BREAKING UP THE IGE. 305 



axe and boat-hook, cuts up the ice round the 

 mouth of the pipe, and thrusts it beneath that 

 formed upon the lake. It is a great point in 

 successful wildfowling to keep the water in the 

 pipe, and for some distance around its mouth, free 

 from ice, as such birds as frequent the lake during 

 open weather bring a lot of strangers back with 

 them on their flights to the coast during a snap 

 of hard frost. 



Many decoy-men are too anxious to begin to 

 kill the wildfowl directly they visit their water. 

 It is a great mistake, because, if they kill them 

 nearly all at the beginning, the few remaining 

 birds do not induce many strangers to fly back 

 with them from the mud-flats in the morning. 

 Ducks fresh from the sea are known by a mark 

 upon their breasts, left by the salt water, but this 

 quickly disappears when they frequent fresh water. 



As wildfowl are very acute of scent, a piece 

 of burning turf is taken by the decoy-man when 

 he goes after Duck, in order to counteract the smell 

 of his breath or clothes. This strange proceeding, 

 according to Sir Ealph Payne Gallwey, had its 

 origin in the fact that " in the fens of Lincoln- 

 shire turf was largely burnt before coal came into 

 use, and it was supposed that the wildfowl, being 

 accustomed to its smell, did not mind it, whereas 

 they would that of the decoy-man." 



I will now endeavour to describe how the 

 actual work of taking wildfowl is done. 



We trooped silently down the sunken path 

 leading from a track near the decoy-man's cottage 

 in the wood to the pipes. He led the way with 

 a piece of burning turf in his left hand, and his 

 little liver-coloured bitch close at his heels. When 

 we reached the screens, he placed his piece of 



