NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



Occasionally the foxhounds draw the little piece of 

 woodland and rout out a fox ; this and the rare pheasant- 

 shooting episodes are the only events that ever disturb 

 the wonderful quiet of the Old Decoy. It must, of 

 course, always have been a solitary place. Wildfowlers 

 and decoy-men must have quiet and peace — it was 

 as necessary to them as din and uproar are to urban 

 civilisation. 



Wandering quietly about the heart of this abode of 

 solitude, it is not difficult to make out the plan of the 

 decoy as it formerly existed. The pool wherein the 

 wildfowl once swam hither and thither has long since 

 been drained, and upon its soft, alluvial bed now 

 flourishes a vast crop of reeds and fen growth, five or 

 six feet high. From the corners of this pool you may 

 note easily where the ditches or pipes ran, up which 

 the wildfowl were decoyed. These ditches were 

 always curved, so that the fowl should not be able to 

 pry too closely into the mysteries of what lay beyond, 

 otherwise they might have been too scared to follow 

 the decoy dog in that absorbing passage up the ditches 

 which was to prove so fatal to them. Anyone who 

 understands the working of this almost lost art can 

 here still trace the whole scheme of affairs in which 

 the wildfowler and his master took so keen an interest. 



Buried in the very heart of the dense thickets which 

 have grown up in this now neglected piece of wood- 

 land, stands a mute memorial of the old-time decoy-man 

 himself. It is a curious and to me a very interesting 

 relic, still flourishing there on the bank of where the pool 

 once existed — a fine quince tree, which in its neglected 

 old age still thrives bravely, putting forth each autumn 

 a lusty crop of magnificent fruit. It is significant of 

 the utter oblivion that has fallen upon the place, that 

 even in late September or early October, when the tree 



16 



