DECOYS AND WILD-FOWLING IN ESSEX.
53
for many interesting particulars of the habits of the wild-fowl, and for their per-
mission to visit so freely the pond itself; a permission the more valued from the
fact that decoys are usually jealously guarded, and strictly closed to all visitors.
The reasons for this will be apparent in the following description ; but it may be
mentioned that so seldom in former days was anyone but the owner and decoy-
man—often one and the same person—allowed to see a pond in working order,
that several of the accounts that have been published in the works of eminent
naturalists, and still quoted at the present day, are absurdly incorrect: one of
them, for instance, stating that the birds are taken at night, the very time when
the pond is empty, or when it would be impossible to take them, if in ; and
another that the dog drives the birds up the net from behind, the whole secret of
the success in using a dog being that he should always be ahead of the birds.
As exceptions to these, however, should be mentioned the very minute and accu-
rate account of decoys given by Mr. Folkard in his entertaining book, the Wild
Fowler, and that of the Rev. Richard Lubbock in his Fauna of Norfolk. * * *
Decoy ponds formerly were of great size, those in Norfolk being as much as
a hundred acres in extent, the largest nearly a thousand ; but experience proved
that, though many thousand birds would come to them, fewer were caught than
in those of smaller size, and that actually the most successful of all were not more
than two acres in extent. The pond at Tillingham covers about an acre and a
quarter. It stands in the marshes, about half a mile from the sea-wall, on the
other side of which, at low water, is a vast expanse of mud extending nearly two
miles, and where in severe weather thousands and tens of thousands of Wild
Geese, Duck, Widgeon, &c, will congregate, while still more numerous flocks
of Plover, Dunlins (Oxbirds), Curlew, &c, skim up and down among them. It
is surrounded by large beds of tall-growing rushes and plantations of willow and
other trees, which serve at the same time to shelter the wild-fowl, and to hide from
them the approach of human beings and other things likely to alarm them.
Standing also as they do in a clump on the otherwise bare marshes, the trees are
visible a long distance out at sea, and act as a mark to attract and guide the birds
to the pond. Wild-fowl are easily alarmed by noise, and a decoy must be away
from high roads and houses, or fields where horses are likely to be ploughing. In
the precincts of the pond itself silence is necessary, and conversation must hardly
be carried on, even in a whisper. Shooting within a considerable radius is, of course,
strictly prohibited ; and several actions at law are recorded where damages
have been recovered from punters and others who have caused the birds to " rise "
(the technical name for taking flight in alarm) from decoys, by firing off guns
in their neighbourhood. In wild-fowl, again, the sense of smell is strongly
developed, and they easily scent and take alarm at anyone approaching on the
windward side. It is said that some coastguardsmen, cooking a mutton chop in
the wind several hundred yards away, once, caused the birds to rise from this
pond ; and extra precautions have to be taken in the kitchen of the nearest farm-
house, though quite a quarter of a mile distant, when the wind blows 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 his shadow even does
not fall across the water. The necessity for taking these precautions is the
excuse for the usual rule of " no admittance to visitors," the effluvia from an
engineer's oily jacket, or a "swell's" sealskin coat, being enough to alarm
the birds in some moods ; and when once frightened out of a pond, they are
shy about returning to it again.
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 Widgeon also
being especially fond of eating the short grass. The pond itself is in the form of a
star-fish, with six (sometimes more or less) arms or ditches extending from it
in semicircular shape to different points of the compass. These arms—techni-
cally called pipes—are about 70 yards in length by 8 in breadth where they
leave the pond, gradually narrowing to half a yard at the other extremity. Over
their whole length, and inclosing on both sides a small strip of the bank, is