126 
MALLARD. 
inches in height. The poles are placed about six feet from each 
other, and connected together by poles laid lengthwise across the 
arch, and tied together. Over them a net, with meshes sufficiently 
small to prevent the fowl getting through, is thrown across, and 
made fast to a reed fence at the entrance, and nine or ten yards 
up the ditch, and afterwards strongly pegged to the ground. At 
the farther end of the pipe, a tunnel net, as it is called, is fixed, 
about four yards in length, of a round form, and kept open by 
a number of hoops about eighteen inches in diameter, placed 
at a small distance from each other, to keep it distended. Sup- 
posing the circular bend of the pipe to be to the light, when 
you stand with your back to the lake, on the left hand side a 
number of reed fences are constructed, called shootings, for the 
pui'pose of screening from sight the decoy-man, and in such a man- 
ner, that the fowl in the decoy may not be alarmed, while he is 
driving those in the pipe : these shootings are about four yards in 
length, and about six feet high, and are ten in number. They are 
placed in the following manner : 
From the end of the last shooting, a person cannot see the lake, 
owing to the bend of the pipe : there is then no farther occasion for 
shelter. Were it not for those shootings, the fowl that remain about 
the mouth of the pipe would be alarmed, if the person driving the 
fowl already under the net should be exposed, and would become 
so shy as to forsake the place entirely. The first thing the decoy- 
man does when he approaches the pipe, is to take a piece of lighted 
turf or peat and hold it near his mouth, to prevent the fowl smell- 
ing him. He is attended by a dog taught for the purpose of assist- 
ing him : he walks very silently about half Avay up the shootings, 
where a small piece of wood is thrust through the reed fence, which 
makes an aperture just sufficient to see if any fowl are in ; if not, 
