NABORLE 
309 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 5, 1886 
THE BOOK OF DUCK DECOYS 
The Book of Duck Decoys; their Construction, Manage- 
ment, and History. By Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, 
Bart. (London: John Van Voorst, 1886.) 
N the year 1812 appeared the first instalment of what 
its eccentric author intended to be a sketch of the 
local history of the Lincolnshire Fens; therein “ Fen- 
Bill Hall” declares his set purpose of devoting a portion 
of the work to the “life of a low Fen-man,” and of 
descanting largely upon the subject of decoys, adding 
that he had never seen but one rational writer on the 
subject, and that he (the said writer) manifested that he 
knew “nothing of the theory.” MHall’s book came to an 
untimely end with the third part, and the author therefore 
had not the opportunity of writing “rationally” upon a 
subject which would have proved so interesting in the 
present day and upon which so much irrational writing 
has been lavished. Failing “ Fen-Bill Hall” so well did 
the decoymen keep their secret and so securely were the 
decoys guarded from intrusion that in all the numerous 
subsequent so-called descriptions, with one or two partial 
exceptions, the writers showed an utter want of acquaint- 
ance with both the theory and practice of decoying, and 
in the exceptional cases named such experience was of a 
very limited character, the deficiency being in all proba- 
bility supplied by intentionally misleading information 
on the part of the guardian of the decoy. It was not till 
the year 1845, when the Rev. Richard Lubbock published 
his well-known “ Fauna” of Norfolk, that the first really 
reliable account of the art of constructing and working a 
duck decoy, the result of actual experience acquired by 
the writer, was given to the public. Since that time 
various more or less accurate papers on the same subject 
have appeared, but it remained for Sir Ralph Payne- 
Gallwey (than whom no more competent authority could 
be found) to collect the literature of the subject, and with 
his own practical experiences added, to publish the first 
“ Book of the Duck Decoy ” in the form of the handsome 
volume now before us. 
From very early times tunnel-nets appear to have been 
used for taking water-fowl, and there is no doubt much 
importance was attached to the privilege of using such 
engines, as appears from frequent litigation on the sub- 
ject, dating back even as long ago as the reign of King 
John. These tunnel-nets were used for the purpose of 
securing young birds yet unable to fly, which with the old 
birds when moulting were dvzvev into them. Sir Ralph 
Gallwey gives a curious woodcut of such an arrangement, 
as used in the sixteenth century, which represents in a 
somewhat diagrammatical way a phalanx of boats driving 
the birds before them into the nets fixed at the head of a 
bay, much as the Orkney fishermen drive a “school” of 
ca’ing whales on to the beach. This method of driving 
was found so destructive that it was prohibited by law, and 
was probably succeeded by a device called a cage-decoy, 
into which the ducks were enticed by feeding, and then 
secured by dropping a framework of netting which closed 
the entrance. Such a decoy is still worked at Hardwick 
Hall in Derbyshire, but it seems probable that decoys 
VOL. XXXIV.—NO. 875 
proper as used in the present day were not introduced 
into England till the commencement of the seventeenth 
century,—whether by Sir William Wodehouse as so often 
stated, on the authority of Sir Henry Spelman, Sir Ralph 
Gallwey appears to think doubtful. The decoy erected 
by Charles II. in St. James’s Park in the year 1665 is 
doubtless the first arrangement on the Dutch plan for 
alluring ducks of which we have any exact account, and 
it is even possible that a curious old woodcut which 
occurs in a copy of “ Asop’s Fables,” dated 1665, and 
which Sir Ralph Gallwey reproduces at p. 9 of his book, 
may have been taken from this identical decoy; but 
should it, as seems more probable, have been sketched 
from a still earlier decoy, it would tend to prove that Sir 
William Wodehouse really had the honour of taking pre- 
cedence of Charles II. in adopting the Dutch method of 
decoving. 
For the successful working of a decoy a site must be 
chosen far from the busy haunts of men, secluded by a 
screen of trees, all the approaches to which should be 
under the control of its owners; at the commencement 
of the present century such spots were easy enough to 
find, and decoys abounded yielding large profits to those 
who worked them. Unfortunately very little is now 
known of the results of the working of these decoys, but 
we have it on the authority of Pennant that one cele- 
brated group of ten decoys in Lincolnshire produced in a 
single year 31,200 ducks. There are also some published 
statistics of the Ashby decoy, showing that in thirty-five 
years 95,836 fowl were there taken ; anda famous decoy in 
Essex produced in thirteen years 50,787 birds. Sir Ralph 
Gallwey estimates that 100 decoys which formerly existed 
in the Eastern Counties averaged 5000 ducks each yearly, 
or half a million of birds, and this without firing a shot, 
and adds, “during the last dozen years I have waged 
constant warfare against wildfowl, with all imaginable 
contrivances in the way of yachts, punts, and guns, in 
various parts of the world, as well as at home, at a cost 
of—I should be afraid to say how much time and money 
—yet I can account for but six or seven thousand ducks. 
Now, in ove winter alone, it was in our grandfathers’ 
days a usual thing for a decoyman to catch from five to 
ten thousand birds, at an annual outlay of perhaps 50/. 
spent in keeping up a pond and its netting, its pipes, and 
its reed screens.” The price realised by the fowl at the 
commencement of the present century seems trivial 
enough as compared with that produced in the present 
day, but many decoys then made a return of from 
one to four hundred pounds per annum, perhaps even 
more, could the secrets of the decoymen be ascertained. 
In 1714 about gs. 6d. per dozen birds seems to have been 
the price (it must be remembered that the smaller species 
of duck were counted as “ half-birds,” and went at twenty- 
four to the dozen) ; from thence the price appears gradu- 
ally to have increased to 16s. per dozen in 1726. In 
1765-66, 13,160 “ whole-birds ” (representing 18,000 fowl), 
captured at the Dowsley decoy, sold for 3857. 18s. rod. 
As might be expected of men exercising such an excep- 
tional calling, the decoyman was clannish in the extreme ; 
and Sir Ralph Gallwey gives some very interesting par- 
ticulars of a family of typical decoymen named Skelton, 
who originally migrated from Firskney in Lincolnshire, 
where they had long followed the same occupation, inta 
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