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HISTORY OF BECOY S—{co?itmued). 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Decoys in the County of Surrey. 

 Decoys in tisc. Decoys not in use. 



Virginia Water. 



Ottershaw. 

 Pyrford. 



Virginia Water. — This large piece of water is 23 miles distant 

 from London. On its north shore is what is known as the Decoy. 

 This consists of two pipes within 50 yards of one another, situated in a 

 dense overhanging bank of evergreens, and a third pipe or channel, now 

 disused, which was intended for a cage or trap-pipe, with a falling-door, as at 

 Hardwick. The latter, however, proving useless, was given up soon after 

 its construction. 



The two pipes now in use are of small size, being but 45 yards in 

 length and 15 feet across their entrances. They are of very primitive 

 construction, and have no landings for the birds, or even banks for the dog 

 to run along. 



The growth of evergreens is so high and close on all sides that the 

 pipes are quite sheltered from the. winds suitable for working them, and 

 it is therefore only by haphazard any fowl are caught. The pipes 

 were laid out by the late head-keeper, Mr. Menzies, who took his ideas 

 from the Milton Decoy, near Sittingbourne in Kent, with the assistance of 

 its owner, Mr. Gascoyne. 



Mr. Smith, the chief woodman at Windsor Park, who showed me 

 this Decoy, and who has it under his charge, related that during the 

 winter over 1,000 wild Ducks might be sometimes seen at one time on 

 Virginia Water, and now and then 100 to 150 fowl round the Decoy. 



Mr. Smith uses but a couple of Decoy Ducks, and, from the 

 faulty construction of the pipes, rarely a Dog. He has, however, during 



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