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Updated: May 27, 2025
The officers and marines went on shore in disguise, having agreed on private signals and places of rendezvous; while the seamen on whom we could depend acted as decoy-ducks, pretending to belong to merchant vessels, of which their officer was the master, and inducing them to engage, for ten gallons of rum and three hundred dollars, to take the run home.
Now the little dog ran along for a few feet in front of the screen, where the birds could see him, and then suddenly disappeared, by leaping through one of the openings. On came the wild-fowl, following the decoy-ducks and fearless of evil. Seeing the dog, the curiosity of the birds was excited, and up the pipe they began to swim.
"Look at the decoy-ducks," whispered Dick, and then he watched in silence, for these two dozen were regularly fed wild-fowl which had become so far half tame that, knowing the appearance of the dog to be associated with corn and other seeds at the mouth of the pipe, they came at once. This was too much for the strangers, which followed them, mingled with them, and began to feed as well.
A number of ducks, trained for the purpose, are employed to lead the wild fowl on and on through narrow wicker channels up to a funnel net. Hemp-seed is thrown in their way, as they advance, by the decoy-man, whose whistle is obeyed by the decoy-ducks, until the poor strangers are quite entrapped.
What was more, the decoy-ducks often found food at the mouths of the pipes when their wild relatives were off feeding, and hence they troubled themselves no more. All that was impressed upon their small brains was that the appearance of Chip meant food, and they stayed behind to feed. Chip was invisible eating a piece of cheese.
Again the shutter was closed, and the fowler threw a few handfuls of bruised barley into the centre of the pipe, which was soon blown down by the wind to the mouth. He now called the little piper, and sent him in, in front of the screen, at the same time whistling low the well-known signal to the decoy-ducks. On hearing the sound, they instantly rose and flew towards the mouth of the pipe.
And as to one more point, it is time that the public should fully understand that the common method of supporting barefaced imposture at the present day, both in Europe and in this country, consists in trumping up "Dispensaries," "Colleges of Health," and other advertising charitable clap-traps, which use the poor as decoy-ducks for the rich, and the proprietors of which have a strong predilection for the title of "Professor."
Now, you see those birds swimming out in the middle of the pond there? They're our decoy-ducks; without them we could not catch any wild ones either. I had a good job to train them. You see, the first thing I did was to shut them up by themselves, and pretty nigh starve them. I then carried them a little food; and did the same several times every day, till they knew me.
At the south end of the island, far away from any dwelling, is the interesting "Fugleköjerne," where three or four hundred wild-duck are taken in a day during the season. Decoy-ducks are used for this purpose. The west side of the island is the most fashionable watering-place in Denmark. Large hotels and pretty villas line the shore, and here the well-to-do Danes inhale bracing sea-breezes.
There is another feature in the manifesto of a "Clergyman's Wife" which calls for observation. She lays particular stress on securing the adhesion to her plan of "families of wealth and distinction," "ladies of position and fortune" of the leaders of fashion, in short, wherever those mysterious but potent decoy-ducks are to be found.
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