La pipée is worked in the same way, but with differences of detail. A tree high enough to out-top the rest of the coppice is chosen; it is stripped of its smaller branches, and these are replaced by lime-twigs fitted into notches made by a bill-hook; the bird-catchers then take their place inside a hut made of foliage constructed round the trunk of the tree, and they attract all the birds in the district by three methods.
The first is to attach an owl to the centre of the tree.
The owl, with his buff plumage and great round eyes, plays in the forest the part that Jean Jacques Rousseau played in the streets of Paris when he went forth dressed as an Armenian.
All the street arabs ran after the Genevan philosopher.
All the birds chase the owl.
But a fate awaits these poor creatures that did not overtake the hooligans: when they fly against the tree, in attacking the owl which is fastened to the tree, each bird that settles on a lime-twig is lost; he falls from bough to bough, and passes from freedom to a cage, lucky if he does not go from his cage to the spit.
The second method of attraction is to take a jay.
Out of a hare one can only make jugged hare, but in the case of a jay something else can be constructed.
It must, however, be a living jay, that is a condition sine quâ non.