THE ART OF CAPTURING WILD-FOWL BY DECOY. 75 



decoyman, regains the open water- But the ingenuity of our fore- 

 fathers long- since discovered a very successful method of taking- these 

 artful intruders by means of nets and poles, the ingenious proceeding's 

 relating to which will be treated on in subsequent chapters. 



Coots are also exceedingly cunning ; they may sometimes be en- 

 ticed a considerable distance up the pipe, and then insist on return- 

 ing. But when the weather is very severe and there is much ice in 

 the decoy, coots are compelled to keep in the clear open water at the 

 mouth of the pipe ; they are then sometimes taken, after a little time 

 and humouring. 



Wild-ducks, teal, and widgeon are the only species caught in 

 large numbers in decoys ; though many a pair of pintail-ducks, 

 scoters, and others less gregarious, is sometimes taken with the species 

 above named. Of late years, however, widgeon appear to have been 

 very shy of decoys, and keep to the salt-water rivers and oozes, where 

 they afford the finest sport to the punter of any wild-fowl on the 

 coast. Brent and other wild-geese never use decoys. 



Improvements in decoys appear to keep pace with the times. A 

 very simple, but excellent, contrivance has recently been intro- 

 duced at the decoy, which is no other than a miniature telegraph ; 

 the object of this is to save the time and risk the fowler formerly 

 used to incur, in having to run back to the mouth of the pipe, or nearly 

 so, in order to cut off the retreat of the birds after decoying* them 

 half-way up the channel. The telegraph obviates the necessity of such 

 a proceeding in the following simple manner: Three or four small posts 

 are erected, in line, behind the back screens of the decoy, extending 

 from the mouth of the pipe to the farthest working-screen ; each of 

 these posts are pierced at the top, in order to admit of a small rope or 

 cord being rove from one extremity of the working-screens to the other j 

 a line of telegraphic communication is thus kept up between the de- 

 coyer and his assistant : the latter is stationed at the telegraph-post 

 near the mouth of the pipe (see illustration, ante p. 49), who simply 

 takes hold of one end of the cord ; and as soon as the decoyer has suc- 

 ceeded in enticing the birds to a satisfactory distance, he takes the other 

 end of the rope in his hand; when, on a slight pull, his assistant instantly 

 responds to the signal, and darts from behind the screens to the front, 

 so as to cut off the retreat of the birds without the necessity of the 

 decoyer running back, or making any other signal, either by sound or 

 movement. 



