22 



THE WILD-FOWLER. 



most ancient systems on record of taking- water-fowl in very large 

 numbers. It was a practice extensively resorted to in the fens of Ely, 

 Norfolk, and Lincolnshire, about Crowland and elsewhere.* Ducks, 

 teal, widgeon, and other birds of the kind were taken in numbers 

 which appear almost incredible. The manner in which it was con- 

 ducted is as follows : Two very long nets, or rather a number of nets 

 spliced together, were placed in line in the water, so as to form two 

 sides of a triangle, at the narrow extremity of which were one, two, 

 or three conoidical nets, resembling decoy-pipe and tunnel nets ; the 

 opposite angle of the space encompassed was left entirely open, and 

 thus a broad expanse of water was enclosed on each side and at the 

 farther extremity. The sedges and surrounding' haunts of water-fowl 

 were then beaten by a great concourse of men in boats, who drove the 

 helpless fowl within the space enclosed, by splashing and dashing 

 with long poles and staves ; and so, by degrees, they were driven into 

 the tunnels and captured. Many birds, which might chance to strike 

 against the side-nets during operations, became ensnared before reach- 

 ing the tunnel, and were taken up generally by the person to whom 

 the net belonged ; and there were usually a combination of owners, 

 the nets being linked one to another, so as to enclose as large a space 

 as possible. Latham has recorded an instance in which two thousand 

 six hundred and forty-six wild-fowl were taken during the short space 

 of two days, on a mere near Spalding, in Lincolnshire ; and Willughby 

 states that at a fowling-party engaged in this pursuit, as many as four 

 hundred boats used sometimes to meet, and that four thousand mal- 

 lards have been taken at one driving in Deeping* Fen.f 



These proceedings were considered so disreputable and injurious to 

 the preservation and increase of wild-fowl, as to demand the attention 

 of the legislature, and led to the passing of that curious, and at the 

 present day amusing statute, 25 Hen. VIII., cap. 11, intituled "An 

 Acte ayenst the Destruccyon of Wyldfowle;" wherein, after setting 

 forth, that before that time there had been plenty of wild-fowl, but that 

 in consequence of divers persons inhabiting the districts where wild- 

 fowl breed, having in the summer season, " at suche tyme as the seid 

 olde fowle be mowted and not replenysshed with fethers to flye, nor the 

 yonge fowle fully fetherede perfyctly to flye, have, by certen nettes and 



* Willughby. 



f This is one of the principal fens mentioned by Wells, in his History of the 

 Drainage of the Great Bedford Level ; it is also referred to by Dugdale, as formerly 

 ten miles in breadth, and containing twenty -seven thousand acreo. 



