38 BIRD- CA TCHING. 



at the water trap, commonly from seven to nine in the 

 morning, r nd from four to five in the evening. 



In autumn these birds are taken in nooses and 

 common bird-traps, baited with berries, but the snare 

 must be of horsehair, for if of thread, the bird, as 

 soon as it feels itself caught, will try to bite through 

 it, as mice do. 



Quail. There are several different methods of 

 taking quails, but I shall only mention the commonest 

 and easiest. The male birds are generally caught in 

 a net called a quail-net, by means of a call which 

 imitates the cry of the female in the breeding season ; 

 it is the way adopted by bird-catchers in the spring, 

 when they wish to take a male that sings in a superior 

 manner, that is, which repeats a dozen times following 

 the syllables " pieveroie." If the male has not yet 

 met with a mate, and if he has not been rendered 

 suspicious by some unskilful bird-catcher, he will run 

 eagerly into the snare. The most important thing is 

 to have a good call ; they may be had cheap of turners 

 at Nuremberg, who make them of leather, with a pipe 

 turned from the bone of a cat or hare, or the leg of a 

 stork ; but they may easily be made by anybody. 

 The first thing necessary is a piece of calf-skin, one 

 foot in length, and four inches in breadth, the sides 

 must be sewed together within two inches of the end, 

 and the bottom filled with a piece of wood an inch and 

 a half in length, and rings composed of thick leather, 

 the diameter of the interior opening not exceeding an 

 inch and a half, are pushed into the sewed cylinder, 

 and kept about a quarter of an inch apart ; the whole 

 may afterwards be pressed close together, making the 

 rings touch each other ; then a tube made of the bone 

 of a goose or hare, and filled at the end like a common 

 whistle, is fastened to the part of the cylinder left 



