THE MALLAllD. 
301 
ing them along till they come to the tunnel net, where they 
creep in: when they are all in, he gives the net a twist, so as to 
prevent their getting back: he then takes the net off from the 
end of the pipe with what fowl he may have caught, and takes 
therh out one at a time, and dislocates their necks and hangs 
the net on again; and all is ready for working again. 
“In this manner five or six dozen have been taken at one 
drift. When the wind blows directly in or out of the pipe, the 
fowl seldom work well, especially when it blows in. If many 
pipes are made in a lake, they should be so constructed as to 
suit different winds. 
“Duck and Mallard are taken from August to June. Teal 
or Wigeon, from October to March. Becks, Smee, Golden Eyes, 
Arps, Cricks, and Pintails or Sea Pheasants, in March and April. 
“Poker Ducks are seldom taken, on account of their diving 
and getting back in the pipe. 
It may be proper to observe here, that the Ducks feed during 
the night, and that all is ready prepared for this sport in the 
evening. The better to entice the Ducks into the pipe, hemp 
seed is strewed occasionally on the water. The season allowed 
by act of parliament for catching these birds in this way, is from 
the latter end of October till February. 
“Particular spots or decoys, in the fen countries, are let to 
the fowlers at a rent of from five to thirty pounds per annum; 
and Pennant instances a season in which thirty-one thousand 
two hundred Ducks, including Teals and Wigeons, were sold 
in London only, from ten of these decoys near Wainfleet, in 
Lincolnshire. Formerly, according to Willoughby, the Ducks, 
while in moult and unable to fly, were driven by men in boats, 
furnished with long poles, with which they splashed the water 
between long nets, stretched vertically across the pools, in the 
shape of two sides of a triangle, into lesser nets placed at the 
point; and in this way, he says, four thousand were taken at one 
driving in Deeping-Fen; and Latham has quoted an instance of 
two thousand six hundred and forty-six being taken in two days, 
near Spalding in Lincolnshire; but this manner of catching them 
while in moult is now prohibited.” 
