THE DUCK DECOYS OF ESSEX.
213
and 6296 "wiggin," giving a total of 7,364 birds in the following
proportions :—
Then follows the entry : "Sold to Mr. Neptune this years
whild fowll at 9s. 6d. per doz."—£150. From this it would
appear that only 317 dozen or 3,804 birds were sold, leaving
296 dozen, or 3,552 birds to be accounted for. Harting points
out that had the owner sold all the birds taken at 9s. 6d. a dozen
he might have met the cost of the construction of the decoy out
of the first year's taking and had a balance in hand of £115. A
consideration of the last table reveals several points of interest.
In the first place it appears that, as later, the ducks taken in Essex
were chiefly Wigeon, secondly that the great body of these
birds arrived in autumn before the cold weather had set in and
that after November comparatively few were taken. Ducks
and Teal, however, did not appear in force until mid-winter ;
while "Pyntails" were always scarce and irregular in their
appearance. Harting states that these conclusions were not
based merely on the returns for the first year, 1714, but were
supported by the returns for subsequent years. In 1716 the
price paid for wildfowl rose to 10s. and the following year to
10s. 6d. per dozen, the purchaser being "Jno. Deal." In 1718
Joseph Woodwards ceased to be "Duckoyman," and in his
stead "Ben Carter'' was employed, but whatever was the cause
the new man was not so successful as his predecessor. He never
succeeded in taking more than 4,500 Wigeon in a season (this
was in 1722), while Woodwards never took less than 5,200
of these ducks in a season and once captured 6,296 in five months.
The months of December, 1718, and January, 1719, were singu-
larly unproductive. During the former month the decoy was
only worked on two days, the 22nd and 30th, when only forty
birds, all ducks, were taken. In January four days' work resulted
in only fifty-three Ducks and twelve Wigeon. In 1720-21 the
season was prolonged until 3rd March, but the results were not
encouraging, for only fourteen Ducks were taken and the total
number captured during the previous month of February was
only thirty-three. In 1721 the price obtained for wildfowl rose
to 12s. per dozen, the purchaser being Mr. John Deal. The