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The Wild Duck

is so well known as to require no particular description.

The plumage is little different to some tame Ducks, but the neck is slenderer, the foot smaller, the nails more black, and the web of the foot finer; the young Ducks are distinguished from the old by their softer and redder feet, and by plucking a feather from the wing; if young, it will be soft and bloody, if old, this extremity will be hard. The wild Duck is less in size than the tame; its general weight is two pounds and a half; but in 1781, at Chillesford decoy, in Suffolk, several Mallards were taken that weighed three pounds and a half. Wild Ducks frequent the marshes of this kingdom, where numbers of them breed; they pair in spring, and lay from ten to eighteen eggs; the time of incubation is about thirty days; the young take the water so soon as hatched, which is usually in May; but the growth of their wings is very slow, and they are unable to fly before August.

The wild Duck is an artful bird, and does not always make its nest close to the water; an instance Mr. TUNSTALL mentions of a nest being found at Etchingham, in Sussex, upon an oak tree, five and twenty feet from the ground; the old Duck was sitting upon nine eggs, which were supported by some small twigs, laid crossways. The Gamekeepers of Mr. Eyre, of Passop, Derbyshire, in 1801, observed a wild Duck fly out of a large oak, in which the year preceding there was a Hawk's nest; upon examining, the nest was found in complete repair, and contained two eggs, recently laid by the Duck in it.

The number of wild Fowl taken in decoys is amazing; these birds have of late years been all contracted for by the London Salesmen and Poulterers, at so much per dozen, formerly eighteen shillings, now from a guinea to four and twenty shillings. It is to be remembered, that twenty-four of all other birds, except Duck and Mallard, go to the dozen, or at least bring no larger price.

A decoy is generally situated in a marsh, so as to be surrounded with wood or reeds, and, if possible, both, the better to keep the pond quiet, and that the repose of the fowl may not be interrupted; for, in a state between sleep and inactive reverie, the greatest part of the animal world pass their lives, except when they are excited by the call of hunger. In this pond the birds sleep all day; so soon as the evening sets in, the decoy rises (as it is termed), and the wild fowl feed during the night. If the evening is still, the noise of their wings, during their flight, is heard at a great distance, and is a pleasing, though rather melancholy sound. In Somersetshire this rising of the decoy in the eve, is called rodding. The decoy Ducks (which are either bred in the pond-yard, or in the marshes adjacent ; and who, although they fly abroad, regularly return for food to the pond, and are mixed with tame ones, which never quit the pond, and are taught for this purpose), are fed with

hempseed, oats, and buckwheat, of which it will take for the use of a pond for a year, about eight quarters of oats, one of hempseed, and one of buckwheat. The other expences are, a man to constantly attend the decoy; every four years the poles and nets will be new, as in the intervening years they will be replaced; some at one time, some at another, so as to be all renewed in the above period. Reeds for repairing skreens, Dutch turf, rent, decoy birds, and many etceteras are also to be included; and the repayment all depends upon the haunt of fowl which take to the pond.

In working, the hempseed is thrown over the skreens in small quantities, to allure the fowl forward into the pipes; of which there are several, leading up a narrow ditch, that closes at last with a funnel-net. Over these pipes, which grow narrower from the first entrance, is a continued arch of netting suspended on hoops: it is necessary to have a pipe for almost every wind that can blow, as upon this circumstance it depends which pipe the fowl will take to; and the decoy-man always keeps to leeward of the wild fowl, that his effluvia should not reach them; and this he likewise takes a further care to prevent, by keeping a piece of Dutch turf burning in his mouth or hand; for such is the acute sense of smelling which wild fowl possess, that should the pond be full of fowl, if they scented a man, not a bird would remain in it a moment. Along each pipe are placed reed skreens at certain intervals, which protect the decoy-man from being seen, until he pleases to shew himself, or the birds are passed up the pipe, to which they are led by the trained birds, who know the whistle of the decoy-man, or are enticed by the hempseed. A dog, which is generally preferred to be of a red colour, is sometimes used, who is taught to play backwards and forwards between the skreens, at the direction of his master; the fowl, roused by this new object, advance towards it, whilst the dog is playing still nearer to the entrance of the pipes, until at last the decoy-man appears from behind the skreens, and the wild fowl not daring to pass by him, and unable to escape upwards, on account of the net covering upon the hoops, press forward to the end of the funnel-net, which terminates upon the land, where a person is ready to receive them and break their necks; in doing of which there is much dexterity. The trained birds return back past the decoy-man into the pond again, until a repetition of their services is required. A side wind is the best to work the birds.

The general season for catching is from the latter end of October until February. The taking of them earlier is prohibited by the act 10 Geo. II. c. 32, which forbids it from June 1 to October 1, under a penalty of five shillings for each bird destroyed within that space.

It was customary formerly to have in the fens an annual driving of the young Ducks before they took wing. Numbers of people assembled, who beat a vast tract, and forced. the birds into a net placed at the spot where the sport was to terminate. A hundred and fifty dozen have been taken at once; but this practice being supposed detrimental, has been abolished by act of Parliament.

At Spalding, a record of this driving of the old birds, when unable to fly, states, "that at the ducking on Thursday last were taken up one hundred and seventy-four dozen of Mallards or Drakes moulting; and on Monday forty-six dozen and a half; in all, two thousand six hundred and forty-six Mallards." The above account certainly proves the necessity of parliamentary interference to prevent such slaughter, at a time too when the birds must be sickly and unwholesome.

A decoy in some seasons is astonishingly lucrative: in 1795, the Tillingham decoy, in Esser, at that time in the occupation of Mr. Mascall, netted, after every expence, upwards of eight hundred pounds, and the only birds taken were Duck and Mallard.

In 1799, ten thousand head of Wigeon, Teal, and wild Ducks, were caught in a decoy of the Rev. Bate Dudley, in Essex.

The tricks which the decoy-men employ to destroy the haunt of the birds in each others ponds are various, and as well calculated to produce the mischievous effects they intend, as can well be devised; such as putting a slightly wounded bird or two into the pond, not a bird will pipe until the stricken Deer is removed; and the natural shyness of the bird is so awakened by the pain of his wounds, that it is sometimes the labour of two or three days to secure him and restore tranquillity. A second manœuvre is, thrusting a feather through the nostrils of a wild fowl, and launching it into the decoy: here again not a fowl can be caught until this deformed stranger is got rid of. A third, and perhaps the most decisive, is, starting truin oil into the brook or rill which supplies the pond at some distance from it; some portion of this will be carried by the current into the decoy, and in an instant the fowl, however numerous, quit, and will not resume their haunt until every taint is removed.

The Teal

is one of the most delicate birds that graces our tables, and has been sold for ten, and frequently sells for seven, shillings a couple.

The male Teal weighs about twelve ounces, the female nine; the length is fourteen inches, the breadth twenty-three; bill black, irides pale hazel; head and upper part of the neck of a deep bay; from the bill to the hind part of the head is a broad bar of glossy changeable green, bounded on the under part with a white line; fore part of the neck and breast dusky white, marked with roundish black spots; belly white, middle of the vent black, the wing coverts brown, quills dusky, the exterior webs of the lesser marked with a vivid green spot; above that another of black, and edged with white; the legs brown. The female is of a brownish ash colour; the lower part of the neck, and sides over the wing, brown, edged with white; the wing has a green spot like the male; the belly and

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