THE COMMON WILD DUCK 205 



bird, good to look at and good to eat, let me first 

 state that the proposed drainage of the fens and 

 marshes, now nearly completed, met with great 

 opposition, of a by no means passive nature, from 

 those that gained their living from them by fowling 

 and fishing in their respective seasons. The fowl 

 were there in quantities beyond belief ; but by those 

 that lived in their haunts, tons of ducks were annu- 

 ally captured by comparatively small decoys. As I 

 have the records from some of the decoymen's own 

 books, for they were good men of business and kept 

 very accurate accounts, my proofs are positive ones. 

 Quite independently of the decoying, there was 

 the driving process, a most deadly method, for in 

 the space of two days two thousand six hundred 

 and forty-six ducks were taken near Spalding in 

 Lincolnshire, but these practices were prohibited 

 by statute in the reign of George II., so that only 

 legitimate decoying was afterwards followed. My 

 readers will get at the drift of the fen-dwellers' 

 opinions on the subject fully if we quote a few 

 verses from a ballad of the time, when the poet's 

 power had been enlisted on their behalf. It is 

 taken from J. M. Heathcote's Fen and Mere, written 

 before the fens were undertaken, that is, drained. 



Come, brethren of the water, and let us all assemble, 

 To treat upon this matter, which makes us quake and tremble ; 

 For we shall rue it, if it be true that fens be undertaken, 

 And where we feed on fen and reed, they'll feed both beef and 

 bacon. 



They'll sow both beans and oats, where man yet never thought it, 

 Where men did row in boats, ere under:akers bought it. 



