92 SEPTEMBER IN BEOADLAND 



in the town, and they're crazy for tu hev any queer-uns as I ketch, and pay well 

 tu for 'em, they du. Lemme see, I've netted a Eichard's pipit, a white wagtail or 

 tew, several shore-larks, and three or four Lapland buntings, besides some as I 

 can't remember theer names. It's like this, 'bor, we know the common ones, and 

 anything as isn't common, why, it's oncomrnon. D'ye see? Then we make the 

 best markit on 'em we ken. Some yeers ago I ketcht a bard as I thowt were a 

 cur'ous linnet, and sold it for a tanner (sixpence). It throwed up a couple of ear- 

 wiggles in the cage. What wor it? Well, I heerd arterwards as how it wor a 

 barred warbler, and changed hands at four or five sov'reigns ! That's what ye git for 

 want of eddication 



* Jest a minnit, gents 



Our catcher, who is successful this time, runs to make sure of half-a-dozen 

 captives struggling under the nets. Four are let go again, and the other two are 

 placed in a darkened store-cage, in which a struggling mass of birds are fluttering 

 and rasping their bills against the cruel wires. Poor terrified wretches! 



1 Them wor hens as I let go,' he resumes, ' they bain't much use jest now, and 

 never is, except I've got a order for shootin'-matches; then sparrers an' anything 

 up tu starlin's cum in handy. 



'Now I du set my fut on that sport as bein' in no-wise respectable; and ain't 

 it aginst all reason an' feelin's of kindliness tu shoot poor things as ain't a atom 

 of chance of excapin', except when sich fellers bang away as don't know one ind 

 of a gun from t'other ? I wouldn't let 'em have 'em, only I'm glad of the money 

 they fetches. I wor a long time afore I cud swaller my squeamishness over ketch- 

 in' bards at all. Yow see that right hand's crippled; I got that some yeers ago 

 in a thrashin' machine, and bein' no farther use for farm-work, and knowin' I 

 .must du summat, I bethowt me of doin a-this. Look heer, Jack Saunders, say's 

 I (that's me, yer know), ymtfll TicC ter du it, if yer likes it or not. 



' When I seed my fust lot of bards a-raspin' madly at theer prison bars, a- 

 flutterin', poor things ! to find a way out agin, and shrilly pipin' in a scarified sort 

 of way with wexation an' terror, I cud ha' let 'em all go agin. But I didn't, for I 

 reasoned this wise. Thinks I, what is theer as we wear and use and eat and even 

 sleep on as wasn't at one time part of some other bein' as we'd robbed or killed 

 or sich like ? Why, the wery butes I'd on my feet was once on the back of a hoss 

 an' a bullock, and more an' one old hen wor kilt tu make that feather-bed ! 



i Then agin, thinks I, poor critters! yow'll be shet up in a little cage an' hung 

 up in some stuffy alley or out of some slum winder, tu breathe unpure air, and 



