Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,
We had had more sport.”
Henry VI. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 1.
THE STALE.
The wild-fowler who could not succeed in “stalking” and shooting the birds in the way we have described, often employed another method of securing them, namely, by means of “a stale,” as it was termed. This was a stuffed bird of the species the fowler wished to decoy, and which was set up in as natural a position as possible, either before a net or in the midst of several “springes.” By imitating the call of the passing birds, the fowler would draw their attention to the “stale,” and as soon as they
alighted near it either the net was pulled over them, or they were caught in the snares.
Beaumont and Fletcher speak of “stales to catch kites” (Hum. Lieut. iii. 2). Sometimes a live bird was pegged down instead of a stuffed one, and was doubtless much more effective, since “one bird caught, served as a stale to bring in more.”[144]
Shakespeare has employed the word “stale” in this its primary sense, in his Comedy of Errors (Act ii. Sc. 1), in The Tempest (Act iv. Sc. 1), and in the Taming of the Shrew (Act iii. Sc. 1). But commentators do not seem to be agreed on its meaning. In Act i. Sc. 1, of the last-mentioned play, where it occurs again, it certainly admits of a different interpretation.
Instructions for making a “stale” will be found in “The Experienced Fowler” (London, 1704). At page 18 of this curious little volume, the author says:—“You may shoot a lark or some other bird, take out the entrails, stuff him with tow, and dry him in an oven, his wings set in a flying posture; and so you may be furnished at all times.” This device was chiefly resorted to for taking the ruff and reeve, and other fen birds, which fetched good prices for the table. Now-a-days, the bird-catchers who take linnets, goldfinches, and other small songsters, almost invariably peg down live decoy birds with a foot or so of string to the legs, in the centre of a pair of clap-nets.
WILD-GEESE.