CAPTURING DUN-BIRDS AT THE FLIGHT-POND. 93 



critical juncture, and regulating the rise of the net, requires consi- 

 derable judgment, and the sole attention of the men who stand by it. 

 The fowler, especially, must watch most narrowly for the first rising 

 from the water ; and, in general, it is good skill to allow the first few 

 leaders to go over the net, and then to strike boldly at the body of 

 the flight, which always follow, or attempt to follow, in the track of 

 their leaders ; but which, if the operations be successfully conducted, 

 rush headlong against the net, and drop into the pens by hundreds. 

 (See illustration at page 89.) 



To give an idea of the immense flights of dun-birds which used to 

 be taken in the flight-nets at Mersea and Goldhanger, in Essex ; 

 the body of birds has there been known to be so great, that 

 when their flight has been attempted to be intercepted, they have 

 actually been heavier in a body than the ponderous boxes of weights 

 placed at the lower ends of the poles ; and the consequence has been, 

 that the birds have borne down the net, and partly spoilt the fowler's 

 drop but this is an extremely rare occurrence, and cannot happen if 

 the balance-boxes are judiciously weighed. 



It is by no means unusual, when the fowler has been a little too 

 slow in liberating the net, for the birds to strike before it has attained 

 its proper perpendicular position; and, as the bolt is never drawn 

 until they have actually risen from the water, it follows, as a 

 matter of course, that the net would meet them in their flight, and 

 thus cause them to fall the more suddenly into the pens. Dun-birds 

 rise so slowly, that this precaution has always been found necessary, 

 and the bolt is never drawn until the birds have fairly taken wing ; 

 and when the number has been so great that their weight has for a 

 moment prevented the net rising to its perpendicular position, the 

 author's own experience has been, that the birds, notwithstanding, fall 

 pell-mell into the pens below ; and he never knew an instance where 

 the net was pressed down to its extreme bearing's by the weight and 

 numbers of the flight, though he has good authority for believing 

 such a case to have actually occurred 5 but then the balance-boxes 

 were not sufficiently weighted. 



At these same decoys (Mersea and Goldhanger) the capture of dun- 

 birds, on one or two occasions within present memory, has been so 

 great at a drop, that a waggon and four horses were required to re- 

 move^thein from the yard ; and they have fallen in such heaps on strik- 

 ing the net, that many of those at the bottom of the pens were taken 

 up dead, apparently crushed or stifled by the pressure of those above. 



