xxviu. WOODPIGEON SHOOTING (PART //) 447 



are also loth to leave the warmth and shelter of a 

 wood, provided the storm has set in before daybreak. 

 The day after a shoot at pigeons, seek well under 

 their roosting trees, as a bird that is wounded often 

 drops dead to the ground from his perch during the 

 night. 



THE DECOY PIGEONS AND HOW TO FIX THEM UP PROPERLY 



These (made of wood and coloured to nature) are 

 easily procured from dealers in sporting appliances. 

 Avoid purchasing any that are larger or smaller than 

 real birds, and above all insist on their possessing 



8 eyes of a correct colour. This is of great 

 importance. I always find decoys with glass eyes 

 attract much better than those with only painted 

 ones. 



Fix your decoys about a foot clear of the topmost 

 twigs of a tree,* and a yard or so apart ; three are as 

 good as twenty, and one well put up is worth a score 

 wrongly placed. 



Decoys will never lure wild birds if they are placed 

 heads down and tails up, or tilted to one side. They 

 should be secured fair and level, and look natural. I 

 well recollect killing some thirty to forty pigeons in a 



* If your decoys are fixed on one side of a tree they can only be 

 seen by the birds that fly on that side ; if placed, as they always 

 should be, well aloft and clear of any branches, they will act as lures 

 from all quarters. 



