70 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



lonely one which made thus an exception to the rule was 

 truly in as desperate a plight as any fruit tree could ever be. 

 Leafless, barkless, broken-down, and bare, it was but the very 

 ghost or skeleton, at best, of an old apple tree. At its foot 

 was a small hut, about the size of a Newfoundland's kennel. 

 This hut was made roughly, of a few willow branches, with 

 both ends stuck in the ground, tunnel-shape, and covered 

 over with a few handfuls of evergreens. Karl, my active 

 German guide, who had brought a large clasp-knife-, thereupon 

 proceeded to cut down a few more branches and leaves from 

 the nearest hedge, and he interlaced these with the frame- 

 work of the hut, so as to make its interior tolerably secure 

 from the prying glances of the jays on the morrow. 



" The next morning, early, ' we were all there,' as the 

 Americans say. A cool morning it was, with a fresh breeze 

 blowing, and the dew yet on every blade of grass, when we 

 left the keeper's house. Karl was carrying a large pan of 

 bird-lime, a bundle of small branches about a foot long, a 

 long stick notched at one end, a large and long empty cage, 

 and a smaller one containing a live jay. On his back was 

 strapped a small bundle of hay. When we reached the hut, 

 he, first of all, thrust the hay inside, and placed the cage out 

 of harm's way in the hut. Then he cut the string which held 

 all his bits of stick together, and taking them, one by one, he 

 thrust each of them separately in the notch of his long stick, 

 dipped them, turn by turn, in the fresh lime, and fixed them 

 here and there on the uppermost branches of the apple tree, 

 wherever any forks in the branches allowed a resting-place 

 for them. 



"When he had arranged the lot, the sun was getting 

 pretty well up in the sky, and we crawled into the hut. Oar 

 position there was not remarkably comfortable, but the pro- 

 spect in store was rather cheering, and that made a com- 

 pensation for the somewhat cramped posture we were for the 

 time being forced to adopt. 



" Meanwhile, by peering through the leaves I saw a band 



