Page 169 HISTORY OF DECOYS.

HISTORY OF DECOYS ( continued ).



CHAPTER XIV.

DECOYS IN THE COUNTY OF SURREY.
Decoys in use. Virginia Water.	Decoys not in use. Ottershaw. Pyrford.
Virginia Water.-This large piece of water is 23 miles distant from London. On its north shore is what is known as the Decoy. This consists of two pipes within 50 yards of one another, situated in a dense overhanging bank of evergreens, and a third pipe or channel, now disused, which was intended for a cage or trap-pipe, with a falling-door, as at Hardwick. The latter, however, proving useless, was given up soon after its construction. The two pipes now in use are of small size, being but 45 yards in length and 15 feet across their entrances. They are of very primitive construction, and have no landings for the birds, or even banks for the dog to run along. The growth of evergreens is so high and close on all sides that the pipes are quite sheltered from the winds suitable for working them, and it is therefore only by haphazard any fowl are caught. The pipes were laid out by the late head-keeper, Mr. Menzies, who took his ideas from the Milton Decoy, near Sittingbourne in Kent, with the assistance of its owner, Mr. Gascoyne. Mr. Smith, the chief woodman at Windsor Park, who showed me this Decoy, and who has it under his charge, related that during the winter over 1,000 wild Ducks might be sometimes seen at one time on Virginia Water, and now and then 100 to 150 fowl round the Decoy. Mr. Smith uses but a couple of Decoy Ducks, and, from the faulty construction of the pipes, rarely a Dog.