A decoy is generally made where there is a large pond surrounded with wood, and beyond that a marshy uncultivated country. If the piece of water is not thus surrounded, it will be attended with the noise and other accidents, which may be expected to frighten the wild-fowl from a quiet haunt where they mean to sleep during the day time in security. If such noises or disturbances are wilful, an action will lie against the disturbers. As soon as the evening sets in, the decoy _rises_ (as the term is) and the wild fowl feeds during the night. If the evening be still, the noise of their wings, during their flight, is heard at a very great distance, and is a pleasing, though melancholy sound. The _rising_ of the decoy in the evening is, in Somersetshire, called _radding_. The decoy-ducks are fed with hempseed, which is thrown over the skreen in small quantities, to bring them forward into the pipes or canals, and to allure the wild-fowl to follow as this seed floats. There are several _pipes_, as they are called, which lead up a narrow ditch that closes at last with a funnel net. Over these pipes, (which grow narrower from their first entrance) is a continued arch of netting, suspended on hoops. It is necessary to have a pipe, or ditch for almost every wind that can blow, as upon this circumstance it depends which pipe the fowl will take to; and the Decoy-man always keeps on the _windward_ side of the ducks, holding near his mouth a lighted turf, to prevent his breath or effluvia reaching their sagacious nostrils. All along each pipe, at certain intervals are placed skreens, made of reeds, so situated and contrived, that it is impossible the wild fowl should see the decoy-man before they have passed on toward the end of the pipes where the purse net is placed. The inducement of the wildfowl to go up one of these pipes is, because the decoy-ducks, trained to this, lead the way, either after hearing the whistle of the decoy-man, or enticed by the hempseed: the latter will dive underwater or swim quietly away, while the wildfowl fly on and are taken in the purse net. It often happens, however, that the wildfowl are in such a state of sleepiness and dozing, that they will not follow the decoy-ducks. Use is then generally made of a dog, that has been taught his lesson: he passes backward and forward, between the reed skreens, (in which are little holes, both for the decoy-man to see, and the little dog to pass through); this attracts the eye of the wild-fowl, who, not choosing to be interrupted, advance toward the small contemptible animal, that they may drive him away. The dog all the time, by the directions of the decoy-man, plays among the skreens of reeds nearer and nearer to the purse net; till at last, perhaps, the decoy-man appears behind a skreen, and the wild-fowl not daring to pass by him in return, nor being able to escape upward, on account of the net covering, rush on into the purse net.