316 APPENDIX. V. 



chanism, are generally twelve yards and a half 

 long, and two yards and a half wide ; and no 

 one on bare inspection would imagine that a 

 bird (who is so very quick in all its motions) 

 could be catched by the nets flapping over each 

 other, till he becomes eye-witness of the pullers 

 seldom failing. * 



The wild birds Jli/ (as the bird-catchers term 

 it) chiefly during the month of October, and 

 part of September and November; as the flight 

 in March is much less considerable than that 

 of Michaelmas. It is to be noted also, that 

 the several species of bii^ds of Jiight do not 

 make their appearance precisely at the same 

 time, during tlie months of September, October 

 and No'vember. The Pippet, f for example, 

 begins to fly about Michaelmas, and then the 

 Woodlark, Linnet, Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Green- 

 V finch, and other birds of flight succeed; all of 



which are not easily to be caught, or in any 

 numbers, at any other time, and more parti- 

 cularly the Pippet and the Woodlark. 



pill 095- 



* These nets are known in most parts of England by the 

 name of day-nets or clap-nets ; but all we have seen are far in- 

 ferior in their mechanism to those used near London. 



•f A small species of Lark, but which is inferior to other birds 

 of that Genus in point of song. (See vol. i.p. 484.) 



