The Wildfowler - A Treatise on Fowling, Ancient and Modern (History of Shooting Series - Wildfowling)

SHOOTING WILDFOWL

Wildfowl hunting or shooting is the practice of hunting ducks, geese, quail or other wildfowl for food and sport. In many western countries, commercial wildfowl hunting is prohibited, and sub-genres such as duck hunting have become sporting activities. Many types of ducks and geese share the same habitat, have overlapping or identical hunting seasons, and are hunted using the same methods. Thus, it is possible to take different species of wildfowl in the same outing – waterfowl are by far the most commonly hunted birds though. Waterfowl can be hunted in crop fields where they feed, or, more frequently, on or near bodies of water such as rivers, lakes, ponds, swamps, sloughs, or oceanic coastlines.

Wild wildfowl have been hunted for food, down and feathers worldwide, since prehistoric times. Ducks, geese, and swans appear in European cave paintings from the last Ice Age, and a mural in the Ancient Egyptian tomb of Khum-Hotpe (c. 1900 BC) shows a man in a hunting blind (a covering device for trackers) capturing swimming ducks in a trap. Wildfowl hunting proper - with shotguns - only began in the seventeenth century with the invention of the matchlock shotgun. Later flintlock shotguns and percussion cap guns have also been used, but in general shotguns have been loaded with black powder and led shots, through the muzzle, right up until the late nineteenth century. The history of shooting wildfowl is very much tied up with the development of the shotgun. It was the semi-automatic 12 ga. gun, developed by John Browning in the very early twentieth century which allowed hunters to shoot on a large, commercial scale. Once wildfowlers (primarily in America and Europe) had access to such guns, they could become much more proficient market hunters. They used a four-shell magazine (five including the one in the chamber) to rake rafts of ducks on the water or to shoot them at night in order to kill larger numbers of birds. Even during the great depression years, a brace of Canvasbacks could easily be sold, but legislation was gradually brought in to prevent such practices.

Early European settlers in America hunted the native birds with great zeal, as the supply of wildfowl, especially waterfowl on the coastal Atlantic regions seemed endless. During the fall migrations, the skies were filled with birds. Locations such as Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay and Barnaget Bay were hunted extensively. As more immigrants came to America in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the need for more food became greater. Market hunting started to take form, to supply the local population living along the Atlantic coast with fresh ducks and geese. Men would go into wooden boats and go out into the bays hunting, sometimes with large shotguns – and they could bring back one or two barrels of ducks each day. Live ducks were used as decoys, as well as bait such as corn or grain to attract other wildfowl.

There are several items used by almost all wildfowl hunters: a shotgun, ammunition, a hunting blind, decoys, a boat (if needed), and various bird calls. The decoys are used to lure the birds within range, and the blind conceals the hunter. When a hunter or hunters sees the wildfowl, he or she begins calling with an appropriate bird-call. Once the birds are within range, the hunters rise from the blind and quickly shoot them before they are frightened off and out of shooting range. Duck or goose calls are often used to attract birds, but sometimes calls of other birds are simulated to convince the birds that there is no danger. Today, due to the ban on lead shots for hunting wildfowl over wetlands, many wildfowlers are switching to modern guns with stronger engineering to allow the use of non-toxic ammunition such as steel or tungsten based cartridges. The most popular bore is the 12-gauge. Only certain ‘quarry’ species of wildfowl may legally be shot in the UK, and are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. These are Mallard, Wigeon, Teal, Pochard, Shoveler, Pintail, Gadwall, Goldeneye, Tufted Duck, Canada Goose, White-fronted Goose, Greylag Goose and Pink-footed Goose. Other common quarry targets for the wildfowler include the Common Snipe.

An intimate knowledge of the quarry and its habitat is required by the successful wildfowler. Shooting will normally occur during the early morning and late afternoon ‘flights’, when the birds move to and from feeding and roosting sites. A long way from the market hunters of the eighteenth century, current wildfowlers do not search for a large bag of quarry; their many hours efforts can be well-rewarded by even a single bird. Wildfowling has come under threat in recent years through legislation though. Destruction of habitat also has played a large part in the decline of shooting areas, and recently in the UK ‘right to roam’ policies mean that wildfowlers’ conservation areas are at risk. However, in most regions, good relationships exist between wildfowlers, conservationists, ramblers and other coastal area users. In America, the situation is rather different, due to the concerted efforts of J.N. Darling in the 1930s. He urged the government to pass the ‘Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act’ better known as the ‘Federal Duck Stamp Act’, which required hunters to purchase a special stamp, in addition to a regular hunting license, to hunt migratory waterfowl. This scheme has funded the purchase of 4.5 million acres of National Wildlife Refuge land since its inception in 1934. The Duck Stamp act has been described as ‘one of the most successful conservation programs ever devised.’ Thanks to such efforts, which maintain the natural habitats of wildfowl, and especially of waterfowl, the sport is still enjoyed by many, all over the world.

PREFACE

TO THE

THIRD EDITION

A NEW EDITION of this work being required, the Author has availed himself of the opportunity of revising it throughout, and of making considerable additions to it in various parts, the results of further experience and research; particularly with regard to some curious and interesting arts of Fowling as practised in foreign countries.

With a view to the production of a less costly volume, the present edition has been printed on a thinner paper, and with a fuller page, though of somewhat smaller dimensions; so that, although the new volume is less bulky in appearance, it is in fact a considerable enlargement of the preceding edition, and contains more matter, in a more compact form, with the whole of the Steel Plate and Wood Engravings that were contained in the previous editions. In its present form it is hoped that the new edition may be found as acceptable as the two previous ones.

London: February 1875.

The Wild-fowler

INTRODUCTION

‘Form’d on the Samian school, or those of Ind,

There are who think these pastimes scarce humane;

Yet, in my mind (and not relentless I),

His life is pure that wears no fouler stain.’

—Armstrong.

AMONG the various country sports and recreations of the English gentleman, there is one which, singularly, has hitherto remained in a state of neglected and unexplained obscurity, so far as regarded in a literary point of view; whilst every other sport—from fox-hunting down to boxing—has formed the subject of a separate treatise, wherein is practically and theoretically explained and illustrated the particular recreation of which it treats.

A volume upon Wild-fowling, with its instructive and pleasing varieties, justly demands a place in our libraries by the side of works devoted exclusively to other sporting pursuits, neither more nor less exciting and amusing.

In addition to the ordinary means of wild-fowl shooting are the more interesting arts of ‘the decoy,’ and means of capturing wild-fowl alive; the flight-pond, and its notable concomitants; with various other remarkable methods of fowling, both ancient and modern.

There are so many different species of wild-fowl, each with its peculiar habits, and therefore requiring different methods of capture, that to give a faithful history of the sport, and its varieties, otherwise than in a volume devoted expressly to the purpose, must necessarily be abortive and unsatisfactory.

The Author is quite conscious that the undertaking is a bold one; and if he had not a certain degree of confidence in his own personal experiences in this, for years past, one of his favourite recreations, also long since felt the requirements of a work of the kind, he would not have attempted to supply the want.

The enquirer will do the Author the favour to bear in mind that he does not profess to give ornithological delineations or descriptions of the various species of wild-fowl, other than those which may have suggested themselves from personal observation and familiarity with the habits of the birds; and such as are necessary for explaining the pursuit of Wild-fowling: ornithology as a science being a subject foreign to his purpose, and already abundantly treated of by many distinguished authorities.

To know something of the ingenious methods of taking wild-fowl must be useful to all men; and more especially those about to reside in foreign countries, who should remember that there are wild-fowl in all parts of the world; and perhaps such men may at some time or other find it highly expedient to exercise some of the ingenuities and means of capture which have been employed in this and other countries with a success almost beyond credibility.

The art of Wild-fowling, as regards capturing the birds alive, demands, in the first place, a familiar knowledge of the habits and instincts of the birds.

It may be imagined a very tantalising situation, to be placed in a country where hundreds of wild-fowl are daily in the habit of thronging the inland waters, and yet to find oneself so uninstructed in the art of fowling as to be unable to capture a bird; whilst if it could be successfully employed in taking them they would afford the most abundant and inviting table-luxuries in the land. An individual so situated would naturally ask himself, as he gazed from day to day upon the feathered occupants of the waters, ‘How are these birds to be taken?’ It is our purpose, in these pages, to explain to him, not only how and when to pursue them with dog and gun, but how to take them alive, in large numbers; and, whether on the open waters, savannas, or otherwise, to shoot them, both by night and day.

The flight-pond, with the curious and interesting proceedings connected with it, has hitherto, as a subject of literary diversion, remained in obscurity; no author (as far as I have been able to discover) having ever attempted an explanation, beyond the few unsatisfactory observations, occupying but a few lines, in vol. iii. of Daniel’s ‘Rural Sports,’[1] and which (if the Author may be forgiven for the assertion) tend rather to mislead than instruct the enquirer; yet, strange to say, they appear to have been copied and re-copied by subsequent writers, as their only text upon the subject.[2] The Author has therefore endeavoured to lay before his readers a full description of the quaint contrivances which have been invented by our forefathers for capturing a cunning and whimsical species of wild-fowl, that defied the efforts of the most experienced decoyers, but which fell victims by thousands to another means, almost as ingenious as the decoy.

The subject of ‘Ancient Methods of Capturing Wild-fowl’ has been compiled from the oldest and most reliable sources; and, in some respects, from authorities of great antiquity, and books of extreme rarity.

The latter portion of the work, which is devoted to the subject of ‘Wild-fowling in Foreign Countries,’ is not entirely the result of the Author’s individual experience, but has been carefully compiled, after diligent research in books of travel, history, and philosophy: a task which, though laborious, has been an agreeable one, because considerably facilitated through the ready access which the Author has had to the British Museum and other public and private libraries.

Those who are familiar with the migratory habits of wildfowl, and who have travelled in Northern Europe, and seen the myriads of aquatic birds which inhabit those quarters, and in winter are driven Southward by the severity of frost, will bear the Author out in the opinion that there must always be wild-fowl annually visiting our shores, in greater or less numbers, according to the temperature of the season.

An old-fashioned winter will assuredly bring with it old-fashioned sport; in proof of which we have only to refer as far back as the season of 1846–7, which is long subsequent to the drainage of the great Bedford Level;[3] and we find the wildfowl shooter enjoying sport to his heart’s content. In that winter, the London market was so abundantly supplied, that wild-ducks were sold at two shillings per pair, and snipes at fourpence each; and in Devonshire snipes were so numerous as to be sold at one halfpenny each.[4] During the same winter, to the Author’s own knowledge, wild-ducks were sold in country towns at one shilling and sixpence and widgeon at one shilling, per pair.

In severe winters the markets are always crowded with wild-fowl; and it stands to reason, that when the surfaces of the Northern countries—as Lapland, Sweden, Norway, and parts of Russia—are deeply buried in snow, wild-geese, and such fowl as feed inland, are compelled to migrate to more genial climates; and England—a salubrious island—situated as she is in the direct track of the myriads of migratory birds from the hyperborean latitudes, offers the first, the fairest, and most inviting retreat to those aërial wanderers.

Few but those who have seen them would believe in the immense flights of wild-fowl which in severe winters visit our coasts—flights which, when they have alighted, cover acres of water. But the sportsman and decoyer complain of a great decline in the sport of late years; though this is, in a measure, to be accounted for by a succession of mild winters; so that nothing like the success of good old times has attended their pursuits. Nevertheless, in further proof of the assertion that ‘the sport is good as ever, in hard winters,’ we may refer to a still more subsequent season—that of 1854–5, which was the hardest winter on record since 1846–7; and we find the sport in no way inferior to that of former years, when the season has been of about equal severity, with similar duration of frost.

However, we cannot help looking back with regret at the mischief done to our sport by the drainage of fens, swamps, and moors. Such places, in their wild and uncultivated state, were the very nurseries where hundreds of wild-fowl were annually hatched and reared: more particularly the fens and broads about the Eastern coast, which, from the favoured situation they occupy, were always the first resting-place of wild-fowl, after crossing the sea from Northern countries; and thus became the very haunts and places of refuge of immense flights of aquatic fowl; and to this day, the few remaining fens which have been undisturbed by the powerful arm of modem cultivation are their best and last strongholds. There are also still remaining several private preserves for water-fowl, where the wild-duck lays her eggs and rears her nestlings in unmolested security.

It is the flat-lying counties of England, intersected by broadwaters, tidal-rivers, and savannas, that afford the Wild-fowl-shooter the greatest amount of diversion.

The subject of the ‘Shooting Yacht,’ with experiences of shooting under sail, have never been collectively published. The sport was little understood, and seldom resorted to, in the days when Colonel Hawker wrote. Punting was then also, comparatively speaking, in its infancy, when contrasted with the perfection to which the art has since attained; for when the birds became scarce and more wary, the ingenuity of the punter was taxed to the utmost; and a greater perfection in the art has thus been acquired. The whole of the subjects treated of (except as regards ancient and foreign methods of capturing wild-fowl) are explained chiefly from the Author’s own experiences; and wherever he has borrowed assistance from others he has been careful to acknowledge it.

It may be proper here to allude to a vulgar error which appears to exist in the minds of some persons, that there is a fishy flavour about all wild-fowl, which renders them unpalatable as an article of food. Such, however, is altogether erroneous; the only birds which possess that disagreeable odour in their flesh being those which subsist on fish; and for the purpose of catching and holding such. Nature has gifted them with superior powers, and a beak totally different to that of other water-fowl. The fishy-flavoured fowl have serrated beaks, the interior mandibles of which, with their shark-like teeth, are exquisitely formed for holding, with firm grasp, the most slippery of the finny tribe. These are, for the most part, of the species diver and merganser; and their flesh is not palatable. Those which are so much esteemed as table delicacies do not feed on fish, nor have they the power to catch them: their food consists of duck’s-weed (lens palustris), grasses, and other inland herbage, which can have no tendency to give them the flavour complained of; whilst the high prices which wild-fowl, such as teal, widgeon, duck and mallard, sea-pheasants, brent-geese, pochards, and others, constantly fetch in the London and country markets, show the esteem in which they are held as delicious and wholesome luxuries.

It has been the Author’s endeavour, throughout these pages, to render them amusing as well as instructive, a task by no means easy where so many practical details have to be stated with care and particularity; nevertheless, with that view, he has occasionally, but very sparingly, interspersed anecdotes of his own adventures, and only where he has thought it the readiest and most agreeable means of imparting amusement as well as instruction to the enquirer.

With a modest conviction that he will not be accused of writing a book upon a subject with which he is not familiar, the Author nevertheless regrets that the effort has not been made by one more competent; for he feels certain there is much more which might, and ought to, form part of a volume devoted exclusively to the subject.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] And these appear to have been borrowed from Montague’s ‘Ornithology.’

[2] Professor Yarrell, in his book of ‘British Birds,’ mentions the flight-pond; but he approaches the subject with the same uncertainty, and throws no new light upon it.

[3] Vide Well’s ‘History of the Fens:’ A.D. 1830.

[4] Howitt’s ‘Year Book of the Country.’

THE WILD-FOWLER

CHAPTER I

FOWLING

‘Aucupium felix festinaquè copia præda.’

—Bargæus, de Aucupio: Anno 1566.

IN Greek this sport is termed ὀρνιθoθήρα; in Latin, aucupium, from avis, a bird; and capio, I take. It signifies the art of decoying, capturing, or killing birds ferœ naturœ, by means of decoy-ducks, dogs, guns, rapacious birds, nets, snares, bird-lime, bird-calls, or other artifice; and whether used upon land or water.[1]

The Saxon dialogue upon the Art of Fowling is thus expressed:—

Q.—How do you catch birds?

A.—I catch them many ways: sometimes with nets, sometimes with nooses, sometimes with bird-lime, sometimes by whistling, sometimes with hawks, sometimes with gins.[2]

It is one of the most ancient, as well as most natural, arts known to mankind; and in every nation has called forth the earliest cunning of the people. There are frequent allusions to it in the Scriptures; more particularly in the Old Testament, as to the ‘snares of the fowler;’ and there can be no doubt but such were used many centuries before Christ.

As different species of birds have different habits, so the method of taking them differs, in accordance with such habits. Such portions of the art as relate to the capture of wild-fowl and fen-birds are by far the most attractive, varied, and extensive, and to those particular branches our discourse will be more especially devoted.

It is a pleasant and useful diversion, abounding with varieties as attractive and instructive as they are exciting and exhilarating.[3]

There is no branch of the art of fowling possessing so great an amount of attraction, or requiring so much skill, as is necessary for proficiency in the art of capturing water-fowl; and, besides, there is no one which offers so many examples of instinet.

It appears, however, to have been a sport distasteful (because, probably, very imperfectly understood) to that earliest of writers upon sporting literature—Dame Juliana Barnes, alias Berners. That antiquated and distinguished sportswoman draws a very forlorn and miserable, though amusing, picture of an ancient fowler; showing him up, in her peculiar style of language, as the very object of pity, disappointment, and misery;[4] but her remarks can only be read as applying to taking birds with nets, gins, and such like contrivances—other portions of her work being dissertations specially in praise of hawking, as a distinct branch of the pursuit, and in which she appears to have been a proficient, and evidently familiar with the art of capturing wild-fowl with rapacious birds.

Both ancient and modern fowlers agree as to the necessity of knowing something of the haunts as well as the habits of wild-fowl, before success can be confidently looked for in any branch of the pursuit. There are certain places in the Fens preferred by wild-fowl to others; and the same is to be observed of such fowl as do not venture far inland; but, as the subject will be briefly discussed in subsequent pages, under the different heads applicable to each particular species, we only speak here in general terms as to their haunts and habits. The knowledge of this branch of the art possessed by the ancient fowler was by no means so superficial as may have been supposed: it was of the essence of his success to be well informed on this head.[5]

The favourite daily resorts of the smaller species of wild-fowl, as duck, teal, and such like, are sequestered lakes, ponds, and arms of the sea. At twilight, in the evening, they change their quarters to fens, moors, and bog-lands, where they find their best and most abundant food. The wilder and more uncultivated the country, the more it is frequented by wild-fowl; provided it be a moorish or sedgy and fertile soil. During great and heavy rains they resort to flooded meadows, delighting to dabble in shallow water, where easy access can be obtained to the bottom without immersing their whole bodies. They are particularly partial to such swamps and morasses as are intersected with small islands and mounds. Widgeon prefer saline feeding-grounds, and do not generally seek their food so far inland as ducks and teal. Brent geese confine themselves exclusively to the sea by night, and frequent saltwater rivers and bays during the day. Grey-lag geese are devotedly attached to fields of green wheat, and extensive moors and savannas.

From this mere cursory glance at the habits of wild-fowl, the variety of the diversion will be at once apparent to the reader; and it will be perceived that a familiarity with the haunts as well as the habits of the different species is of paramount importance to the wild-fowler.

Wild-fowl are by far the most subtle of all birds: it is their very nature to be so, accustomed as they are at one season of the year to wild and uninhabited regions, and at another to the incessant persecution of the fowler; but they are nevertheless the most attractive objects of the sportsman’s diversion, both physically and gastronomically. They are birds of marked discipline, flying in rank and marching in a body; and when an enemy (as a hawk or weasel) ventures to disturb their privacy, and an attack upon the intruder is contemplated, it is always made in troop. Both by night and day they have sentinels on constant duty, to give warning of the enemy’s movements; and so vigilant are they, and so awake to suspicion, that more than ordinary perseverance and ingenuity are requisite on the part of the wild-fowler to ensure success. They are fond of assembling in large numbers, particularly in cold weather: when dispersed, they appear unsettled, and less capable of taking care of themselves.

Wild-fowl, as a dietary article, were always esteemed luxuries; and by the ancient as well as the modern Apician their flesh has been considered more wholesome, and easier of digestion, than that of tame fowls. Yet in former times it would seem that the distinction between such fowl as are now classed among dainties, and such as are mere carrion, was not then observed. Swans, cranes, and curlews were priced highest.[6] Sea-gulls, as well as several other such unpalatable morsels, were deemed fit articles of food for the nobleman’s table:[7] and by way of further illustration of the extraordinary taste which prevailed in those days, it may be added that some of the most delicious birds that fly, as teal for instance, were excluded from the table when any other sort of wild-fowl could be had.[8]

The arts and contrivances for taking water-fowl alive are chiefly of very ancient origin, and some of them are most quaint and amusing. The authors who have written upon the subject are few in number, but they have left some highly instructive accounts of their ingenious arts; many branches of which have been but little used since the numbers of wild-fowl bred in this country have so considerably decreased, through the extensive drainage of their original breeding haunts, for the purpose of acquiring and fitting the land for the more profitable pursuits of agriculture.

The age when decoys were prevalent may be appropriately termed the ‘middle age’ of wild-fowling; all previous systems of taking wild-fowl by nets, snares, lime-strings, lime-twigs, lime-rods, and otherwise, sink into insignificance when compared with the peculiar ingenuities of the decoy, and the subsidiary schemes of the flight-pond. But after the mischief incurred to decoys by the ubiquitous system of land-draining, the successes of the decoyer were considerably diminished; and at the present day, the most common modes of wild-fowling, and those in greatest repute, are by means of the gunning-punt, shooting-yacht, and stanchion gun.

There cannot be a stronger proof of the unfamiliarity of the present age of sportsmen with the ancient and original art of wild-fowling, than by reference to the erroneous terms which are applied to the pursuit by many modern sportsmen; and it is only from the lips of a few ‘ancient fowlers,’ however illiterate, that we hear the correct version of sporting terms applicable to wild-fowling. Thus, modern sportsmen speak of every large number of wild-fowl as a ‘flock’ (a term chiefly appertaining to sheep), and this whether ducks, geese, widgeon, or whatever else; whereas the term ‘flock’ is improper as applied to any distinct species of wild-fowl, and should only be employed when speaking indefinitely of wild-fowl, or a mixture of wild-fowl, not knowing of what species they are. Errors of this sort are seldom made in respect of other field sports without at once bringing down a shower of ridicule by the better-informed upon the head of the more ignorant one.

To speak in the present day of a ‘flock’ of partridges, instead of a ‘covey,’ would so offend the ears of the most superficial sportsman, that he would look with contempt upon an individual who so applied it; and yet the term ‘flock,’ as applied to wild-fowl, is equally erroneous as if applied to partridges, and quite as inexcusable when coming from the lips of a sportsman. But in consequence of the indifference with which the subject of fowling has been treated of late years, we find the most learned ornithologists of the day, throughout their voluminous histories, guilty of these inexcusable blunders. Writers upon sporting literature, one and all, commit similar errors; and though they apply correct terms to game and birds of the land, water-fowl are invariably classed by them in ‘flocks.’

The ancient and modern terms, as applied to water-fowl when congregatus, are as under:[9]—

ANCIENT

A teme of swannys.

A gaggyllyng of gese.

A teme of dukys, or

A padelynge of dukys.

A sorde of malardys.

A spryng of telys.

A doppyngg of scheldrakys.

A coverte of cootes.

A herde of corlewis.

A sege of heyronys.

A congregaçon of plovers.

A dysseyte of lapwynges.

A herde of cranys.

MODERN

A herd of swans.

A gaggle of geese (when on the water).

A skein of geese (when on wing).

A paddling of ducks (when on the water).

A team of wild-ducks (when flying in the air).

A sedge of herons.

A wing or congregation of plovers.

A desert of lapwings.

A walk of snipes (in allusion to the ground they use).

A sord or suit of mallards.

A company of widgeon.

A flight or rush of dunbirds.

A spring of teal (in Norfolk sometimes a coil of teal).

A dopping of sheldrakes.

A covert of coots.

A herd of curlews.

A wisp of snipes signifies a few.

A fling or cloud of oxbirds (when on the wing).

A hill of ruffs.

A small number of wild-fowl, as ducks and geese (about thirty or forty), is termed a trip. The same of widgeon, dun-birds, or teal, is termed a bunch; and a smaller number (from ten to twenty) is called a little knob.

Of swans it would be said a small herd; and sometimes of geese a little gaggle or a small skein; and so of ducks a short or long team.

Let us hope the character of the English sportsman is not so far degenerated, or the respect he owes to ancient authorities so far lost sight of, as to induce him to use the inapplicable term ‘flock’ to every, or any, description of wild-fowl. It should be borne in mind that, as we derive our laws and our purest sciences from the ancients, from the same source sprang our national sports; and the arts, systems, and terms in connection with such have been handed down to us from generation to generation, because none other express so faithfully the meaning intended to be conveyed.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Markham thus defines the art: ‘Fowling is an art of discerning and understanding how to take all manner of fowle; and it is to bee applied or used two severall waies—that is to say, either by enchantment or enticement, by winning or wooing the fowle unto you with pipe, whistle, or call, which either beguileth them with their own voyco, or amazeth them with the strangenesse of the sound; or else by engine, which unawares surpriseth and entangleth them.’—Hunger’s Prevention, or the Art of Fowling. By Gervase Markham. A.D. 1655. Blome gives the following definition; ‘Fowling is an art for the taking all manner of fowl, either by enticement or enchantment; as calls, intoxicating baits, or the like; or else by guns, nets, engines, traps, setting dogs, &C.’—The Gentleman’s Recreations. By Richard Blome. A.D. 1686. Udall, in his ‘Flowers of Latine Speaking,’ says Auceps: ‘properly a fowler, and aucupium is foulynge, and, by a metaphore, it is for all maner of wayes, to geat any thynge by wiles, traynes, or crafte.’—Vide also ‘Bargæus, de Aucupio:’ a Latin poem on Fowling, published at Florence in the year 1566.

[2] ‘Quo modo decipii aves? Multis modis decipio aves, aliquando retibus, aliquando laqueis, aliquando glutino, aliquando sibilo, aliquando accipitre, aliquando decipula.’—Cott. MS. Tib A. 3. Plut. p. 60.

[3] Burton, in his ‘Anatomy of Melancholy,’ speaking of ‘Exorcise rectified,’ says: ‘Fowling is more troublesome, but all on’t as delightsome to some sorts of men, be it with guns, lime, nets, glades, grnnes, strings, baits, pitfalls, pipes, calls, stalking-horses, setting dogs, coy-ducks, &c., or otherwise.’

[4] ‘The dysporte and game of fowlynge me semyth moost symple, for in the wynter season the fowler spedyth not but in the most hardest and coldest weder; whyche is greuous. For when he wolde goo to his gynnes he maye not for colde. Many a gynne and many a snare he makyth, yet soryly dooth he fare. At morn tyde in the dewe he is weete shote vnto his taylle.’—The Boke of St. Albans. By Juliana Barnes, A.D. 1496.

[5] Markham observes: ‘The first and prineipalest thing our skilfull Fowler hath to learne is the knowledg of the haunts or places of residence where these Fowle for the most part abide.’

[6] Cott. MS. Nero. A. vi.—Proclamation that poulterers shall not charge more than the prices following (8 Edw. II.):— Introduction (by J. M. Kemble) to ‘The Knights Hospitallers in England. Printed for the Camden Society in 1857. Pp. li. lii.

[7] ‘Mounethly. Item it is thought good that Sec-gulles be hade for my Lordes owne mees and non other so they be good and in season and at jd. a pece or jd. ob. at the moste.’—Northumberland Household Book, temp. Hen. VIII.

[8] ‘Item it is thought good that noo Teyllcs [Teal] be bought, bot if so be that other Wyldefowll cannot be gottyn and to be at jd. a pece.’—Ibid.

[9] Vide ‘The Boke of St. Albans.’

CHAPTER II

ANCIENT METHODS OF CAPTURING WILD-FOWL

‘Aucupans omnes rumusculos populari ratione.’

—Plaut., Trucul., &c.

IN primitive ages, sporting pursuits were followed rather as a necessary occupation than an occasional recreation. The Greeks were especially fond of field sports, as it is clear from the accounts transmitted to us by Xenophon. Ulysses instituted such diversions after the conquest of Troy: they received commendation from Plato, as the sources of renewed enjoyment to those who suffered either from domestic calamities or the injuries of war.

At a later age, many of those who were not engaged in agricultural pursuits depended upon their skill as hunters and fowlers for their daily subsistence. At an early age there were fowlers well skilled in their art, who caught wild birds in nets and traps, and by various other devices; bestowing greatest pains on taking water-fowl, which were more highly prized for the table than such birds as frequented districts far removed from the coast. The nets most generally employed by the Greeks for capturing wild-fowl were similar in many respects to those of the ancient Egyptians, which will be spoken of under the head ‘Egyptian Fowling.’ The day, or clap-net, was spread flat on the ground after the same manner, in rhomboidal form, the interior network of which represented a square, termed the βρóχos[1] or strangling part.

The argumentum was one of the principal nets or machines of the ancient fowler, and was chiefly useful in taking wild-fowl on the surface of the water.[2] It was a machine very similar to a French quail-pipe; that used for water-fowl was not unlike a modern decoy-pipe. The art of decoy, however, was not then known; the birds were not decoyed into the argumentum, but driven.

The panthera[3] was a kind of purse or drag net, used by ancient fowlers for taking water-fowl, and was the largest description of net known for the purpose. Wild-fowl were captured in the panthera on land, whilst feeding at night in the fens; it was also hung upon poles, and extended along the banks of rivers, according to the turns of the current, the fowler, meanwhile, keeping watch over the movements of the birds.[⁴]

The curbaculum was simply a trap employed by the fowlers of old for taking birds in the snow.[5]

Ancient fowlers are said to have been gifted with an art of enchantment, whereby birds were enticed into snares, or otherwise became captives to the fowler’s artifices, through the means of bird-calls, and other devices for attracting their attention, or amusing them in such a manner as to excite their curiosity; and for this purpose the fowlers used to clothe themselves in feathered jerkins,[6] and dance with particular motions and gestures in the presence of such birds as they sought to capture.

The methods of taking wild-fowl with horse-hair nooses and springes are very ancient. They were used by the Anglo-Saxons both by night and clay, and were employed in the fens as well as by the margins of lakes, rivers, and pools, the snares being sometimes placed under water.[7] They were also frequently planted in plashes, made by breaking the ice, because of the greater resort of wild-fowl to such puddles in severe weather, and consequently with the greater prospect of success.[8] Springes were also made with a running knot, and set with sticks freshly cut from a growing elm, or other tree of flexible substance; and such were freely employed for taking snipes and woodcocks.[9]

Ensnar’d and hamper’d by the soul,

As nooses by the legs catch fowl.[10]

These ancient devices for taking wild-fowl by the neck or legs, and frequently by both, were highly successful; they were simply by means of nooses or running knots, made of horsehair (generally black or dyed), fastened to stakes, and placed in small openings among sedges and rushes, or in any such places as the fowler, from his previously acquired knowledge of their haunts, deemed most favourable to his pursuits. Two or three of the nooses were secured to each stake; and as many as three or four dozen stakes so fitted were occasionally in use at the same time, pricked out in a small space frequented by wild-fowl. It was a favourite practice of the ancient wild-fowler to set snares of this description in marshes and plashes where the water was not above a foot and a half in depth; and by scattering handfuls of grain two or three days in succession, about the spot best adapted to his purpose, the snares were spread with greater prospect of success.

Archery was anciently a mixed military and sportive exercise, and was successfully used in fowling. In the sixteenth century, when shooting with the long bow had become so perfect an art, it was esteemed above all other contrivances for taking wildfowl; and for some time after the invention of guns, the long bow was preferred as the best and most practicable means that could be employed for the purpose.[11] A statute was accordingly passed prohibiting the taking of wild-fowl in any other manner.

To such perfection had the art arrived in those days, that we find the same author asserting elsewhere that shooting with the ‘longe bowe’ was declared the ‘principal of all other exercises,’ for he adds—‘And, in myne opinion, none may be compared with shootyng in the longe bowe, and that for sundry vtilities that come thereof, wherein it incomparably excellethe al other exercyse.’

It is also stated that some of the archers of those days were enabled to fly their shafts with such unerring precision, that their aim was always directed to the head of any large bird, rather than the fairer mark presented by the body; and that wild-fowl so bagged were of greater value, and more saleable, because of there being no wound in the flesh. A circumstance is also recorded of small birds being placed on the back of a cow, and killed with bow and arrow without injury to the animal.[12]Accomplishments of this nature would seem almost to vie with those of William Tell.

The diversion of falconry as appertaining to the capture of wild-fowl is not near so ancient as that of taking them with nets, snares, and traps. Flavius Blondus, who wrote in the fifteenth century, negatives the assertion that falconry was a pastime of the ancient Greeks, and positively affirms that no nation or people were accustomed, previously to the thirteenth century, to catch either land or water-fowl with any rapacious bird trained for the purpose. And Rigault is of the same opinion.[13] Pancirollus and Salmuth also both concur.

The Roman laws distinctly recognise this method of fowling—

‘Ne is qui duntaxat iter per fundum meum fecerit, aut avem egerit venatusve fuerit, sine ullo opere, hoc interdicto teneatur.’[14]

Fowling by means of rapacious birds must have been used in Italy at a very early age, for it is spoken of both by Martial and Apuleius as an art generally known and practised in that country.

Ælian mentions that in Thrace hawks used to accompany the fowlers when they went in quest of birds in the fens. The fowlers, having spread their nets, remained quiet; whilst the hawks flew about, terrifying the birds, and driving them into them.[15]

The same author also states that the Thracians, when they caught birds, used to divide them with the hawks, by which means they rendered them faithful partners in fowling; and that, if they had not given them a share of the booty, they would have been deprived of their assistance.[16]

This division of the prey between the fowler and his hawks is also mentioned by Pliny—‘Rursus captas aucupes dividunt cum iis.’[17]

The rapacious birds used for the purposes of fowling were termed ἱέρακεs by Grecian authors. Pliny terms them accipitres.

There are curious assertions in a book ascribed to Aristotle,[18] that in Thrace falcons were so perfectly trained as to answer to their names, and go direct to the fowler when called; and that they used to bring to him, of their own accord, whatever prey they had taken.

The ancient falconer delighted to make wild-fowl his quarry: the pursuit of such birds was his favourite diversion, as will be seen on reference to the earliest treatises upon that once princely and popular recreation.[19]

Falconry is still practised, in some countries, with all the spirit and enthusiasm of the good old times. In Hungary particularly hawking-parties are highly attractive,[20] and of frequent occurrence. In that country, as in England, the heron is the favourite quarry.

The nobility of Mingrelia practise falconry, particularly for the purpose of capturing wild-fowl. They pursue the sport on horseback, and carry a small drum at the pommel of the saddle; and by beating the drum they put up the birds, and then fly their hawks at them.[21]

Hawking is said to have been constantly in use in England down to the year 1725, when shooting flying was introduced, to the great astonishment of the Dalesmen.[22]

Some of the early English poets make marked allusion to water-fowl as the falconer’s best quarry:

‘No fellow to the flight at brooke, that game is full of glee.’[23]

‘The duck and mallard first, the falconer’s only sport.’[24]

Hawks were specially trained for capturing water-fowl, and a species termed the ‘Rammage Lanner’ devoted exclusively to such quarry.[25] The goshawk, ger-falcon, jerkin, haggard falcon, and tassel-gentle were also taught to fly at wild-ducks that were found in ponds or other inland waters. This was esteemed most exciting sport, and the wild-duck a good prey;[26] but the heron was always considered the falconer’s noblest quarry.

The Fen-Fowlers of Old

Hawking was also a sport in which the gentler sex freely indulged; no expedition of the kind was deemed complete unless graced with the presence of a lady-falconer. The engraving on the previous page represents that method of falconry as practised in the Fens about the fifteenth century. It was usual, on excursions of the kind, to be accompanied by a water-dog, because the hawk and its prey sometimes both fell in the water; and in their struggles, the wild-fowl, from its greater power when on the surface of that element, frequently imperilled the safety of the hawk by plunging and diving. The fowler, meanwhile, watching his bird, in case of danger would send the dog to the rescue, which was so trained that it never attempted to injure the hawk, but seized the mallard, or whatever fowl it might be, and brought it to its master.

During the age when falconry and archery were considered the first and most distinguished pastimes in the land, sportsmen were extremely tenacious about the preservation of wildfowl, and more especially after the passing of the bill against ‘shootynge with hayle shott,’[27] in reference to which an original letter from Sir E. Bedingfield to the Earl of Bath, written about that time (1548), shows the strong feeling then entertained as to the preservation of wild-fowl as quarry for the falconer.[28]

Some of the contrivances of the ancient fowler, previous to the invention of decoys, strike us at the present day as exceedingly grotesque and simple; but, as they are transmitted to us by authors of reliable authority in those days,[29] and by them asserted as the best and most effectual means of taking wild-fowl, we are bound to believe that some, at least, of these manœuvres were highly successful. Nets of various forms and sizes were also freely employed; and those used for taking the largest sort of wild-fowl were made of strong pack-thread, with large meshes, at least two inches in extent from ‘poynt to poynt.’

One of the most successful methods of taking wild-fowl was with a net of the kind, twelve yards in length by eight in breadth, which was as large as one man could dexterously manage or overthrow. This net being verged on each side with a stout cord, it was stretched on poles, and spread flat upon the ground, at least two hours before twilight, in the most favoured haunts of wild-fowl known to the snarer. The manner of working the net was, by staking the two lower ends firmly to the ground, but leaving sufficient play to admit of its being thrown over without drawing the stakes or unhinging the loops or fastenings;[30] and a line being connected with the upper verge, and rove through a hole in another stake, about six yards in front of one of the lower corners of the net, it was then of sufficient length to extend to the fowler’s hiding-place, which was generally about twenty or thirty yards from the net—a mere temporary screen or embankment of turf and dried grasses; and, with such arrangements complete, and having carefully strewn a few handfuls of short grass over the surface of the net, and placed it so that no obstruction might prevent its being suddenly thrown over, the fowler was supposed to await patiently the arrival of the birds. Sometimes a live heron, or other species of wild-fowl, was secured to a stake, as a ‘stale’[31] for enticing others; and when a satisfactory number of birds had come within a scope of the net, by suddenly drawing the line the snare was cast over them, and they were thus taken captive. ‘The proceedings,’ Markham observes, ‘might be continued during twilight of an evening, and early in the morning, until the sun had risen half-an-hour, but not later.’ This system of fowling was performed with equal success upon the plover species as upon the larger sort of fowl, which are in the habit of feeding on and frequenting marshes and fens by night.

It is somewhat remarkable that so rustic a style should have been practised after the fowling-piece came into use; but it seems to have been long preferred to the matchlock, notwithstanding that the fowler, in his hidden position, whilst attending the net, was within deadly range, with powder and shot, of any birds which came to his snare.

The method of taking wild-ducks in the Fens, with the clap-net, is described and illustrated by Peter de Crescentius,[32] as are also several other methods of land-fowling.

One of the most singular artifices recorded of the ancient fowler is that of employing four hungry ducks as the chief instruments of his art. Having spread an ordinary clap-net upon the ground, and scattered a few handfuls of corn within scope of its meshes, two men are stationed in a place of concealment, at some little distance from the spot, who hold the check-rope in their hands, in connection with the net, at command. The four hungry decoy-ducks are then let out, and permitted to taste the food, when they are immediately driven away by men with staves. The famishing ducks then fly for food and refuge to the neighbouring fens, but return in a short time, accompanied by many followers; which, alighting with the hungry decoy-ducks between the folds of the net, and feeding greedily upon the scattered grain, the fowler is immediately enabled to capture them. This method of fowling is thus described in Latin, in a work of great