Barley water is made by boiling pearl barley in water. This may be used in fevers, either alone, or as a vehicle for nitre or other medicine. Various other decoctions are occasionally employed, and sometimes preferred on account of their cheapness, to more efficacious, but more expensive medicines; yet it must be recollected that some vegetables, such as peppermint, pennyroyal, &c. have their useful properties dissipated by much boiling, and should therefore be only simmered for a few minutes, or only infused.—_White._ DECOY, _v._ To lure into a cage, to entrap. The decoys now in use are formed by cutting pipes, or tapering ditches, widened and deepened as they approach the water; in various semicircular directions, through the swampy ground, into particular large pools, which are sheltered by surrounding trees or bushes, and situated commonly in the midst of the solitary marsh. At the narrow points of these ditches farthest from the pool, by which they are filled with water, the fowlers place their funnel nets: from these the ditch is covered by a continued arch of netting, supported by hoops, to the desired distance; and all along both sides, screens formed of reeds are set up so as to prevent the possibility of the birds seeing the decoyman; and as these birds feed during the night, all is ready prepared for this sport in the evening. The fowler, then placed on the leeward side, sometimes with the help of his well-trained dog, but always by that of his better trained tame decoy ducks, begins the business of destruction. The latter, directed by his well known whistle, or excited forward by the floating hempseed, which he strews occasionally upon the water, entice all the wild ducks after them under the netting; and as soon as this is observed, the man or his dog, as the fitness of opportunity may direct, is from the rear exposed to the view of the birds, by which they are so alarmed that they dare not offer to return, and are prevented by the nets from escaping upwards: they therefore press forward in the utmost confusion to the end of the pipe, into the purse nets there prepared to receive them, while their treacherous guides remain behind in conscious security. The season allowed by act of parliament for catching these birds in this way, continues only from the latter end of October till February.