DECOYS AND WILD-FOWLING IN ESSEX. 65
the last occasions when they were used, a waggon-load of birds was
taken. Bean was the name of the farmer who then held the decoy,
and Samuel Mussett, of West Mersea, fired the gun. Arthur Young,
who seems to have been much struck by this arrangement, is cor-
roborated by Capt. Hipsey's statement. He says (loc. cit. ii., p.
362):—
" The contrivance for taking Dunbirds was new to me. At the decoy for
them near Ipswich, there are a series of very high poles, to which the nets are
attached, for taking them in their flight; and these poles are permanent. At this
Mersea Decoy, to which this bird resorts in large quantities, as well as ducks,
the net poles are suspended when not at work."
Speaking of this subject, Folkard (The Wildfowler, 3rd Ed.
p. 95) says:—
" To give some idea of the immense flights of Dunbirds which used to be
taken in the flight-nets at Mersea and Goldhanger, in Essex, the body of birds
has there been known to be so great that when their flight has been attempted to
be intercepted they have actually been heavier in a body than the ponderous
boxes of weights placed at the lower ends of the poles, and the consequence has
been that the birds have borne down the net and partly spoilt the fowler's drop ;
but such is a rare occurrence, and cannot happen if the balance-boxes are
judiciously weighted. * * *
At these same decoys, the capture of Dunbirds on one or two occasions
within present memory, has been so great at a drop that a waggon and four
horses were required to remove them from the yard ; and they have fallen in
such heaps on striking the net that many of those at the bottom of the pen were
taken up dead—apparently crushed or stifled by the pressure of those above.
To give a further illustration of the countless numbers of Dunbirds which
sometimes used to assemble on the Essex flight-ponds, it is a fact that the birds
have been known to resort in flights so numerous as to cover, apparently, almost
every available space of water on the pond."
Teal also seem to have been sometimes taken here. Folkard
says (The Wildfowler, 3rd Ed., p. 75):—"The Essex decoys are still
famous for their supplies of Teal. A few years ago, a ' spring' of
400 visited a small pond at Mersea, in Essex, the greater number of
which were taken in a few hours."
We now leave the estuary of the Blackwater and enter that of
the Colne, in which the two following are situated :—
(21.) Villa Farm Decoy lay beside the River Colne, two miles
and a half S.S.W, from Elmstead, and one mile E. from Wyvenhoe.
The pool still remains, but is almost overgrown with reeds and
willows.
(22.) Lion Point, or Wick, Decoy is on Cockett Wick
Farm in the Wick Marshes, two miles S.S.E, from St. Osyth. It
was made in 1860, but never worked.