194 ANAS BOSCHAS. 



" In this manner, five or six dozen have been tak<Mi 

 at one drift. When the wind hlows directly in or out of 

 the pipe, the fowl seldom work well, especially when 

 it blows in. If many pipes are made in a lake, they 

 should be so constructed as to suit different winds. 



" Duck and mallard are taken from August to June ; 

 teal or wigeon from October to March ; becks, smee, 

 golden eyes, arps, cricks, and pintails or sea pheasants, 

 in March and April. 



" Poker ducks are seldom taken, on account of their 

 diving and getting back in the pipe. 



" It may be proper to observe here, that the ducks 

 feed during the night, and that all is ready prepared 

 for this sport in the evening. The better to entice the 

 ducks into the pipe, hemp seed is strewed occasionally 

 on the water. The season allowed, by act of Parliament, 

 for catching these birds in this way, is from the latter 

 end of October till February. 



" Particular spots, or decoys, in the fen countries 

 are let to the fowlers at a rent of from five to thirty 

 pounds per annum ; and Pennant instances a season in 

 which thirty-one thousand two hundred ducks, including 

 teals and wigeons, were sold in London only, from ten of 

 these decoys near Wainfleet, in Lincolnshire. Formerly, 

 according to Willoughby, the ducks while in moult, 

 and unable to fly, were driven by men in boats, furnished 

 with long poles, with which they splashed the water 

 between long nets, stretched vertically across the pools, 

 in the shape of two sides of a triangle, into lesser nets 

 placed at the point; and, in this way, he says, four 

 thousand were taken at one driving in Deeping-Fen ; 

 and Latham has quoted an instance of two thousand six 

 hundred and forty-six being taken in two days, near 

 Spalding, in Lincolnshire ; but this manner of catching 

 them, while in moult, is now prohibited." 



