THE DECOY-PIPE. 51 



fowl never attempt to escape by the outlet thus left, but always make 

 for the opposite side, where the net reaches quite to the ground all the 

 way along- the pipe, and is perfectly secure. From the curve to the 

 trammel the net covers everything 1 , and is simply secured to a row of 

 small hooks tacked to a narrow boarding, run along the lower part of 

 the iron frame-work on each side of the upper end of the pipe. 



It would appear, from some of the earliest accounts which can be 

 traced, that at the mouth of the pipe of an old-fashioned decoy a 

 drop-net was used, after the manner of a portcullis ; so that when 

 the fowl had been enticed a short distance within the pipe, a net was 

 suddenly dropped, and the fowl thus, at once, enclosed.* Modern 

 experience has taught us that no portcullis is necessary ; and that by 

 forming the ditch upon a curve, the mouth of the pipe may be left 

 quite open ; when, on the fowler showing himself at the entrance, 

 as soon as the birds are decoyed within the pipe, they are deluded 

 by the curve ; and, instead of beating a retreat, follow up the ditch, 

 as if assured of finding a means of escape at the other end ; and 

 thinking one outlet as good as another. 



On the convex side of the curve, extending from the mouth to about 

 thirty or forty yards along-side the pipe, are a number of screens (in 

 some places termed " shootings") rustically constructed, by arranging 

 layers of green or dried reeds, perpendicularly, in a wooden frame, 

 made for the purpose. They are each about six feet in height by 

 eight, ten, and twelve in breadth the two nearest the mouth of the 

 pipe being from fourteen to twenty feet in breadth, and sometimes 

 much more, particularly if the entrance to the pipe is very broad. 

 From twelve to fifteen of the narrowest of these screens have to be 

 judiciously placed along the bank of the pipe, in oblique positions 

 (see illustration), each screen standing separately from the other; 

 the whole, when in their proper positions, forming a perfect zigzag, and 

 leaving narrow outlets of about two feet between each; which are all 

 joined at the bottom, with tiny screens or leaping-bars, about eighteen 

 inches high, for the dog ; the spaces between the tops of the leaping- 

 bars and the ground, being filled up with short reeds, so as to complete 

 the zigzag, and make the whole appear like one piece of fencing. 

 Through these apertures the fowler shows himself, when advisable, 



* " And at the top and entrance must be nets to let down by the man that is to 

 attend it, when he seeth the ducks all entered in, by which means they become 

 taken." Blome. 



