c. and h. candler’s notes from the Netherlands. 175 
Teal. The decoy lies half an hour to the north-east of Koog, in a level 
between low dunes, and consists of a small wood of alder and poplar trees 
and bushes from three to six metres high, in the middle of which is a pool, 
fringed with reeds, and twenty to thirty metres broad. From out of the 
pool run, in the directions of the most prevalent winds, four channels 
(kanalen), which at first are five metres broad, but become gradually smaller 
and end in a small, enclosed cage, of wooden lattice-work. These channels 
do not run in straight lines, but are somewhat curved; on each side they are 
bordered by reed-screens two metres high, in which are openings at intervals 
of four metres. Between the reed-screens a net is stretched over the 
channel. The capture of the ducks is effected in the following manner : — 
The decoy-man (kooiker) and his dog betake themselves to the entrance of 
one of the channels, and the dog then runs up between the reed-screens and 
the water. The man remains concealed. The ducks, which are swimming 
round in the pool (some fifty tame ones and many wild), become curious at 
the sight of the dog, and swim into the channel ; the man (still out of sight) 
now [?] throws oats and barley over the reed-screens into the water. In the 
meantime the little dog continues running about along the water’s edge. 
Attracted by curiosity and by appetite, more and more ducks gather 
together. As soon as the man perceives that there are enough inside, ho 
shows himself at the entrance; the tame ducks remain quietly feeding, 
while the wild ones, terrified, fly to the end of the channel, and are there 
taken in the cage. With a favourable wind (east to north-east) thirty to 
fifty are readily taken daily ; at my visit the take was poor, as the wind was 
south-west. Ducks on passage ( trekeenden ) are chiefly captured.* Besides 
Ducks many Thrushes are also caught in the wood; sometimes a hundred in 
a day. It is now a true time of slaughter, everywhere the chase is going 
on.” 
II. The Spoonbill in Holland. 
The Spoonbill lias a special claim to the attention of Xorfolk 
naturalists, for we have the testimony of Sir Thomas Browne that, 
in days now long past, the bird bred regularly in this county. t In 
Holland, within a few hours of our own shores, it still survives, 
* Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, in the last chapter of his work on decoys, 
gives some interesting notes on those of Holland. He describes and figures 
the wooden box-trap, which in a Dutch decoy replaces the tunnel net, and 
alludes to the practice of the decov-man of waiting concealed at the pipe’s 
mouth, while he sends the dog alone along the screens. Both these points 
of difference appear in the above-quoted letter. Sir R. Payne-Gallwey 
estimates the number of decoys in active use in Holland and its islands at 
seventy to eighty ; some, as this Tcxel deco}', being on the sea-coast and 
some inland. He mentions the South Frisian islands of Scliiormonnikoog 
and Terschelling as possessing decoys, but does not refer to Texel. 
t See ‘Stevenson’s Birds of Norfolk,’ vol. ii. p. 184. 
VOL. V. 
N 
