NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 383 
but without any date on the title-page. On the other hand, after 
the decease of Stradanus, the publishers of the later editions may 
have credited the pupil with some of the master’s works. 
However this may be, we have seen a much earlier print of a 
decoy in a collection of engravings published in 1582, with the 
following title :—‘‘ Venationis Piscationis et Aucupii Typi. Joes 
Bol depingebat; Philip. Galleus excud. 1582” (sm. obl. fol.), 
engraved title, and 47 plates. Plate 27 represents the mouth of 
a decoy-pipe, with reed screens on both sides, sheltered by trees ; 
in the centre of the pool a dog is swimming and driving the fowl 
towards the pipe; while to the right of the picture, and behind 
the reed screens, men are peeping through holes to watch the 
result. In the left foreground an empty boat is moored along- 
side, and on the horizon a few fowl are on the wing. The 
position of the dog, represented as driving the fowl, is the only 
fault in the picture. This is clearly a mistake of the artist, who, 
although he sketched the decoy with its reed screens correctly, 
evidently did not understand the modus operandi, and placed the 
dog in the open water instead of in the pipe. That this is so is 
clearly shown by the Latin lines (the italics are ours) which are 
inscribed at the foot of the print, and which tell us that the fowl 
were ‘enticed ”’ :— 
* Sic per insidias sinuosa et retia mollis 
Allectatur anas, cane per dwmeta natante.” 
Here, then, we have evidence that the present mode of con- 
structing and working a decoy was known in Holland at least as 
early as 1582, or eighty-three years before the date of the engraving 
characterised by Sir Ralph Gallwey as the earliest of the kind 
in existence. This, however, adds nothing to the history of the 
introduction of decoys in England, concerning which any in- 
formation additional to that collected by Sir Ralph Gallwey can 
now only be discovered by accident. 
If we are obliged to express our regret that no better account 
of the early history of decoys in England is to be had than that 
which is supplied in ‘The Book of Duck Decoys,’ we feel bound 
to add our conviction that no fuller information can be found 
anywhere else than that which relates to the past and present 
situation of English decoys, and the details of their construction 
and management. ‘'he book, in fact, appeals not merely to 
