Di:COYS FOR ^^'1LT) FOWL. 103 



a fcatlicr. Tims duck and fowl, and every sort 

 of the connnon and lesser Avild fowl, as well as 

 tlie rarest kinds, were taken in any quantity. 

 I believe it is on record that one decoy in one 

 season, in Lincolnshire, captured as many as 

 fourteen thousand head. 



No wonder, then, that in those blessed and 

 blissful days of more ducks than men, enactments 

 were made for their protection, and guns on 

 adjacent land to a decoy were forbidden to be fired. 



It will be understood by the reader that the 

 entrance to the pipes commenced with very high 

 hoops to support the net, and that the water at 

 the entrance was the breadth of a small brook, 

 diminishing gradually both as to height of net 

 and breadth of water, until terminating in the 

 large cabbage-net — I use that expression to suit 

 the knowledge of my reader — into wdiicli the 

 scared fowl were ultimately driven. 



All round, or all on one side, the broad Avater 

 of the decoy, there should be what is termed a 

 '^ sitting.". A sitting is a bank abutting on the 

 screen or felice of the decoy, and extending six 

 or eight feet from it to the edge of the water. It 

 should be raised above the level of the pool, say 



VOL. II. o 



