8 IMPLEMENTS FOE COLLECTING, AND THEIR USE. 



etc., are projected by force of the breath. It must be quite an 

 art to use such a weapon successfully, and its employment is 

 necessarily exceptional. Some uncivilized tribes are said to 

 possess marvellous skill in the use of long bamboo blow-guns ; 

 and such people are often valuable employes of the collector. 

 I have had no experience with the noiseless air-gun, which is, 

 in effect, a modified blow-gun, compressed air being the explo- 

 sive power. Nor can I say much of various methods of trap- 

 ping birds that may be practised. On these points I must leave 

 you to your own devices, with the remark that horse-hair 

 snares, set over a nest, are often of great service in securing 

 the parent of eggs that might otherwise remain unidentified. 

 I have no practical knowledge of bird-lime; I believe it is 

 seldom used in this country. A method of netting birds alive, 

 which I have tried, is both easy and successful. A net of fine 

 green silk, some 8 or 10 feet square, is stretched perpendicu- 

 larly across a narrow part of one of the tiny brooks, over- 

 grown with briers and shrubbery, that intersect many of our 

 meadows. Retreating to a distance the collector beats along 

 the shrubbery making all the noise he can, urging on the little 

 birds till they reach the almost invisible net and become en- 

 tangled in trying to fly through. I have in this manner taken 

 a. dozen sparrows and the like at one "drive." But the gun 

 can rarely be laid aside for this or any similar device. 



4. AMMUNITION. The best powder is that combining 

 strength and cleanliness in the highest compatible degree. In 

 some brands too much of the latter is sacrificed to the former. 

 Other things being equal, a rather coarse powder is preferable, 

 since its slower action tends to throw shot closer. Some num- 

 bers are said to be "too quick" for fine breech-loaders. In- 

 experienced sportsmen and collectors almost invariably use 

 too coarse shot. When unnecessarily large, two evils result : 

 the number of pellets in a load is decreased, the chances of 

 killing being correspondingly lessened ; and the plumage is 

 unnecessarily injured, either by direct mutilation, or by subse- 

 quent bleeding through large holes. As already hinted, shot 



