MR. T. SOUTHWELL ON EARLY DUTCH AND ENGLISH DECOYS. 
613 
[qy Duck] and four teal, sixpence. Another coy we saw, wherein 
are four pipes in one end ; a great pool ; the ducks fed with 
barley ; the dog-farm, three rood from the hut or the pipes ; 
and by the help of a little ladder, the dog is enabled to leap 
into the hole a yard high. The fowl in the little coy fed 
with barley. But we could not be admitted to take a full view 
of any of these coys, neither is there any spy-holes into the 
pond, but all their pipes are much more curious, and carry a far 
better proportion than ours.” A foot-note by the Editor here 
rightly explains that the “ pellstarts ” mentioned above are pin- 
tails ; “ Pijlstaarts,” Professor Newton tells me is even nowa- 
days the common Dutch name for the pintail — pijl (pronounced 
pile) being a spike of any kind. Pijlstaart was the name applied 
by the Dutch sailors to the Tropic-bird from its long spike-like 
tail ; staart is of course a tail, as in redstart, Start Point, Ac. The 
Editor is in error however with regard to the “ Smeath ” which 
he takes to be the Smew (Mertfus albeit us) whereas it is an old 
name for the wigeon. The smaller ducks, pintails, wigeon, 
shovellers and teal were known to our decoymen and fowlers 
as “ half-fowl ” and counted twenty-four to the dozen. 
On the 30th May at “Delft,” the writer mentions that 
storks were kept tame, also shovellers, “ birds with long legs, 
less bodies than our storks and broader bills ; like our shovelars,” 
the latter most likely being spoonbills. He also went to see 
a decoy near “ Shippley,” the owner being [acting as] his own 
decoyman. “His coy is situated near his own and divers other 
houses and the highways and navigable rivers on both sides, nearer 
by much than Doddleston Bridge or Findloes House is to my coy. 
His coy hath live pipes as mine, but better compassed, and two 
of them almost meet. Much wood, reed, grass and thicket within 
the hut, so as the fowl on one end cannot discern the dog show- 
ing elsewhere. ... He hath about two hundred ducks, 
twenty drakes. He hath fowl bred twixt pellstarts and ducks, 
about twenty. I saw some of them. Many gray ducks which 
are best ; coy-dogs best that are either white or red, and the 
more hairy the better. These ducks as tame and familiar about 
his house as any tame ones can be. Smeathes [wigeon] he keeps 
in a hut near his house covered with a net.” I am not sure 
whether the “ gray ducks ” are gadwall, which are known by that 
