FINCHES. 37 



"start at break of day, carrying with you a well-trained 

 singing lark. Tie its wings, so that it can do no more than 

 hop about the ground, and under the string slip the ends of 

 two lengths of flexible whalebone, the projecting ends of 

 which must be well smeared with bird-lime, and cross each 

 other over the decoy's back. Watch where a lark rises, and 

 put down your bird near the spot, the wild bird will drop 

 like a stone on the back of the trespasser, and it is caught 

 by the lime." 



One more method of taking these diminutive wild-fowl 

 a curious and sportsmanlike method we might almost say 

 if it does not take us to the end of our available notes, 

 will at least probably exhaust a reader's patience : " To-day 

 some bird-catchers brought a number of pipits for sale," 

 writes an Indian traveller. " The method of capture was 

 ingenious. Sheltering themselves under a screen of leaves, 

 they would creep to within about thirty feet of where the 

 birds were running about. They then push forward a series 

 of bamboos, which fit into one another like the joints of a 

 fishing rod, the top one being provided with a pronged twig 

 smeared with bird-lime. This, on coming in contact with 

 the bird, of course holds it fast, until the native runs up and 

 wrings its neck ' in the name of Allah the Compassionate ! ' ' 



Small birds as food are much more popular amongst 

 other races than amongst the Anglo-Saxon. Every con- 

 tinental market-place is at times an ornithological exhibition. 

 Under the olive-groves of the ^Egean Islands, and all through 

 the Mediterranean, finches and warblers at all times of the 

 year are liable to get themselves into nets or toils of varying 

 make. 



Just outside Port Said I have seen something novel in 

 the way of bird- catching. Two Arabs, with casting-nets, 

 were walking along the canal bank, here dotted with patches 

 of scrub a foot or eighteen inches high. Marking down some 

 unfortunate small bird, they stalked and cast their nets over 

 the bush on which it had taken shelter, seldom making a 



