142 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
(p. 528) bemg captured with a dog of this breed. Most likely 
it was the spaniel’s part to drive the Ducks into nets previously 
laid for them, and this may have been usually in July, when 
the old ones were moulting, and the young scarcely able to fly. 
Nothing is said about a decoy, nor is it likely that the 
estate possessed anything which deserved the name of one; 
indeed, the method of decoying fowl on the Dutch principle 
by alluring them was not introduced into Norfolk until the 
seventeenth century (1610—-1620).* The customary way of 
catching Ducks was to hustle them into a tunnel net, as shown 
in an old print reproduced in Payne-Gallwey’s ‘“ Book of 
Duck Decoys.” 
The first bird shot with a gun was in 1533, nothing more 
considerable than a Waterhen which might have been got 
any day in the moat; but very quickly the new weapon is 
put to better account, and kills a Crane, two Mallards, and 
a Wigeon. However, perhaps powder was scarce, for we do 
not hear much more of it, nothing being shot after a Brant 
Goose in 1534. 
The smaller waders. such as Dunlin and Knot, would not 
have been deemed worth powder and shot, or even bolts from 
a crossbow ; they were evidently captured in upright nets set 
near the sea, which on dark nights are a fatal trap.t Nets 
of this kind have been in use in the Wash for a very long 
time ; I can remember seeing them erected in lines as far back 
as 1862, and they were no novelty then.§ Although they are 
* The oldest East Anglian decoy of which we have any precise 
particulars, situated »t Steeple, in Essex, near the mouth of the Black- 
water, was constructed in 1713, and curious details of its working have 
been given by Mr. Cordeaux and Mr. Harting. (‘‘ Field,’ April 6th, 1878, 
and July 5th, 1879.) 
Paso: 
+ Sir Thomas Browne, writing a century later, alludes to this method of 
taking Knots on the Norfolk coast. Welearn from the Gawdy Papers that in 
1563 Knots cost five shillings a dozen and that they were commonly caught 
at Terrington near Lynn (‘‘ Norwich Naturalists’ Trans.,’’ VI., p. 253). 
§ The catch on December 18th, 1862, was: Dunlin 34, Knot 15, 
Curlew 3, Golden Plover 3, Grey Plover 3, Oystercatcher 2, Woodcock 1, 
Bar-tailed Godwit 1, Redshank 1, Great Black-backed Gull 1, Black-headed 
Gull 2. These nets were for many years the property of Mr. Frank Cresswell 
of Lynn, who generally placed them at high-water mark. In eleven consecu- 
tive years, beginning with 1859, Mr. Cresswell took 3,693 birds, but of late 
years from various causes the nets have not been so much used. The above 
is given as an example of a good night’s work. Illustrations of these nets are 
given in Dawson Rowley’s ‘“ Ornithological Miscellany ”’ (Vol. II., p. 373). 
