BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 163 



years, from 1833-34 to 1867-68, according to the very 

 carefully kept record at Ashby, the large number of 

 48,664 was taken in the nets. The most captured in 

 any one year was in the winter of 1834-35, 4287 

 ducks and drakes*. In former days Lincolnshire 

 was preeminently distinguished above all other 

 counties for its wild fowl, and its many valuable duck 

 decoys afforded a considerable source of revenue to 

 the owners f. I am only aware of one at present 

 existing in this district, that, previously alluded to, 

 of Ashby, near the river Trent. Four famous decoys, 



* This, however, is a small number compared with the cap- 

 tures in some of the Lincolnshire decoys in former days. Mr. 

 Pennant mentions 31,200 taken in one season in decoys in the 

 neighbourhood of Wainfleet, and that 2646 Mallards, or drakes, 

 were taken in two days near Spalding. In these times a flock 

 of Wild Ducks has been observed passing along from the north 

 and north-east into the East Fen in a continuous stream for 

 eight hours together. 



t Camden, speaking of the dwellers in the Fens near Croy- 

 land, says : " Their greatest gain is from the fish and wild 

 ducks that they catch, which are so many, that in August they 

 can drive at once into a single net 3000 ducks ; they call these 

 pools their cornfields, for there is no corn grown within five 

 miles. For this liberty of taking fish and fowl they formerly 

 paid to the Abbot of Croyland, as they do now to the King, 

 three hundred pounds sterling." 



By the code of Fen laws, or orders for regulating the Fens, 

 passed at the great inquest of the Soke of Bolingbroke, in the 

 2nd Edward VI. (1548), it was decreed that no person should 

 use any sort of net, or other engines, to take or kill any fowl 

 commonly called moulted ducks, in any of the fens, before Mid- 

 summer-day yearly." 



