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four pipes. Agricultural operations have very materially affected 
the numbers of fowl taken of late years ; from being so frequently 
disturbed they have gradually decreased in numbers. This decoy 
is about eight miles, in a direct line, from the old one at Wormegay 
before spoken of, and on the same river. 
With regard to the Wretham decoy, situate on a piece of water 
in Wretham Park called “ Mickle Mere,” Mr. Wyrley Birch has 
been good enough to give me the following information. The 
decoy is about midway between Thetford and Watton, and 
is some thirty miles, in a direct line, from the sea. It was 
made about fifty years ago by the late Mr. Wyrley Birch, 
and has been worked almost continuously ever since ; there 
are ten pipes, and about forty-eight acres of water. The 
decoy book dates from 1868, and Mr. Birch was good enough 
to send me the annual takes up to March, 1876; what the takes 
of the previous years were he has no means of finding out, hut his 
impression is, that they were a better average than of late years. 
The largest take in the nine years was 1,409 in 1870-1 ; the 
smallest 125, in 1874-5 : this, however, arose from one or two of 
the pipes being broken down by a heavy fall of snow. The 
average, over the nine seasons, is 823. The months in which the 
best takes occur are very uncertain ; a good acorn year, makes a bad 
duck year, as the ducks are continually leaving the water to go into 
the plantations after the acorns, and will not settle on the water. 
Very few half-birds are ever killed, sometimes not twenty in the 
season, though often there are many thousands on the water. The 
proportion of the sexes is about equal ; they generally go in pairs, 
but, as a matter of course, the duck is occasionally taken without 
the mallard, and sometimes the other way. Mr. Birch does not 
think agricultural operations have injured the decoy ; this may, 
however, arise from the piece of water being entirely surrounded 
by the park and woods, and consequently quite protected from the 
public. On the Ordnance map at East Wretham, near stone 
bridge on the “ Peddar’s Way,” is a plantation marked “ now 
decoy ; ” this, Mr. Birch tells me, is so only in name, and never 
was used as a decoy. 
Some nine miles north-west of Wretham Park, at Didlinr/Um, 
the seat of Mr. W. A. Tyssen Amhurst, is a small decoy, con- 
structed by the late Rev. John Fountaine, and still used. It is in 
