THE OLD DECOY 



concealed behind rushes and so arranged that one tier 

 of guns swept the water, while the other tier, raised 

 a little higher, took the fowl as they rose. These 

 musket-barrels were connected with one another and 

 fired by a train. As many as 1,200 ducks were often 

 slain by one of these discharges, and it is not astonish- 

 ing to learn that during the fowling season these birds 

 were cheap and plentiful in the city of Mexico. This 

 battue was known to the Mexicans as the Tiro-de-Patos 

 (duck-shooting). 



In the good days, before the fens were drained, a 

 well-managed decoy brought in several hundred pounds 

 a year. So lately as 1898, in an action for compensation 

 in connection with Fritton Decoy, near Lowestoft, the 

 owner. Sir Savile Crossley, stated that the annual 

 value of the take was then about ^70. It is certain 

 that some English decoys, more remote and better 

 placed for the capture of fowl, must still be worth 

 considerably more than that sum per annum. There 

 are at the present time somewhere about seven-and- 

 thirty decoys still used in England, while in Ireland 

 three more exist. Of these five are in Norfolk, four in 

 Suffolk, three each in Nottinghamshire and Somerset. 

 Yorkshire, Shropshire, Essex, and Northamptonshire 

 maintain two apiece. A single decoy is to be found 

 in each of the following counties, viz. Bucks, Derby, 

 Dorset, Glamorgan, Gloucester, Hertford, Lancashire, 

 Lincolnshire, Montgomery, Pembroke, Surrey, Sussex, 

 Warwick, and Wilts. The three Irish decoys are 

 found in Cork, Kilkenny, and Queen's County. 



When one recalls the number of decoys formerly 

 existing in this country, it is manifest that the glory 

 of English wildfowling has, indeed, long since de- 

 parted from us. In the old days, when the great fens 

 were undrained, and the country swarmed with myriads 



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