create what has been called the greatest wildfowl hunt in history of the world. Professional market gunners worked in most areas supplying game to meet intense public demand. Well-made decoys were among the tools most vital to their trade. To meet the needs of the market gunners and the many well-to-do sportsmen who traveled from the cities to shoot birds, scores of craftsmen turned to decoy-making full-time. Just before 1900, such firms as Mason's decoy factory of Detroit, which employed a number of carvers working from the same patterns, offered decoys by mail order. Federal conservation legislation brought the market-gunning era to an end just after World War I. However, sportsmen continued to hunt over wooden decoys until after World War II, when inexpensive molded plastic decoys took over the marketplace. Shelburne Museum's collection of nearly nine hundred working decoys, housed in Dorset House, is the finest and most comprehensive public collection in the world. It contains superb examples by master craftsmen from all over North America, including an Elmer Crowell—whose wide variety of working decoys, decorative carvings and miniatures prove him to be the most versatile of the old-time masters—and such well-known carvers as Bill Bowman, Lee Dudley, Nathan Cobb, Lem Ward, Steve Ward, Joseph Lincoln, Albert Laing, Shang Wheeler, George Warin and John Blair. There is also a small collection of fish decoys, used by ice fishermen to lure pike, muskellunge and other predators within spearing range. Every major hunting area in North America produced decoys. Differences in hunting methods and water conditions affected local decoy-making traditions, and dozens of regional variations developed. Exhibits in the Dorset House are arranged by region to allow easy comparison of the treatment of like species by carvers from different regions and more subtly within regions. Maine decoys, for example as seen in the work of Gus Wilson, are typically solid-bodied with wide, flat bottoms and simple paint patterns. By contrast Illinois decoys such as those made by Robert and Catherine Elliston are hollow-bodied with rounded bottoms and elaborately detailed paint. Other regional styles, including those of Louisiana, Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay, New Jersey, Long Island, Connecticut, Quebec and Ontario, are equally distinctive. In addition to decoys, many carvers crafted miniatures and decorative birds. Elmer Crowell of Cape Cod was a pioneer in these areas. He offered his customers what he called a "songless aviary", producing miniature songbirds, shorebirds, and ducks insets