I should correct something I said, above. "The Gull Decoy" would have been sung on PEI at least up to the 1950s-60 when Ives collected it from three-four different people. The singers would not have many other opportunities to sing a song like "The Gull Decoy" and the song certainly wasn't a part of the mid century folk music revival songbook. Several informants admitted to Ives that the last time they had sung some of these old songs was as long as forty years prior! Certainly no one has recorded or performed some of these tunes in over fifty years.
M Dixon