Page 90 THE BOOK OF DUCK DECOYS.

THE BOOK OF DUCK DECOYS.


The largest take of ducks he ever remembers in one season was 700 dozen; but, he added, I mean 700 dozen whole fowl. Now, if we suppose that 300 dozen out of the 700 dozen were Teal and Wigeon, of which there were large quantities in those days, we have in reality these figures :--viz., 400 dozen whole fowl and 600 dozen half fowl, four half fowl, as you are aware, counting as one couple of ducks; in other words, you have this result of one season's catch on one acre of water:-

400 dozen whole fowl 600 dozen half fowl Total	= 4,800 ducks. = 7,200 Teal, Wigeon, Divers, &c. 12,000 birds.

This certainly is an enormous take off one acre of water, and beats my remembrance of our old Decoyman at Fritton Lake, John Fiske,-taking 600 ducks in one night, as I have known him do on several occasions. Still, as my father's aunt, Mrs. Merry, who lived at our Decoy at Herringfleet Hall, on Fritton Lake, about sixty years ago, never made more than Ł300 a year clear by the ducks, I don't think our success was ever equal to that at Oakley Hall, especially when you consider how very small the water of the latter place was. "Mr. Smith states: 'We usually took the ducks at sunset and sunrise, and used liver-coloured fox-terriers if they could be got, and were handy ones. We used liver-coloured because the brighter the colour of the dogs the better the ducks worked to them. A piece of burning turf was an essential, the nose of the duck being so acute. We fed the Decoys with the following:-Oats, buckwheat, and hempseed oil, the latter being sprinkled over the former to give it flavour, and at times we also used malt coombs with a dash of oil of aniseed over them, this latter concoction ducks being very fond of. I never remembered,' adds Mr Smith, ' more than eighteen dozen ducks taken in one drive, namely, 212.' Now I remember," says Colonel Leathes, "about ten years ago 300 ducks being taken on Fritton Decoy in one drive. Old Smith narrates, 'My father and I had a good deal of trouble in keeping the Decoy open on very cold, frosty nights; but we would break the ice as well as we could till the ducks returned home from the feed in the early morning, and then we would throw a quantity of barley on the then fresh formed ice, and the weight of the ducks getting upon its surface would cause it to break again, and allow a mass of birds to keep swimming about all day in a small compass of water, and so doing the work for us of keeping the Decoy open.