2 DECOYS AND SWAN MARKS. 



Dutch were the inventors of the system now in general use, 

 and was introduced from Holland into England about the 

 middle of the seventeenth century. The physical features 

 of that country, its sea-bord boundaries, its gulfs and inlets, 

 its shallows between Grbningen and Friesland, have ever 

 been the favourite resort of wild fowl. By this new system, 

 which is more elaborate and complicated than the old one, the 

 birds were enticed, not driven, into the netted enclosure. Driving 

 by boats and men to a converging point was probably in use as 

 early as King John's reign. 



We find decoys mentioned as having given cause for litigation as 

 early as 1280, and in 1432 we read of a mob armed with swords and 

 sticks and taking six hundred wild fowl out of the abbot's decoy 

 at Crowland Monastery, Lincolnshire, " infringing the rights of 

 private property." The wholesale destruction of wild fowl 

 attracted the notice of Parliament in the reign of Henry 

 the Eighth. By 25 Henry VIII., c. 11, entitled " An Act to 

 avoid destroying of Wild Fowl," after reciting " that whereas 

 divers persons next inhabiting in the countries and places where 

 wild fowl have been accustomed to breed, have in the summer 

 season, at such time as the old fowl be moulted and not reple- 

 nished with feathers to fly, nor the young fowl fully feathered, 

 have by certain nets, engines, and policies yearly taken a great 

 number of fowl, in such wise that the brood of wild fowl is almost 

 thereby wasted and consumed, and daily is likely more and 

 more to waste and consume, if remedy be not provided : Be it 

 enacted, that it shall not be lawful for any person to take any such 

 wild fowl with nets between the 1st of May and the 31st of August, 

 &c., under a penalty of a year's imprisonment and a fine of fourpence 

 for each fowl." The Act protected their eggs as well as those 

 of the crane, bustard, bittour (bittern), heron, and shovelard ; 

 for the two former the penalty was 20 pence for each bird, and 

 for the last two, eightpence, besides a year's imprisonment for 

 both classes. The crane and bustard have both ceased to breed 

 in Great Britain, and very rarely visit our shores ; the bittern 



