122 THE DUCK IN THE DECOY 



companion. In Colonel Leathes' words : ' We saw a 

 huge pike seize a full-sized crested grebe, first by the 

 legs, and then, with a bound half out of the water, it 

 opened its jaws and swallowed the bird at one gulp ' ! 

 On the Harwich decoy, only about an acre in extent, 

 sixteen thousand eight hundred fowl were taken dur- 

 ing a single season. This decoy, so one reads, was 

 ruined by one of the owner's tenants, who, to avenge 

 some grievance, adopted the scheme of burning 

 assafcetida in his garden whenever the wind blew 

 towards the water, thus causing the birds to avoid it 

 entirely and destroying all leads. The Harwich decoy 

 used to yield an annual profit of i,ooo/. One might 

 give many other statistics showing how immensely 

 destructive to wild-fowl and how remunerative to the 

 owner decoying was made, and is made now, in a few 

 favoured localities. It is to be remarked that as 

 two half-fowl that is, two widgeon or two teal are 

 only counted as one bird in decoy returns, the figures 

 I have given do not by a long way represent the 

 actual number of birds. Thus the number of fowl, 

 probably mostly widgeon, mentioned as having been 

 taken in the Harwich decoy in a season might have 

 been recorded as 25,000 or more, instead of 16,800, 

 if each bird had counted as one. 



Etymologists have sometimes gone far astray when 



