36 A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DUCKS 



tive decoys, not the perfected kind with pipes, were common in England in the reign 

 of King John, 1199-1216, and were looked upon as an adjunct of the King's Forest. 



In the old times a good day at a Friesian Island decoy would yield 600 to 800 birds, 

 but now not more than 100 to 150. On the Island of Fohr they used to capture on 

 exceptional days 2000 to 2200 ducks. In the year 1789 one decoy took 66,000. In 

 the year 1841 one decoy on the Island of Sylt took 25,244. In 1887 this same decoy 

 captured only 6260. One decoy in the Island of Fohr took in 1841 as many as 52,334 

 birds, but in 1887 six decoys on this same island got only 33,000. On the three East 

 Friesian Islands in 1887 eleven decoys took 56,000 ducks. In an old Dutch book, 

 called " Letters from the Isle of Texel," written by Pieter Cuyck in 1783, 1 find a refer- 

 ence to the five decoys which were worked there at that time. Cuyck says that he 

 has seen 600 or 700 Widgeons caught there in one day. From the Kattenpolder 

 decoy he had seen "so many ducks taken to the barge in order to be conveyed to 

 Amsterdam, that carts with two horses, which were again followed by a small cart 

 with two wheels, were loaded with them." There are still about one hundred and 

 sixty decoys operating in Holland and at one time there must have been twice as 

 many at least, so it is easy to see what great numbers of ducks must have been taken 

 in one small area. In general, it seems that no great diminution of ducks took place 

 in that region between 1830 and 1860, but after that the decrease was rapid, doubt- 

 less going hand in hand with the diking off and drainage of huge areas. 



A decoy built by George I of Hesse, in Friesland, yielded 29,665 ducks between 

 1575 and 1584. Gurney mentions a great banquet in the year 1465 in which 400 

 swans and 4000 Mallards and Teals appeared on the bill of fare! 



A remarkable statement was made by Meinertzhagen (1920) that 600,000 ducks 

 were taken annually in the vicinity of Port Said for Egyptian markets. I must say 

 that this number seemed scarcely credible to me until I began to investigate further. 

 In America the numbers regularly taken were enormous. Cooke tells of one gunner at 

 Big Lake, Arkansas, who sold 8000 Mallards during the winter of 1893-94, while 

 from this one place the total number sent to market was 120,000. In the winter of 

 1913-14, as many as 117,843 Mallards were received in the markets of New Orleans, 

 27,955 Pintails, 850 Carolina Ducks, 13,632 Ring-necks ( ?) , 15,620 Gadwalls, 1037 Can- 

 vas-backs, 789 Red-heads, 36,864 Shovellers, 30,276 Teals, and 38,560 Blue-bills, or a 

 total of over 283,000. The markets of San Francisco received 47,565 Mallards during 

 the winter of 1895-96, and the California Commissioner writes me that from 800,000 

 to 1,000,000 ducks are still taken annually in that State. Forbush reported that at 

 Georgetown, South Carolina, the rail-head for a famous ducking country, 5000 

 Mallards and Black Ducks were received in a single day. 



At Currituck Sound, North Carolina, there are some twelve or fifteen clubs which 

 formerly took an annual toll of between 2000 and 6000 ducks each, besides many 

 others which took less. One club at Currituck has a score of 74,942 ducks shot in 



