DECOYS AND SWAN MARKS. 5 



the pipe. The spaces between these overlapping screens are 

 united by a lower screen of two and a-half feet high, over which a 

 dog is trained to pass so as to bring it to the brink of the bank 

 and in sight of the ducks ; he then jumps over the next low screen 

 and passes behind the high screen No. 2, and so on. As soon as 

 the ducks catch sight of the dog they invariably move towards it 

 an impulse shared by the family of Anatidse. The attraction a 

 dog has to a flock of farmyard ducks in a pond is familiar to 

 every observer. See how they will turn towards and approach 

 the dog with apparent fearlessness, as if moved by one spirit, and 

 how hurriedly they will decamp if it shows any disposition to join 

 them. This inquisitiveness, defiance, or whatever motive actuates 

 the tame ducks, is shared by the wild duck and made use of by 

 the ingenuity of man for its destruction. 



To work a decoy successfully, the decoyman has to 

 use great caution ; he must choose the pipe at which the 

 wind blows from the tunnel-net towards the curve of the pipe, 

 otherwise the ducks will not enter it, as their sense of smell 

 is very keen. When using the dog the decoyman has to 

 take care that the ducks are below the pipe, that is to say 

 on the lower or pond side. A dog is of no use during a frost, 

 in which case the ducks can only be enticed by food, tame 

 ducks, and the mouths of the pipes free of ice ; a dog is most 

 essential however, when the decoy is near the coast, and where 

 marshes and water meadows are some distance off. A wild 

 duck has no inducement to accompany the tame ducks up 

 the pipes for the food supplied by the decoymau unless it is 

 hungry, and can only be enticed by the dog, which is usually 

 chosen for its red colour and bushy tail, resembling a fox, which, 

 as is well known, makes a decoy one of its favourite resorts. 



There are and always have been more decoys in Norfolk, 

 Lincolnshire, and Essex than in any other part of the United 

 Kingdom ; whose physical features are more favourable to wild 

 fowl-life than those of any other district of equal area in Great 

 Britain. Sir R. Payne Gallwey enumerates 373 decoys in Great 





