ESSEX PRE-ORNITHOLOGY. 17
dated March 17, 1679. The Memorandum deals with the appli-
cation of one, "James Maiden of Felsted, decoyman, free, that
"he might be admitted into the liberties of the Borough."
18th CENTURY.
In the early part of this century we find mention of another
Essex heronry. Writing of Belhus, Aveley, Holman in his
manuscript History of Essex, dated about 1710, and said to
be preserved at Colchester, states: "Here was a Heronry,
"where the Herons built on the lofty oaks and fed their yonge
"ones by fish caught out of the channell that's near." Morant
in 1768 writes of this: "Here was formerly a Heronry, which
"being a thing not commonly to be met with, was esteemed
"a circumstance of no small consequence, while the diversion
"of Hawking was in fashion; but of late years not thought to
"balance the inconveniences attending it, and the Herons
"therefore are not suffered to build longer." Later he tells us
"The Manor of Heron or Herne seems originally to have taken
"its name from a Heronry here, as was lately at Belhouse in
"Alvely."
Decoys have been a useful source of ornithological informa-
tion, although in many cases no record remains of the birds they
took. We have knowledge that at some time or other there were
35 decoys in Essex. A list of these with directions to their
positions will be found in A History of the Birds of Essex. It
may be that none of them is now in use, certainly there was only
one, the Grange, in 1929. The histories of these decoys, so far
as they are known, are described in Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's
Book of Duck Decoys and also in Miller Christy's Birds of Essex.
J. H. Gurney states in his Early Annals of Ornithology that the
oldest East Anglian decoy of which we have any precise par-
ticulars is that at Steeple, which was constructed in 1713. The
original owner of the decoy kept an account of its construction
and also for thirteen years the numbers of wildfowl captured
and the prices they obtained. The M.S., it is stated, was con-
tained in a small folio voulme, bound in vellum, and was written
between the years 1713 and 1727, and was in the possession of
Mr. Robert Smith, of Maldon. In this valuable volume was
a summary of the ducks taken in this period and also a table
showing the number of each species taken in each month for