20 THE WILD-FOWLER. 



This art was often prosperously performed upon large gaggles of 

 grey geese : the lime-twigs being of extra size, and the lime of double 

 strength. A number of these twigs (or rods as they were sometimes 

 called) were placed in open fields amongst green wheat, on which 

 some of the species wild goose are particularly fond of feeding. And, it 

 seems, the fowler had to pay special regard to the colour of the rods : 

 that they might resemble as nearly as possible the soil on which they 

 were placed, and so excite as small an amount of suspicion as could be. 

 But without a thorough knowledge of the most favoured haunts of 

 the birds, these methods of fowling with lime-twigs could not have 

 been attended with any proper result. A regard to the season of the 

 year, and the number of birds about the coast, was also an important 

 consideration. In some cases success might be obtained by the fowler's 

 cunning in disturbing the birds ironi other haunts near at hand, when 

 they would probably fly directly to those where his own snares were 

 spread.* But it must have been, at all times, a very uncertain and 

 precarious method. 



The appropriation of bird-lime to the purposes of taking wild-fowl 

 has been known during* many centuries. It is mentioned by Plutarch 

 as one of the fowler's devices in early days ; and it was also freely 

 practised in France and Holland, and on various parts of the con- 

 tinent, as were also many of the devices alluded to for taking them 

 with nets.f 



The mischievous practice of capturing wild-fowl by aid of poisonous 

 drugs was formerly considered a fair method of fowling. It is fully 

 treated on in Blome's " Gentleman's Recreations," where receipts are 

 given for mixing and making " the composition and baits for intoxi- 

 cating of fowl, and yet without tainting or hurting their flesh," the 

 ingredients for which comprise simply, corn or seed ssteeped in nux 

 vomica, wine lees, or juice of hemlock. The author of the " Jewel 



* Hunger's Prevention. 



f Vide Le parfait Chasseur ; par M. De Selincourt : 1683. Le Traite des Oiseaux 

 de voiliere ; ou, Le parfait Oisleur. Traduit en partie de 1'Ouvrage Italien d'Olina : 

 1774. Also, Traite de Toute Sorte de Chasse et de Peche ; contentat, la maniere 

 de faire, racommoder et teindre toutes sortes de fillets ; de prendre aux pieges toutes 

 sortes d'oiseaux et betes a quatre pieds : un Traite de la Volerie and des Oiseaux 

 qui y servent, &c. : a Amsterdam, 1714 ; 2 tomes. In tome 1 of the copy of this 

 work, which came into my hands, there is prefixed to one of the fly-leaves a MS. note 

 to the effect, that an edition of the same work, with the illustrations in wood, upon 

 the letter-press, had been subsequently pirated under the title " Amusemens de la 

 Campagne, ou Nouvelles Buses Innocents qui enseignent la maniere de prendre aux 

 Pieges toutes sortes d'Oiseaux," &c. ; par le Sieur L. Liger : a Paris, 1753. 



