THE DUCK DECOYS OF ESSEX. 197
some coastguardsmen, cooking a mutton chop in the wind
several hundred yards away, once caused the birds to rise from
the pond; and extra precautions had to be taken in the kitchen
of the nearest farmhouse, though quite a quarter-of-a-mile
distant, when the wind blew from it to the pond. The sight
of the birds is also remarkably quick, and the decoyman not
only must keep himself hid, but must take care that even his
shadow does not fall across the water. The water in the pond
is supplied from a brook running near, and is kept fresh and clear,
and at a consistent level, the depth being from three to four feet
in the centre, but gradually lessening towards the sides. Several
landing-places on the banks, and in the mouths of the pipes,
are neatly turfed, and on these the fowl delight to sit and bask—
banking as it is called—the Wigeon being especially fond of
eating the short grass. The pond itself is in the form of a star-
fish with six arms or ditches extending from it in semi-circular
shape to different points of the compass. These arms—called
pipes—are seventy yards in length by eight in breadth where
they leave the pond, gradually narrowing to half-a-yard at the
other extremity. Over the whole length and enclosing on both
sides a small strip of the bank is stretched a tarred net upon
wooden hoops, closely fastened down to the ground, except for
a small distance on one side of the pipe, near the pond, which
is left open for the evolutions of the dog, to be mentioned
presently. At the pond end the net is about twelve feet from the
water, but the hoops gradually taper away to a height of only
half-a-yard. At the small end is fixed a circular tunnel net about
twelve feet by two feet, which can easily be detached and closed
and in which the birds are secured ; the whole effect of the pipe
resembling at a little distance the tail of a huge serpent, whose
body is hid in the rushes and trees around the pond. From the
mouth of each pipe is fixed, along the outer side, a series of
screens to hide the decoyman and his operations from the birds
in the pond. These screens, twelve or fourteen in number,
are made of reeds in fixed wooden frames. Each screen is about
twelve feet long by six-and-a-half feet high, and they are arranged
to overlap one another like the folds of a perpendicular Venetian
blind, with spaces between each at which the decoyman may
show himself to the birds in the pipe when the time comes to
drive them into the tunnel net. These openings are closed
towards the ground by a smaller screen of two feet in height,
for the purpose of hiding the decoyman's dog, and over which
he is taught to jump in and out at a given sign. By means of
these screens, and the reeds which grow thickly around the
pond in the intermediate spaces between the pipes, the decoyman
is able to approach the water from any quarter unseen. Small