l60 WILD-FOWL DECOYS IN ESSEX.
of the sea. But poulterers take them then, and feed them with gravel and curds
(that is physic and food), the one to scour, the other to fat them, in a fortnight,
and their flesh thus recruited is most delicious."
The island here referred to, I believe, is Foulness, or as originally
spelled Fowl Ness1; but how long the gulls continued to breed there
I have been unable to discover. Some have supposed that the birds
referred to by Fuller were not gulls, but lapwings. Merrett, for
instance, in his "Pinax" (1666), takes this view :—
"Vanellus, the lapwing, bastard plover, or pewit. Insula quaedam ab iis nomen
fortitur in Essexia. Hue enim migrant praecise ad diem Divo Georgio sacrum.
Vide Fuller. 318."
Charleton also, in his "Onomasticon Zoicon" (1668) makes a
somewhat similar statement, and names the island, "Nomen suum
Foulness nempe, hoc est avium promontorium."
Both Merrett and Charleton, however, appear to have been
deceived by the name "Putt," which they took to refer to the plover,
but which Fuller evidently intended to apply to the gull.
Viewing the county in its present condition, intersected by railways,
with thousands of acres of marsh land reclaimed, drained and
cultivated, we can form but a faint notion of what a paradise for wild-
fowl the Essex coast must have been before an increased population
and extended civilization narrowed the limits of their domain. It is
difficult to realize the state of things which existed before the intro-
duction of shot guns in the sixteenth century, when wild-fowl were
killed with the cross-bow, with trained hawks, or with such kinds of
snares and nets as the ingenuity of man at that period could devise ;
and we have no better proof of their former abundance than the
number of decoys which once existed for their capture. Many
persons seem to be of opinion that decoys in England are amongst
the things of the past, and are surprised to learn that at the present
time there are about forty still in use in different parts of the country,
while at least 140 others are known to have formerly existed.
The great success which attended the working of decoys in the
olden time was due partly to the greater number of wild-fowl which
resorted to the places where they were constructed, partly to the
absolute stillness which prevailed in these out of the way spots, and
partly to the very ingenious contrivance which enabled the fowler to
capture a large number of birds at a time without in the least
1 The island referred to by Fuller is more generally identified with Pewit Island in Great
Oakley parish, between Walton-on-Naze and Harwich. See Messrs. Fitch and Christy's Paper
"A Visit to an Essex Gallery,'' in this part of the Essex Naturalist.—Ed.