648 DEC 
DECOY', ./'. Allurement to mifcluefs; temptation.— 
Thei'e exuberant produdlions of the earth became a con¬ 
tinual decoy anti fnare : they only excited and fomented 
luffs. Woodward. 
DECOY', f. among fowlers, a place made for catch¬ 
ing wild-fowl. The art of taking wild-fowl by this means, 
is a mod Angular inftance of the ingenuity of man, in 
being able to make any of the animal creation cunning 
enough to aflift him in the deftrudtion of its own fpecies. 
The decoy-ducks are hatched and bred up in the decoy- 
ponds ; in which are certain places where they are con- 
flantly fed ; and, being made tame, they are ufed to 
tome to the decoy-man’s hand for their food. When they 
fly abroad, it is not known whither they go, but fome 
conjecture into Holland and Germany, where they meet 
with others of their own kind, and, forting with them, 
they draw together vaft numbers, and kidnap them, as it 
were, from their own country ; for, being once brought 
out of their knowledge, they follow the decoys, who' 
frequently return with a vaft flight of wild-fowl along 
with them, after being abfent for feveral weeks. When 
the decoy-men perceive they are returned, and that they 
are gathering and increafing, they go fecretly to the 
pond-fide, under a covert made with reeds, fo that they 
cannot be feen, where they throw over the reeds hand¬ 
fuls of corn or hemp-feed, in fuch (hallow places as the 
-decoy-ducks are ufually fed, and where they are fure to 
come for it, and bring their newly inveigled guefts with 
them. This they do for two or three days together, and 
no harm follows to the poor ((rangers ; till throwing in 
this bait one time in an open wide place, another time in 
another wide place, the third time it is thrown in a nar¬ 
rower place, where the trees, which hang over the water, 
and the banks, (land clofer together; and then in another 
yet narrower, where the trees or bufhes form an arbour 
above the water. Here the boughs are fo artfully ma¬ 
naged, that a large net is fpread among the branches, and 
faltened to hoops, which reach from tide to (ide. This 
is fo high and wide, and the water fo open, that the 
fowls do not perceive the net above them. Here the 
decoy-men, keeping unfeen behind the hedges of reeds, 
which are made perfectly clofe, go forward, throwing 
corn over the reeds into the water. The decoy-ducks 
greedily fall upon it, and, calling their foreign guefts, 
invite, or rather wheedle, them forward, till by degrees 
they are all advanced under the arch orfweep of the net, 
which is on the boughs, and which by degrees, imper¬ 
ceptibly to them, declines lower and lower, and narrower 
and narrower, till at the farther end it comes to a point 
quite out of fight, and perhaps two or three hun¬ 
dred yards from the firft entrance. When the whole 
flight of ducks are thus greedily following the decoys, 
and feeding plentifully as they go, and the decoy-men 
fee they are all fo far within (Hie arch of the net as not 
to be able to efcape, on a hidden a dog, which till then 
keeps clofe, being perfectly taught his bulinefs, ruflies 
from behind the trees, jumps into the water, and, fwiin- 
ming diredtly after the ducks, barks as he fwims. Im¬ 
mediately the frightened vifitors rife upon the wing, to 
make their efcape, but are beaten down again by the 
arched net, which is over their heads. Being then forced 
into the water, they necellurily fvvim forward, for fear 
of the dog; and thus they croud on, till by degrees, the 
net growing lower and narrower, they are hurried on to 
the end of the tunnel, where a decoy-man ftands ready 
to receive them, and who takes them out alive with his 
hands. As for the traitors who drew the poor ftrangers 
into this fnare, they are taught to rife but a little way, 
and fo, not reaching to the net, they fly back to the 
ponds, and make their efcape ; or elfe, being ufed to the 
decoy-man, they go to him fearlef's, and are put into a 
little pond juft by him, where they are plentifully fed 
lor their fervices. 
The general feafon f ir catching wild-fowl in decoys, is 
from the latter end of O-tober till February ; the taking 
DEC 
of them earlier is prohibited by flat, io Gto. II. C.I32, 
which forbids it from June 1 ft to October ift, under the 
penalty of five (hillings for each bird deftroyed within 
that (pace. According to Mr.'Pennant, the number 
caught in one feafon, in only ten decoys, in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Wainfleet, amounted to 31,200. It was 
cuftomary formerly to have in the fens an annual driving 
of the young ducks before they took wing. Numbers of 
people affcmbled, who beat a vaft traft, and forced the 
birds into a net placed at the fpot where the fport was 
to terminate. A hundred and fifty dozens have been 
taken at once : but this pradtice, being detrimental to 
the breed, it has been aboliftied by adt of parliament. See 
Bird-cutching, vol. iii. p. 53. 
To DECRE'ASE, v. n. \_decreJ'co, Lat.] To grow lefs; 
to be diminifhed.—From the moon is the fign of feaft 
a light that decreafcth in her perfedtion. Ecclus. xliii. 7. 
—Unto fifty years, as they faid, the heart annually io- 
creafeth the weight of one drachm ; after which, in the 
fame proportion, it decreafcth. Brown. 
To DECRE'ASE, v. a. To make lefs; to diminifh.—i 
Heat increafes the fluidity of tenacious liquids, as of oil, 
balfam, and honey ; and thereby decrcafcs their refiftance. 
Newton. 
DECRE'ASE,/". The ftate of growing lefs; decay: 
By weak’ning toil and hoary age o’ercome. 
See thy dccreafe, and haften to thy tomb. Prior. 
The wane ; the time when the vifible face of the moon 
grows lefs.—See in what time the feeds, fet in the in- 
creafe of the moon, come to a certain height, and how 
they differ from thole that are fet in the dccreafe of the 
moon. Bacon. 
DECREA'TION, f. [ de , from, and era?, to create.] 
An annihilation. Scott. 
To DECRE'E, v. n. [ decretum , Lat.] To make an 
edidt ; to appoint by edict; to eftablifh by law ; to de¬ 
termine ; to refolve.—They (hall fee the end of the wife, 
and (hall not underftand what God in his counfel hath 
decreed of him. Wifd. iv. 
Father eternal! thine is to decree ; 
Mine, both in heav’n and earth, to do thy will. Milton. 
To DECRE'E, v. a. To doom or aflign by a decree. 
—Thou (halt alfo decree a thing, and it (hall be efta- 
blifhed. Job. 
The king their father, 
On juft and weighty reafons, has decreed 
His feeptre to the younger. Rowe. 
DECRE'E,/! [' decretum , Lat.] An edidt; a law.—■ 
The Supreme Being is fovereignly good ; he rewards the 
juft, and punifties the unjuft : and the folly of man, and 
not the decree of heaven, is the caufe of human cala¬ 
mity. Broom,c. 
Are we condemn’d by fate’s unjuft decree 
No more our houfes and our homes to fee J Dryden. 
Ah eftablifhed rule.—When he made a decree for the rain, 
and a way for the lightning of the thunder. Job, xxviii. 26. 
DECREE,/! in law, is the judgment of a court of 
equity on any bill preferred. A decree in chancery is 
of the like nature with a judgment at common-law. 
Chan. Rep. 234. Where there is but one witriefs again ft 
the defendant’s anfwef, the plaintiff can have no decree. 
1 Fern. 161. Where no ordinary procefs upon the firft 
decree will ferve for the execution thereof, there mult 
be a new bill to pray execution of the firft decree by a 
fiecond decree. 2 Chan. Rep. 127. Verbal agreement, 
though fubfequent to the decree, yet (hall not ftay the 
execution of it, but the remedy mult be by original bill. 
Whenever a decree is entered by conlent, the merits of 
it lhall never after be enquired into, unlefs there be an 
objedtion, that the word confent be (truck out of the or¬ 
der. MS. Norcot v. Norcot. 
Several queftions and difputes were heretofore warmly 
agitated, as to the authority of the mafter of the rolls to 
hear 
