1.   ----- To a nonhunter, big money for duck decoys can sound a little goofy.

2.   During his childhood and adolescence he amassed collections of marbles, stamps, duck decoys, puzzle jugs and South Jersey glass bottles.

3.   He also has a round, turn-of-the century table with a duck decoy in the center and ducks at the base.

4.   He also began to collect duck decoys in his travels around the country and, as a sideline, to sell them in the shop.

5.   He and his wife, Constance, a business reporter for The New York Times, collected duck decoys and Nantucket baskets until their three children came along.

6.   I had brought four duck decoys to camp, enough to woo black ducks or mallards.

7.   The Decoy Museum, I discovered, preserves hundreds of duck decoys by local carvers.

8.   There is an entire wall of duck decoys, all one of a kind, most poised and facing south, perched on their own custom-size shelves.

9.   But amid the worries about the flood, he had two duck decoys floating in his front yard.