HISTORY OF DECOYS. | |
| It is said that a good year for acorns is a bad year for ducks, as the birds are continually leaving the Decoy to go into the plantations after the acorns, and will not settle down on the water. Very few "half birds" (i.e., Wigeon and Teal) are killed, sometimes not twenty in a season, although there are often many thousands on the water. In the season of 1883-4, as I am informed by the present owner of Wretham, Mr. Morris, 1,640 ducks were taken; the most ever captured in one season since Mr. Morris has owned the Wretham estate being 1360, the average take annually being 1,000 fowl. On the Ordnance Map, at East Wretham, near Stone Bridge on the "Peddars Way," is a plantation marked " New Decoy." This, however, is only a name. There has never been a Decoy there. Among the peculiar birds and animals caught in the Wretham Decoy by the present Decoyman, who has, I may note, worked it for nearly fifty years uninterruptedly, are a Woodcock, Snipe, Moorhen, Hawk, Blackbird, Thrush, Pheasant, Partridge, Wildgoose, Owl, Kingfisher, a Rabbit, and a -Pig! The Wretham Decoy has more pipes in use (ten) than any other Decoy now worked, one being a left-handed pipe. Didlington, about 9 miles NW. of the last-mentioned Decoy, is another, which was constructed by the Rev. J. Fountaine in 1865 for -Amherst, M.P., of Didlington Park. its present owner, Mr. W. Tyssen It is situated in a wood of 10 acres, about 500 yards from the mansion. It is just an acre in extent, and has four pipes. The fowl taken are chiefly Duck and Teal, with a few Wigeon ; the average number caught annually being 500 In one season 1,000 were caught, and many more than are now taken might be easily captured were it not that the Decoy is only worked for pleasure and sport, and not for profit. In the shooting season the wood in which the Decoy is situated is usually shot once or twice. On one of these occasions when the Author was present, after first decoying some Ducks, 200 to 300 Pheasants were killed in the covert surrounding the Decoy, yet two days afterwards there were as many Ducks as before in the Decoy; showing that shooting round a Decoy occasionally will not damage it. | |
Index List of Illustrations