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drainage, have greatly decreased the number of fowl of late years ; 
but the great evil has been the flight shooting up to the very banks 
of the decoy.” The decoy books unfortunately cannot be found, 
so that it is impossible to give any exact statistics of this decoy ; 
but the number of fowl taken here formerly was doubtless very 
large. In Col. Leatlies’ decoy, all the pipes being on the south 
side of the lake, they cannot work with a northerly wind ; which 
is a great disadvantage. * The practice has been to work this decoy 
about sunrise and sunset ; but often on moonlight nights (especially 
when the ducks had been well fed and did not go on flight in 
consequence) a good number have been taken, and old John Fisk 
used to say, there was no time better than quiet moonlight nights. 
There is a portrait of a large Newfoundland dog at Fritton Hall, 
which, many years ago, was a celebrated decoy dog ; but, generally, 
a small dog is used, with the occasional addition of a red hand- 
kerchief round its neck. Ferrets are by some esteemed even more 
than dogs, but, being short-lived, they die almost as soon as they 
have completed their training. 
At the Ashby end of the lake, Sir Savile Crossley works four 
pipes. There is nothing known as to the date of the construction 
of the decoy, which is, doubtless, as old as that belonging to 
Col. Leatlies. The fowl taken, are duck, teal, wigeon, pintail, 
shoveller (the latter rarely, only one in the last ten years ) ; pochards 
are seen in great numbers, but they are never caught. The best 
months are November and December for ducks ; March for teal and 
wigeon. In this decoy more male ducks are said to be taken than 
females, perhaps eight out of twelve are males ; and many instances 
have occurred of mallards being taken without ducks. Agri- 
cultural operations have very largely affected the number of late 
years. The number of fowl taken since the year 1850, is known, 
and Sir S. Crossley has very kindly given me the numbers from 
the season of 1862-3 to 1876-7. During that time (fifteen seasons) 
10,476 duck, 1,311 teal, and 1,634 wigeon, making a total of 
* The take at the Ilerringlleet end of the lake, in the season which lias 
just closed (1878-75), was only about 400 fowl ; whereas, at Sir S. Crossley’s 
end, 1533 were taken ; this is, probably, owing to the slightly different 
aspect of the latter decoy, as large numbers of fowl have frequented the lake 
during the past winter. In the season of 1877-78, only 267 fowl were taken 
at Sir S. Crossley’s decoy. 
