MALLARD. 
549 
The decoys of Lincolnshire, which principally 
supply the London markets, are let at an annual 
rent, and the number of wild fowl taken in them is 
amazing. A few years ago the number caught in 
one season, and in only ten decoys, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Wainfleet, amounted to thirty-one 
thousand two hundred, in which are included several 
other species of ducks. This quantity makes them 
so cheap on the spot, that, we have been assured, 
several decoy-men would be glad to contract for 
years to deliver their ducks at Boston for ten-pence 
the couple. 
The diversion of duck-shooting, if it deserves the 
name, is followed in the depth of winter; when the 
fowler leaves his warm fire-side, at the close of even- 
ing, for the snowy marsh, where he will patiently 
remain, perhaps for hours, till he hears the fowl 
fly over his head. During this time he is exposed 
to all the inclemency of the season ; and it must be 
a strong constitution indeed that is not injured by 
the frequent repetition of this sport. M. Hebert 
was witness to a method of fowling in a plain be- 
tween Laon and Rheims, which was not practised 
in a much more comfortable way. The fowler had 
taken his station in the middle of a meadow, wrap- 
ped in an old blanket, with no other shelter than a 
hurdle of hazle branches, which screened him from 
the wind, while he waited till a flock of wild ducks 
should pass within his reach : he was sitting on a 
cage of ozier, divided into three compartments, and 
filled with tame drakes ; his post was in the neigh- 
