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BOOK NOTICES. 



The Book of Duck Decoys : Their Construction, Manage- 

 ment, and History.— By Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, Bart. London : 

 John Van Voorst. 1886. 



Singular to relate, this is the first work that has ever essayed to treat on a subject 

 which should command wide sympathies, since it has claims upon the naturalist, 

 the sportsman, and the archaeologist. Not only, however, has a complete treatise 

 on decoys and decoying hitherto been a desideratum, but it is much to be regretted 

 that little or nothing has been placed on record concerning them, mainly owing 

 to the jealous reserve of the craftsman in the days of yore, and thus we are 

 deprived of much information regarding the past history of decoys that would 

 now have been of extreme interest to us. 



So much, indeed, is buried in oblivion that even the situation of the first British 

 decoy is quite unrecorded, and, in fact, all we know about it is that ' Sir W. Wode- 

 house (who lived in the reign of James the First, 1603-25) made among us the first 

 device for catching ducks, known by the foreign name of a koye. ' Long, however, 

 before the early decades of the 17th century, there existed in our fenlands devices, 

 bearing the name of decoys, into which in the summer and early autumn young 

 ducks, or ducks which had moulted their flight feathers, were anything but decoyed, 

 but were driven and hustled into tunnels covered with nets, erected on the margin 

 of a suitable mere, by a cordon of advancing boats. In this way enormous num- 

 bers of fowl were captured annually, and there are records of as many as 4,000 

 being taken at a single drive. 



The first true decoy, of which there are any adequate' particulars, was 

 made for King Charles II, in St. James's Park, by one ' Sydrach liilcus,' a 

 Dutchman imported from Holland, where such engines were worked to advan- 

 tage, for the purpose, and was completed in 1665. After this, decoys became 

 numerous in the fen-country, and in other suitable districts, and were, no 

 doubt, a source of considerable profit to their owners, and continued so to be 

 well into the 19th century, when the rapid advance of agriculture, the con- 

 struction of railways, and perhaps, too, the perfecting of the fowling-piece, 

 each and all militated against them, and gradually affecting their success only 

 those survived which were either very favourably situated, and hence profitable, 

 or those owned by persons who maintained them from a love of the sport they 

 afforded. But decoying is not a dead art in this country yet, and it is encouraging 

 to know that some few decoys have been constructed in recent years, among 

 others by our author and Lord Lilford, and it is much to be hoped that an impetus 

 in their favour may result from the advantages and enjoyments to be derived 

 from them, which are so pleasantly and so ably set forth in the book under 

 consideration. 



After much introductory matter of an historic and singularly interesting 

 nature, our author proceeds to give a complete description of the art of the 

 decoyman, of the various methods used by him, his /nodus operand?, and of 

 the structure of decoys ; both sections of the subject being illustrated by a 

 series of admirably coloured plates — reproductions in lithography of drawings by 

 the author. 



Then follows the most important portion of the subject from our own point of 

 view — namely, the ' History of Decoys Past and Present ' — and to this the major 

 portion of the book is devoted. This section treats of the decoys formerly existing 

 and those at present in use in the various counties of England, Wales, and 

 Ireland — for no decoys exist or have ever been worked in Scotland — giving par- 

 ticulars as to their structural peculiarities, date of formation, the success attending 

 their operations, and numerous other items of interest ; while many of them are 

 delineated upon coloured plans, specially prepared for the work. Want of space 

 forbids our giving extracts relating to the decoys, past and present, in the North of 

 England, with which several numbers of the Naturalist might be filled. They are 

 no less than 61 in number, and of these 8 alone are still worked. They are dis- 

 tributed as follows: — 



Naturalist, 



