Fig. 6.
Thus you have the whole apparatus of “clap”-netting and its use explained. Now for a few hints as to where to set a net. First, do not forget to mark the habits of the birds yourself, and so learn where to find them at all seasons. Larks and linnets are easily found in open plains and by water brooks, goldfinches come in autumn to feed off the thistledown, starling swarm as winter comes on and are met with in all sorts of pastures where some growth of underwood or deciduous trees are found. For shy birds let your full line be quite forty yards long; and a good plan for blackbirds, starlings, and other wary birds is to lay your nets and get behind a hedge or other hiding-place. A little ingenuity in this way will often procure a goodly stroke of success. The other morning after a frost I caught fourteen blackbirds close to a long laurel hedge, hiding myself in a large rhododendron.
Sometimes hawks, and even birds of a non-preying but quite different species to your call-bird, are caught in the clap-net. The former usually pounces down upon or near the poor little play-bird, and thus the biter is bitten. “Serve him right,” say you; so say I. The other birds are probably only curious to know what it is all about.
This kind of net is the best for amateurs, and I shall therefore not describe that sort which is used by professionals for lark and other birds at night time, often, I am sorry to say, when it is illegal, and when partridges and pheasants can be taken. Kingfishers may be caught by stretching a fine net loosely across an archway of a stream on which they are known to be, and sparrows may be taken in any numbers from old thatches, barn, rick, etc., at night in the following manner:
Stretch your net on two cane poles and let two people carry it upright; another holds a lantern at about the middle of this net on the outer side from the barn to be “netted.” Let another, taking a long pole, buffet about the interior under the eaves and in the nooks and corners; the birds will then fly out and make for the light, only to be entangled in the net. Beating the hedgerows at night will produce the same effect; and, let me tell you, sparrow pudding is not to be despised.
Water-birds, such as dabchicks, moorhens, and even ducks, may be taken by means of nets stretched across ditches and “drawns” which they frequent. I have especially been successful with those little nuisances of the fish culturist, the dabchick, or dapper as they are called in some places, by means of a common dragnet, which I use for trout catching in spawning time, but as my readers have already the facilities I have in this direction, I need not say more about that style of netting.
[VIII.
BIRD-CATCHING WITH TRAPS.]
The word “trap” in the title of this book is intended to be made use of in a somewhat wide and also narrow sense. Under it I shall include what would otherwise be called a snare—namely, the “springe,” or “springle.” On the other hand I shall make use of it in what may seem a rather restricted sense, inasmuch as that I do not intend to tell you how to catch birds by means of the “gin,” or steel trap. Mind you, there are some birds—such as the magpie and crow—which it is almost impossible to catch in any other manner. For them the deadly, pain-dealing “gin” is justifiable. For the use of boys, I do not, however, recommend it in bird-catching; it always maims if it does not kill outright, and thus, should any of you desire to stuff the bird you have captured, its injured plight is much against its appearance.