122



Dr. L. Lovell-Keays,



But the chief use of these sliding doors is to catch up parti¬

cular birds. Having ascertained that the particular bird I want is

in the shelter, I close all the windows and find, perhaps, two dozen

birds shut up. I roughly divide them into two flocks, one in flight

A and the other in B. Then I close one or other of the sliding

doors in my tunnel. The birds not wanted are let out into the

flight to save them from being frightened. I then open the door

leading from the inner flight to the passage and drive out some of

the captives into the passage. If my bird is not there (and I

endeavour to keep it in the flight as long as I can) I simply shut the

door into the passage and open the door into the outer flight. By

this means I eliminate the unwanted birds. If, however, the bird I

want gets into the passage, I can always separate it from the others,

and then pushing open the door between the passage and the inner



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flight, let the unwanted birds return to the inner flight. I am then

in this position, the wanted bird is in the passage and all doors are

shut. I let down the sliding door of the tunnel and allow the

unwanted birds to escape if they like. I then catch up the bird I

want by hand. It all sounds very complicated, but in reality it is

quite easy and takes far less time than it takes to write a description

of the method. I have never failed to catch any given bird within

ten minutes, provided I can get it in the shelter to begin with.

And in the winter, when one cannot have the birds out of doors at

all, it is just as easy to single out a bird and catch it, but one has,

of course, to slightly modify one’s plan of campaign. By this means

one avoids rushing round the flight making wild dashes for the bird

with a butterfly net. I have found it an inestimable boon on many



occasions.



