FINCHES. 31 



manner of birds or beasts are unduly redundant. There is 

 the rabbit in Australia, for instance, working shocking havoc 

 on the sheep runs, and living in a very Arcadia where stoats 

 or weasels are unknown, and ruining biped and quadruped 

 with its ceaseless fecundity. The sparrow in America is as 

 bad, and the Senate has arraigned, condemned, and excom- 

 municated him several times, without, however, any percepti- 

 ble effect on his cheerfulness or numbers. We forbear to 

 enlarge upon the devices prepared for the beguilement of this 

 little scourge of Christendom, as his enemies call him, since 

 the erratic propensities of the sparrow not only lead him to 

 trespass on every man's land, but bring him sooner or later 

 into every man's trap. For this reason, and the fact of his 

 small mercantile value, few lures are devoted to his special 

 circumvention. Of those that are, however, the " bat-folding- 

 net " is one of the most destructive. This consists of two 

 twelve-foot bamboos, slightly bent and joined at their thinner 

 ends, having a net of small mesh stretched between them 

 nearly down to the lower or handle ends, where the net is 

 turned back for a foot or so to form a trough-like pouch. 

 When in use one man holds the lower ends of the bamboos, 

 and applies the net, spread between them to ivy on walls or 

 trees, haystacks, eaves, etc., and wherever the birds may be 

 sleeping at that hour of the evening; while another man 

 with lantern and stick beats the foliage, etc., and the 

 affrighted birds dash from their roosts to meet the wall 

 of net, falling after a brief struggle into the open pouch 

 below. 



Barring these perky little finches that Yenus loved, we 

 have in this country few kinds of birds that assemble in great 

 flocks, and can thus be killed wholesale either in revenge for 

 fancied injuries done or for "the pot." Abroad it is other- 

 wise. In Germany, for instance, they are overrun with 

 starlings. On November evenings the fowlers of the Upper 

 Rhine watch for the arrival of the great nights of starlings. 

 A little cloud is seen on the horizon, which gradually 



