DECOY FOR WILD DUCK. 219 



ducks will not frequent any water unless this is done,) 

 being so shy and suspicious in its nature. In the 

 decoy pond wild ducks sleep the greater part of the 

 day. As soon as the evening sets in, the birds become 

 on the alert, and feed dining the night ; on a calm even- 

 ing the noise of their circuitous flights is heard at a 

 distance. In Somersetshire this rising is called " rodding." 

 The decoy ducks (which are either bred in the pond- 

 yai'd or in the marshes adjacent, and which, although they 

 fly abroad, regularly return for food to the pond, and 

 are mixed with tame ones which never quit the pond, 

 and are taught for this purpose) are fed with hempseed, 

 oats, and buckwheat. A man must be constantly em- 

 ployed to attend the decoy. Every four years the poles 

 and nets will be new, as in the intervening years they 

 Avill be replaced ; some at one time, some at another, so 

 as to be all renewed in the above period. Eeeds for re- 

 pairing screens, Dutch turf, rent, decoy birds, and many 

 etceteras, are also to be included in the expenses of the 

 decoy-pond, and the repayment all depends upon the 

 haunt of fowl which take to the pond. In working, the 

 hempseed is thrown over the screens in small quantities, 

 to allure the fowl forward into the pipes; of which 

 there are several leading up a narrow ditch, that closes 

 at last with a funnel-net. Over these pipes, which grow 

 narrower from the first entrance, is a continued arch of 

 netting suspended on hoops. It is necessary to have a 

 pipe for almost every wind that can blow, as upon this cir- 

 cumstance it depends which pipe the fowl will take to ; 

 and the decoy-man always keeps to leeward of the wild 

 fowl, that his effluvia should not reach them ; and this he 

 likewise takes fiurther care to prevent, by keeping a piece 



