Duck Decoy

A visit to the Decoy was a favourite pastime for our friends.
he Decoy itself in- cluded a space of several acres, dedicated to the purpose, and left to run into a wilderness of alders, sedge, and reed. In the centre was a pond, in which swam tame ducks, trained from their egg-shell to deceive their species. Several ditches or pipes were cut with a slight curve issuing from a large pond, about three or four yards wide at the entrance, and thirty to fifty yards long.

The time of catching was by law from June i to Oct i. Teal and widgeon were taken between October and March.

Frank Coles, now occupying a farm in Holme Fen, has told me that Skelton, who established his decoy about the year 1815, stated to him that for the first three or four years the decoy was drowned, and he caught no ducks. In the following year he took two hundred dozen in seven days. The price of ducks in Leadenhall Market was usually eight shillings a couple.

J.M.Heathcote, Reminiscences of Fen and Mere, 1876