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MR. T. SOUTHWELL ON WILD-FOWL DRIVING. 
X. 
WILD-FOWL DRIVING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
Bv Thomas Southwell, F.Z.S., V.-P. 
Read 27 th March, 1900. 
The most productive, if the most destructive and reprehensible 
method of taking wild-fowl was certainly that practised in certain 
parts of England long before the introduction of Decoys proper 
(which did not take place till early in the seventeenth century), 
and was known in the Lincolnshire and Norfolk Fens as 
“ Ducking ; ” it is probable that the ruinous system here referred 
to, aided by the drainage works which had then been undertaken, 
had already greatly depleted the vast multitude of wild-fowl which 
bred in the Fens before the more reasonable method of decoying 
had been introduced to deal with the remnant which was left. 
Certain it is that most of the old writers mention this wasteful 
destruction and the vast numbers of moulting and young ducks 
which were annually destroyed by it, few of the authors, probably, 
speaking from personal knowledge, but apparently quoting 
each other without acknowledgment. Although this wholesale 
slaughter might be carried on with impunity in the seclusion of 
such a terra incognita as the Fens undoubtedly must have been 
in the reign of King John, or in 1432 when the mob stole 
600 fowl from the Abbot’s private waters at Crowland, the time 
was certain to come when an awakening would take place and 
the arm of the law be invoked, although, perhaps, at first not 
very successfully to put a stop to such practices, and this we find 
to have been the case. 
In the papers belonging to the Spalding Gentleman’s Society 
there is, according to Dr. Martin Perry, who has communicated it 
to the ‘Fenland Notes and Queries’ (vol. ii. p. 391), a curious 
note on this subject, which as it further illustrates my remarks in 
