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WILD-FOWL DECOYS IN ESSEX.
By J. E. HARTING, F.L.S., F.Z.S. (Member of the British Ornithologists' Union).
[Read February 26th, 1887.]
With Plate I.
Although the investigations carried on by any Natural History
Society need not necessarily be confined to objects within the county,
or district, in which the Society has been formed, it is only natural
that these should occupy the chief share of attention, since they
possess a greater interest for members of the Society than topics
having no special relation to the county.
From this point of view it has occurred to me that some account
of wild-fowl decoys in Essex might be acceptable to the Society,
especially as I have reason to think that the subject may be new to
many.
We have only to look at the map of Europe to see how favourably
the county of Essex is situated to afford refuge to the vast flocks of
wild-fowl which, migrating southward at the approach of winter, come
to us from Scandinavia and countries further north, as well as from
the opposite shores of Holland.
Looking more particularly at a map of the county, we cannot fail
to be struck at the number of important rivers (no less than six)
which empty themselves into the sea along its coast, forming wide
estuaries and tidal harbours, some of them studded with islands, and
bordered in some places for many miles with extensive marshes and
mud-flats, which afford attractive feeding ground to many species of
wild ducks as well as to large flocks of Brent geese.
One island in particular, Foulness Island, was formerly notable for
the colony of Black-headed Gulls, or "Putts" as they were locally
termed, which annually resorted to breed there. It is thus quaintly
noticed by Fuller ("Worthies," page 318):—
"There is an island of some two hundred acres near Harwich, in the parish of
Little-Okeley, in the manour of Matthew Gilly, Esq., called the Putt Island,
from Putts, in effect the sole inhabitants thereof. Some affirm them called in
Latine Upupae, whilst others maintain that the Roman language doth not reach
the name, nor land afford the bird. On Saint George his day precisely they pitch
on the island, seldome laying fewer than four or more than six eggs. Great their
love to their young ones ; for though against foul weather they make to the main
land (a certain prognostick of tempests), yet they always weather it out in the island
when hatching their young ones, seldome sleeping whilst they sit on their eggs
(afraid, it seems, of spring-tides), which signifieth nothing as to securing their
eggs from the inundation, but is an argument of their great affection. Being
young they consist onely of bones, feathers, and lean flesh, which hath a raw gust