DUCKS, 203 



feeding, and this is called "the rising of the decoy." At 

 dawn they come back again. The pipes or lake must not be 

 approached in the day time, save for the purpose of working 

 them, and all the work which has to be done in clearing out 

 the dyke, repairing the net, laying down food barley or corn 

 in the shallow bay, breaking the ice, and so on, must be 

 done at night. In. times past, two to three thousand birds 

 was a good bag for the season from one pond's working, now 

 fifteen hundred would probably be all that could be looked 

 for from the same lake, if so much. Now, let us see how the 

 complicated machine works. We go forth on a clear, fresh 

 winter afternoon, such as in spite of the abuse heaped 

 upon it the English climate affords us now and again, with 

 a keeper and an eccentric dog, of foxey yellow hue, silent 

 and obedient in habit an unobtrusive but all-important 

 member of the party. For some distance the path is, perhaps, 

 over furze-covered downs within sight of the sea, which lies, 

 a dull leaden sheet, a mile or two away under the low red 

 winter sun. Then the track enters the woodlands, and leads 

 by the side of a trickling stream, under hazel bushes, already 

 tasselled with green catkins in preparation for spring, which 

 comes nowhere earlier than to these sheltered hollows, and 

 so -up by mossy slopes and yellow-ferned dells, to where a- 

 ring of willow trees show their characteristic outline against 

 the sky. Here the keeper insists upon absolute silence, 

 perhaps handing the spectator of what is to follow, a smoul- 

 dering brick of peat upon which he is instructed to breathe, 

 and so obliterate his personality to the keen-scented wild 

 fowl, the man taking another himself. Then commences a 

 cautious approach to where a five-foot fence of reed or wattle 

 shuts out the lake that lies beyond. This reached in the 

 most perfect silence, not a twig having been broken under 

 foot, they make themselves a spy-hole and peep through. 

 The water, some four or five acres in extent, is dotted all 

 over with fowl feeding and cleaning themselves, and close by 

 are "a company" of widgeon, "a lord" of mallards, "a 



