various animals, and examined the 

 throat of y° ' Onocratylus,' or Pelican, a fowle between a Stork and a Swan, 

 a melancholy waterfowl brought from Astracan by the Russian Ambassador ; 



