While we are on the subject of the jerking of the bird, we cannot omit mentioning that the bird-catchers frequently lay wagers upon whose call bird can jerk the longest, as that determines their superiority.
They place them opposite to each other by an inch of candle, and the bird who jerks the most before the candle is burnt out wins the wager.
We have been informed that there have been instances of birds giving one hundred and seventy jerks in a quarter of an hour.
It may be here observed that birds when near each other seldom jerk or sing.
It is a singular circumstance that the male chaffinches fly by themselves, and in the flight precede the females; but this is not particular with this class of bird.
When the larks are caught at the beginning of the season it frequently happens that forty are taken, and not one female among them.
An experienced birdcatcher informed us that such birds as breed twice a year generally have in their first brood a majority of males, and in their second of females.
The method of birdcatching must have been long practised, as it is brought to a most systematical perfection, and attended with much trouble and expense.
The nets are a most ingenious piece of mechanism.
They are from ten to twelve and a half yards long, and ten yards and a half in width, and no one on bare inspection would imagine that a bird, who is so quick in all its motions, could be caught by the nets flapping over each other till he becomes an eye-witness of the process.