2i8 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



winter of no use. Here, by the help of a windmill, 

 they can drown all the ground round about the 'coy. 

 On my return I went in to see (at Allifein) the 

 house of the Lord Offerbecke. On the back side 

 I saw a pool empaled, wherein were pellstarts, 

 smeathes, shovelars, teals, and others, and a straight 

 poor pipe to take fowl in." 



On his way north, to Scotland, in 1635, Sir 

 William Brereton visited two decoys which have 

 escaped notice in Sir R. Payne Gallwey's book. 

 In June of that year he was at Newcastle, where he 

 "lodged at The Swan, at Mr Swan's, the post- 

 master, and paid 8d. ordinary, and no great pro- 

 vision." Mr Swan, he remarked, was " a very 

 forward man to have a 'coy here erected." Half- 

 way between Newcastle and Morpeth, that is, 

 about seven miles from the former town, he "took 

 notice of a convenient seat of a 'coy in Point Island, 

 which belongs to Mr Mark Errington." All 

 traces of this decoy have long since disappeared, 

 and no allusion is made to it under the head of 

 " Wild Duck," in Hancock's Birds of Northumber- 

 land, 1874. There is no evidence of the existence 

 at any time of a decoy in Scotland, though some 

 years ago the formation of one near the Bay of 

 Findhorn was contemplated, and, indeed, com- 

 menced, by Major R. Chadwick, but was never 

 completed. Sir William Brereton makes no 

 mention of any seen by him when travelling in 

 Scotland in 1635. But when in July of that year 

 he proceeded to Ireland, he found a decoy in 

 Wexford, which he describes as follows. As no 



