ANCIENT METHODS OF CAPTURING WILD-FOWL. 15 



commonly frequented by such birds, in holes or furrows in the 

 ground, with the points of the cones downwards : he then baits each 

 of them with a small fish, which he places inside, at the very point 

 or bottom of the hood ; and, having bedaubed the interior of the paper 

 with bird-lime, the traps are ready. The hungry cranes, coming to 

 their haunts, eagerly thrust their heads into the hoods to seize the 

 fish, when, the bird-lime sticking to their feathers, and the hoods 

 covering their eyes, in that hoodwinked dilemma they are unable to 

 fly, and so become captives to the fowler. The artifice is thus de- 

 scribed in the Latin text from which, assisted by the illustration, our 

 description in English has been written : 



" Auceps e chartis confectos arte cucullos 

 Interius visco Unit : in scrobibus locat : indit 

 Pisa : venit Grus esuriens : rostrum ingerit : haeret 

 Charta oculos velans, volucri prohibetque volatum." 



This method of taking cranes with conical hoods is mentioned 

 by Blome as " a very pleasant way of taking pigeons, rooks, and 

 crows ;" but, instead of a fish being used as a bait, a few grains of 

 corn are put at the bottom of the hood. The plan is recommended 

 to be used in ploughing-time, the hoods being placed in the furrows, 

 and baited with lob-worms. 



There is also another ancient method of fowling to be explained, 

 which will strike the modern fowler as equally rude in contrivance, 

 though apparently practised with remarkable success upon the smaller 

 sort of wildfowl, which for the most part frequent and feed upon the 

 water at night. The nets employed for this purpose, were simply 

 what are termed at the present day " flue-nets," and such as are used 

 for taking fresh-water fish in narrow waters. For the purposes 

 required by the ancient fowler, these nets were two-and-a-half or 

 three feet in depth, and of lengths in proportion to the width of the 

 river or extent of the water over which they were employed. 



A number of these were thrown across a stream, at various dis- 

 tances apart, and staked down at each end to the bank, in such a 

 manner that the lower part, which was weighted for the purpose, 

 might sink about half-a-foot under water, but not deeper ; the re- 

 mainder or upper part of the net standing in a bowline, about 

 eighteen inches above the surface, and the rods supporting it being 

 flexible, so that, when any fowl struck against the net, the rods 

 yielded to the pressure, and gave scope for entanglement. Some of 



