38 PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY. 



persons should employ the net at night. One holds it 

 close to the foliage of a tree, while others drive the birds 

 into the net by beating the opposite side. They fly 

 against it and flutter down helplessly into the bag at the 

 bottom, where they can be readily examined and set 

 free, if not the species desired. Long nets can be placed 

 about hedges and bushes, and birds be driven into them, 

 though the number of specimens gathered in some locali- 

 ties will scarcely pay the ornithologist for his trouble. 



On the sea-shore many species of gulls can be taken with 

 hooks, particularly in winter, when food is scarce. The 

 great black-backed gull, herring, ring-billed, kittiwake, 

 and other shy species of gulls which are difficult to shoot, 

 can be taken as follows : 



Cut a piece of cork, with triangular sides, five inches 

 long and one inch and a quarter wide. Fasten together 

 by wiring, two large hooks on any side of this cork, 

 so that the shanks extend about three-quarters of an inch 

 beyond the end. Turn them until the points are nearly 

 an inch apart, and weight the lower edge of the cork so 

 that when floated the hooks will remain above water. A 

 strong wire should run from the hooks to the other end 

 of the cork and terminate in an eye in which a fish-line or 

 cord may be fastened. A smelt or other small fish should 

 be used as bait, being split open down the belly, and bound 

 on the cork with white thread, back upwards. The fish 

 should cover the whole cork and its nose fit closely up in 

 the bend of the hooks. The whole should be weighted so 

 that when floatins: nothing is visible but the bait and the 

 bare hook-shanks. This should be anchored with a brick 

 or something of about equal weight, so that there will be 

 a few feet of slack line. The hooks will have to be set 

 from a boat or a line attached to the anchor, which can 

 be thrown out from shore. The baits should be set in the 

 "track" of the gulls, which will not hesitate to take 

 them. They never fail to seize the bait against the tide. 



