210 



The Irish Naluralist . 



December, 



They were probably made for the birds to " bank " on, as 

 the old expression was. The pipes form an obtuse angle. 

 The usual shape is a curve. The small size of the pond, and 

 its elaborate and careful construction and good state of 

 preservation seem to show that it was made not earlier than 

 the latter part of the eighteenth century. However, 



Moat 



Moat 



neither the records of the Montgomery family, whose 

 ancestors have lived at Beaulieu since 1660, nor local tra- 

 dition make any mention of either the building or the work- 

 ing of it. The feature of most interest, however, is the 

 moat or canal which goes round the field, and by means 

 of which the decoy -man in his flat -bottomed punt could 

 go right round the field unperceived by the fowl on the 

 pond, and view them from any point he desired. So far as 



