SOME SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY 

 DECOYS 



For some years past the authoritative worlc on 

 wildfowl decoys has been, and, indeed, still is, that 

 by Sir R, Payne Gallwey, which is so compre- 

 hensive in its details as to leave little room for any 

 additions of importance. There are, however, 

 sources of information which escaped his notice, 

 and which are of sufficient interest to deserve 

 mention. The following extracts will have an 

 attraction not only for owners of existing decoys, 

 but also for naturalists with antiquarian tastes, who 

 may glean from them some interesting particulars 

 concerning the now obliterated traces of the former 

 haunts of English wildfowl, and of the various 

 species which used to be captured in decoys that 

 have long since disappeared. 



Sir William Brereton, the Parliamentary 

 general, who was created a baronet in 1627, and 

 died in t66i, lived at Handford, between Wilmslow 

 and Cheadle, in East Cheshire, and owned a decoy 

 with five pipes, near Dodleston. The present 

 appearance of the site is described by Messrs 

 Coward and Oldham in their Birds of Cheshire 

 (1900, page 162), and it is noteworthy that a farm 

 on the road between Dodleston and Chester is still 

 known as the Decoy Farm. In the working of this 



213 



