194 SISD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



sheaves, and the birds coming to feed upon it are quickly 

 stupefied and easily caught. A day's watching of such an 

 arrangement should result in a pretty fair clearance of birds. 

 Our own wild pigeons are not to be decoyed into the snare 

 by means of their own species, as is the case with some 

 kinds. Yet curiosity, or the suggestion of safety and food 

 which the presence of their kind at any spot seems to denote, 

 will often bring them within range of the gun, which, after 

 all, is the most apt instrument of destruction we have for 

 them. The worst of it is, that they are so superlatively 

 keen that the slightest error of judgment in making or 

 placing the " stales " is fatal to all chance of their usefulness. 

 Syrians call down flocks of wild doves by means of a tame 

 decoy, whose eyelids are sewn together, and who is fastened 

 in the neighbourhood of the hidden gunner armed with his 

 long ancestral matchlock. In the same way, in China, a 

 dove is fastened, blind, at the end of a slender switch jutting 

 out from the top of a tall pole planted in the ground. The 

 bird's weight causes the wand to bend and swing continually, 

 thus obliging it to use its wings in order to preserve its 

 balance. The decoy's movements very effectually attract the 

 notice of roaming flocks, which soon alight all around the 

 screen behind which the Celestial lies in wait. 



Outside our coppices the village gunner uses decoys 

 of wood, metal, and indiarubber, shaped and painted to 

 resemble the live birds as nearly as possible ; but, as has been 

 said, there is an art in the placing of them, and even when 

 that is mastered we doubt whether " the game is worth the 

 candle." A gunner who knows the habits of the bird will 

 probably manage to pick up quite as many pigeons without 

 allies as he would with the best of them. 



