Page 54 THE BOOK OF DUCK DECOYS.

THE BOOK OF DUCK DECOYS.

    The ice need only be cleared a short distance inside the pipe; as far, in fact, as the point at which the fowl can be driven up from.
    The ice clearing of a Decoy is a most unpleasant duty, but results usually well repay the trouble. It also requires considerable management to clear the ice properly. A good deal can be done in thin ice by the use of a heavy pole and by rocking a boat. In thick the better way is to cut off large blocks, and then with a grapnel pull them under the solid sheet as the Decoyman stands on its verge. Several cracks with an axe and a side wedge or two will split the ice along from point
to point.
    It is no use clearing the ice early in the night, as it will only freeze again before the ducks return from their feeding grounds at dawn.
    It will have to be done as soon before the fowl arrive in the morning as possible, say from six to seven o'clock.
    A small flat boat, and a long iron-shod pole, needs be always at hand.     The boat can be lifted out of the water and hidden out of sight during the day, or, what is better, concealed in a boat harbour roofed with planks and turf
    Some extra grain can be thrown to the Decoy ducks (who will be hungrier than usual) during frost. By doing this judiciously, they will much assist, by their motions, in keeping the mouth of a favourable pipe for work clear of gathering ice.
    If ice forms very quickly in still corners about the pipe by day, throw some good handfuls of grain on its surface. Then the weight of tame ducks, as well very often of the wild, will break it up and force through it. In a frost, at its commencement, when fowl have sought the rivers and marshes for fresh water, through being frozen out of their usual haunts, it is a judicious action, on one or two occasions only, to "rise" a Decoy (early in the morning)-that is, to frighten the birds away. By so doing they will presently return and bring many strangers with them.

Killing Birds.-This is a knack, requiring a certain amount of skill, that has to be learnt by a new Decoyman, and which consists in breaking the necks of the captured fowl artistically. It is a very necessary operation to learn, for nothing looks worse than half-strangled fowl fluttering about the ground.