Fig. 11.
I have thus given a brief sketch of what boys can do in bird-catching with no more expense than a few cents—if we except the net, and that need not cost much if one is disposed to make it. There are many other traps which are variously successful. There is, for example, the trap-cage, which contains on one side a decoy bird, and a very useful one it is, and easily procured from a bird-fancier. Then there is the old sieve and string and brick trap, about which no boy needs to be told. I have taken twenty and thirty wild fowl in a night by baiting with pieces of sheep’s lights or lungs a large eel-hook. Then again for kingfishers there is a round spring-trap, which catches them by the legs, and is cruel therefore. Herons may be taken on a baited hook—the bait-fish, of course. When all is said and done, however, for general bird-catching, where sport and not torture is the means here set forth are decidedly the most satisfactory.
First and foremost, however, if you would be successful, take this practical counsel to yourself. Study the natures and habits of the birds; the droppings and footprints will always indicate a favorite resort. Why, I took a dozen birds the other day with half a dozen of [Figure 9] traps in less than four hours by simply setting and resetting in the right places, and then retiring out of sight.
And not merely out of sight, let me tell the tyro, but out of the range of the sense of smell. Never get to windward of any birds if you are intent on catching them. It is a curious fact amongst the lower animals, especially those brought under domestication, that they perceive and appreciate at its value against themselves the presence of man by smell as well as sight. Creatures of prey, from the hatred with which they are held, seem to possess this faculty in the highest degree. Were it not so, indeed, the struggle for existence with them would soon end, and many at least of the species—whether fish, flesh or fowl—would become extinct as the dodo.
The bird-lime itself is the next consideration under this heading. I do not advise any boy to make it himself, but if he nevertheless chooses to do so, here is a recipe which will produce a very good “lime.” Half a pint of Linseed-oil should be put into an iron pot and carefully boiled over the fire for four hours, or, in fact, till it thickens sufficiently, stirring it repeatedly the while with a stick. The oil is smooth when it boils. In order to ascertain when it is done take out the stick and immerse it in water, after which see if it sticks to the fingers. If it does, the oil is ready to be poured into cold water, and thereafter placed in little flat tin boxes—the most convenient receptacles, as they fit in the waistcoat pocket, and can be used as required.
Birdlime is also made from holly bark, but according to the directions given in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” the process is much too troublesome for boys, and as one can buy birdlime enough to stick a flock of rooks together for a few pence from a professional bird-catcher, life may be considered too short for that process at this time. As I am some distance from a town, much less a professional bird-catcher, I make mine as above, and find it little if any inferior to that I have been in the habit of buying.
During winter time, when frost and snow cover the earth, birdlime is very useful, for at that time the “clap” net is of very little use. A good plan then is to sweep a bare place anywhere near a plantation or wooded garden, or even in the farm-yards, and having anointed a few dozen wheat ears with the straw attached—or rather, having anointed the straw for about a foot nearest the ear—to spread them about in the patch. The birds will attempt to take the ears away, and will so get limed and drop to the ground. You must very quickly pick them up or you will lose some, as their struggles not infrequently release them, at least partially, and they flutter out of reach.
Sometimes it will be found that a few handfuls of oats, barley or wheat thrown down where the limed straws are will be of service when they do not seem to care for the wheat ears themselves. There is the probability of the little fellows coming in contact with the ears, and so getting limed. These methods are chiefly applicable, as I have said, to cold weather.
A different mode of procedure may be practiced when the weather is very hot. Cut, say, a hundred twigs of some smooth, thin wood, such as withy, and after liming, stick them down by the side of any rivulet of water near woody growths, and of course not near a large tract of water such as a lake or river. Cover over the stream with brush or fern, so that the birds can come only by where your limed twigs are placed. I have had remarkable sport in this way when the birds have been coming to drink during the forenoon and afternoon.
I tried an experiment for rooks with bird-lime some little time ago. We all know that in winter, during a thaw, rooks will frequent pastures in great numbers, especially if cattle be present. About fifty yards to the west of where I am now sitting is a long waterside pasture, and thousands of rooks could be seen digging right lustily. Rooks are too strong and wily to be limed in the usual way with bristles or twigs, so I made some paper cones—funnel-shaped, you know, like the grocers use for packing sugar—and anointed the inside with bird-lime, sticking also a few grains of wheat round the inner side. The result was ridiculous in the extreme. After scattering a few grains of corn about and placing about a dozen of these limed brown-paper funnels in a likely manner, I retired to a distance, and with my field-glass watched. A flock soon found out the scattered grain, and one after the other the cones were inspected, but for some time no one ventured to do more. Presently, however, after the loose grain was apparently all eaten, one of the wily birds had the temerity to poke his head inside a cone. The result was much to his evident surprise, for the cone stuck tight, and there he was tumbling and attempting to fly with a foolscap on which blindfolded him, and which stuck tight enough to allow me time to go up and release the poor fellow. I did not kill him, for old rook pie is by no means palatable. I tried this plan for a heron which continually frequented a little pond wherein my last year’s trout are kept, but did not succeed in capturing him, though he took both the cone and fish used for a bait away somehow. Anyhow it has most thoroughly frightened my gentleman, for I have not seen him since.