FOXES IN DECOYS. 69 



many as two hundred at a time. The same may 

 be said of the decoy at Eyre Court, co.. Galway ; at 

 Mr. Evatt's, co. Monaghan ; at Mountains Town, 

 co. Meath ; at Lismullen, in the same county ; and 

 at Ballynakill, co. Kildare. The two latter have 

 not been used for a number of years. 



Foxes are great enemies to decoy fowl, and are 

 often the cause of their destruction. Nothing comes 

 amiss to these marauders ; for, as the Duke .of 

 Wellington said of his troops, they will go any- 

 where and do anything. A fox, curious to say, is 

 very fond of shell-fish. I have twice found one 

 lurking on a bare rock in an estuary a couple of 

 hundred or more yards from shore, from whence 

 it must have swam. I well remember a fox being 

 found, several years since, by a boating party, on 

 the " Tuscar Rock," near Swansea, in the Bristol 

 Channel, a spot covered at high tide, and a full 

 mile from land at low water. 



Another great enemy to the peace of a decoy 

 pool is the Pike. I have seen young ducklings 

 snapped up many times by pike ; one swirling 

 plunge, and they were gone for ever. These fish 

 in the Shannon chain of lakes attain a great size, 

 but from the immense extent of water are hard to 

 catch, or rather to find. Marvellous stories are 

 there current of their weight and voracity, most of 

 which are absurd, yet I have no doubt that pike of 

 sixty pounds weight have been, and are still, to be 

 caught in Ireland. A few years since, to win a 

 wager, I passed an autumn fishing for pike, taking 

 with me several dozen cork floats, besides every 

 conceivable bait and tackle, and a boat on wheels, 



