WILD-FOWL DECOYS IN ESSEX. 163
This wholesale destruction of wild-fowl, carried on at a season of
the year when they were unable to save themselves by flight, threat-
ened their speedy extermination, and legislative measures were
adopted to prevent it. Even so long ago as 1534, in Henry the
Eighth's time, an Act of Parliament entitled "An Act to avoide
distruction of wilde fowle" was passed with the express object of
appointing a "close time" for these birds. The preamble to this
act is thus quaintly worded :—
"Where before this time ther hath ben within this realme great plentie of wilde
fowle, as ducks, mallardes, wigeons, teales, wild geese, and divers other kinds of
wild fowle, wherby not onely the king's most honourable household, but also the
houses of the noblemen and prelates of this realme have ben furnished for the
necessarie expences of the same houses at convenient prices, but also al markets of
the same realme were sufficiently furnished with wild fowle, there to be sold in such
wise that such as were mete to make provision of the same for their houses might at
resonable prices at the same markets be therof provided. Neverthelesse divers
persons next inhabiting in the countries and places within this realme, where the
substance of the same wildfowle hath ben accustomed to brede, have in the sommer
season at such time as the saide olde fowle be moulted and not replenished with
fethers to flie, nor the yong fowle fully fethered perfectly to flie, have by certaine
nettes and other ingins and policies yerely taken grete numbre of the same fowle in
such wise that the brede of wilde fowle is almoste thereby wasted and consumed,
and daily is like more and more to waste and consume, if remedie be not therefor
provided."
The statute accordingly went on to provide that any person or
persons taking wild-fowl with nets or other engines between the last
day of May and the last day of August should, on conviction, suffer
a year's imprisonment, and forfeit for every fowl so taken fourpence
Another section of the same Act made it illegal to take their eggs.
No restriction was placed upon the capture of wild-fowl at any
other time of year than that above specified, and man's ingenuity
soon contrived a mode of making amends in winter for the opportu-
nities lost in summer, by taking in decoys large numbers not only of
the home-bred wild-fowl which had escaped destruction earlier in the
year, but of the migrating flocks arriving at the commencement of
the cold weather.
So far as can be judged from imperfect descriptions, the form of
decoy (introduced into England, it is said, by Sir William Wodehouse
in the reign of James I.) was probably much the same as that used
at the present day, allowing for certain modifications and improve-
ments which time would be sure to develop.3
3 The practice is doubtless of Dutch origin; the word decoy being in fact a corruption of the
Dutch eende-kooi signifying a "duck-cage."