DECOYS rOK WILD FOWL. 203 



every two holes, whatever guy was first put 

 on could be used at all the holes throughout. 

 This, I believe, would be a complete novelty in 

 decoys, and, properly contrived, the effect of it 

 would be immense. The cost, trouble of training, 

 and imcertainty of behaviour in the dog, would 

 be done away with, and the object sought com- 

 pleted to much better purpose. 



And now to the decoy for the use of the gun. 

 In many estates there are wide tracts of moor and 

 bog of no use whatever. In their present state 

 they return no income^ and are fallow as to profit 

 or pleasure, their only occupant, perhaps, a snijDC. 

 They may be impossible to the j)urposes of culti- 

 vation ; and if there is a considerable l)og, in 

 nine cases out of ten it is not merely occasioned 

 by surface Avater, termed a '^soak," but there is 

 sure to he a spring, and, perhaps, in a s]3ace, 

 many springs, that hithertx) had been hidden by 

 superincumbent moss, or the constant growth and 

 decay of vegetation. Many of the sites of such 

 bogs as these that I allude to lie between narrow 

 hills, and often being out of the way of receiving 

 any artificial drainage from higher lands, tliey 

 are not subject to floods other than such as 



