HISTORY OF DECOYS. 133 



the fact that some of the pipes were broken down by a heavy fall of snow. 

 The months in which the best "takes" occur are very uncertain. It is 

 said that a good year for acorns is a bad year for ducks, as the birds are 

 continually leaving the Decoy to go into the plantations after the acorns, 

 and will not settle down on the water. Very few " half birds " {i.e., 

 Wigeon and Teal) are killed, sometimes not twenty in a season, although 

 there are often many thousands on the water. In the season of 1883-4, 

 as I am informed by the present owner of Wretham, Mr. Morris, 1,640 

 ducks were taken ; the most ever captured in one season since Mr. Morris 

 has owned the Wretham estate being 1,760, the average take annually 

 being 1,000 fowl. 



On the Ordnance Map, at East Wretham, near Stone Bridge on the 

 " Peddars Way," is a plantation marked " New Decoy." This, however, is 

 only a name. There has never been a Decoy there. 



Among the peculiar birds and animals caught in the Wretham Decoy 

 by the present Decoyman, who has, I may note, worked it for nearly fifty 

 years uninterruptedly, are a Woodcock, Snipe, Moorhen, Hawk, Blackbird, 

 Thrush, Pheasant, Partridge, Wildgoose, Owl, Kingfisher, a Rabbit, and a 

 -Pig! 



The Wretham Decoy has more pipes in use (ten) than any other 

 Decoy now worked, one being a left-handed pipe. 



Didlington, about 9 miles NW. of the last-mentioned Decoy, is 

 another, which was constructed by the Rev. J. Fountaine in 1865 for 

 its present owner, Mr. W. Tyssen-Amherst, M.P., of Didlington Park. 

 It is situated in a wood of 10 acres, about 500 yards from the man- 

 sion. It is just an acre in extent, and has four pipes. The fowl taken 

 are chiefly Duck and Teal, with a few Wigeon ; the average number caught 

 annually being 500. In one season 1,000 were caught, and many more 

 than are now taken might be easily captured were it not that the Decoy 

 is only worked for pleasure and sport, and not for profit. 



In the shooting season the wood in which the Decoy is situated is 

 usually shot once or twice. On one of these occasions when the Author 

 was present, after first decoying some Ducks, 200 to 300 Pheasants were 

 killed in the covert surrounding the Decoy, yet two days afterwards there 

 were as many Ducks as before in the Decoy ; showing that shooting round 

 a Decoy occasionally will not damage it. 



