DUCKS. 205 



wild drake is proof against any such attacks, yet it is dis- 

 turbing to its equanimity to see his smaller relations struggle, 

 and splash and cry out, and then disappear stern foremost. 

 The keeper, too, must know all about the right winds and 

 weather, and something of the curious and punctual habits 

 of the birds, whence they come, and when they are to be 

 expected. Pochards, for instance, he will never try to 

 capture in his long tunnel, for they invariably rise and fly 

 back when alarmed, and a few birds escaping like this will 

 spread the news. He must be clever in the feeding and 

 management of the tame decoy birds, which by swimming 

 about at all times in the mouth of the drains, bring the wild 

 ones down as they pass overhead during their migration, 

 and also unremitting in his guardianship of the place, and 

 ready to turn out at two or three o'clock, it may be, in the 

 cold winter mornings when the flight is on, to clear the 

 channels, and break up ice formed round them. Perhaps 

 the trouble attending their proper upkeep, the modern 

 scarcity of ducks in paying numbers since the fens and 

 moorlands have been drained, or a change of fashion, is 

 responsible for the decrease in numbers of the ponds formed 

 for this method of taking ducks. Probably in all the eastern 

 counties there are not more than four or five actually work- 

 ing decoys, and Sir Ralph Payne- Gall wey, in his " Wild- 

 fowler in Ireland," says he only knows of three working in 

 that country, viz. Mr. Longfield's, at Loiigueville ; Lord 

 Desart's, in Kilkenny ; and Mr. Webber's, at Athy. 



As to their origin, it is difficult to speak for certain. 

 Camden says that 3000 ducks were sometimes driven into a 

 single net at once. Willoughby also, speaking of Deeping 

 Fen, declares that as many as 400 boats were employed, and 

 that 4000 mallards have been taken in one driving. All this 

 seems to point to the practice of driving young or moulting 

 birds into a funnel-shaped net, somewhat like a modern 

 decoy a practice formerly carried to such an excess that an 

 Act of Parliament had to be passed to suppress it. Spelman 



