Nothing requires more care and judgment than the successful decoying of ducks. It is carried on most successfully between nine and ten in the morning and three and four in the afternoon. In open weather the fowl are captured almost entirely by means of the dog, but as soon as frost sets in they are taken by feeding them in the pipe, and keeping a piece of water constantly open near it. Now as to the actual working. If the birds are sluggish the trained dog cleverly works them from the bank, and either drives or attracts them by curiosity to the pipe to be worked, being also aided by the decoy ducks and induced to stay by finding corn scattered about. By skilful manipulation the fowl are worked up the pipe, the dog trotting in and out of the reed-screens and luring them further and further away. Soon they have made sufficient progress to enable the man to show himself, and this he does at the same time waving his hat. Retreat to the pool is cut off, and the terrified birds rush up the pipe only to find themselves in the narrowing tunnel-net which terminates it. This is at once detached, and the final scene is the wringing of the ducks' necks by the decoy man. As all the pipes curve to the right the decoying is unseen from the pool, and one set of fowl can be "worked" whilst others are sleeping or preening themselves on the lake. Further aids of concealment for the working of the decoy other than those enumerated are banks of earth and brushwood running parallel to the palings. As sportsmen would rather shoot fowl than snare them, the decoy is mostly interesting nowadays to naturalists and antiquarians. To show their value, however, in times gone by, it may be mentioned that a corporation has been known to invest trust funds in one, and that a decoy in Suffolk, which sent a ton and a half of wild-fowl to London four times a week, realised £1,000 a year. In this 16,800 ducks were captured in a single season. CHAPTER XI. FIELD AND COVERT POACHERS.