COLLECTING AND TRAPPING 99 



out and crushed specimen is by no means desirable for 

 taxidermic purposes. 



Snares, either of wire or some other strong material, are 

 best left to the imagination and to poachers, whose vested 

 interest in such things must not be rudely disturbed, but small 

 springes of horsehair are frequently used in all countries for 

 taking small birds. Sir Ralph Payne - Gallwey has fully 

 described in one of his works ^ a method of netting plover on 

 flight, and in one of the volumes of the Badminton Library he 

 briefly refers to this under the heading of " Plovers and Sand- 

 pipers " : ^ — 



They are netted in thousands in Ireland by a few men who make 

 a living thereby, keeping secret the working details of their appliances. 

 We have known them take in one fall of the net over one hundred 

 plover, both green and golden, and as many as a thousand during a 

 week. 



This netting of plover is a fascinating sport, as the birds are taken 

 on the wing. The net, previously laid flat on the ground, springs up 

 just as the wild birds swoop down over the stuffed decoys. The 

 trigger line that frees the net from its catches is pulled by the fowler as 

 he lies concealed a hundred or more yards ofiF. The net and operator 

 must be quick as thought in action, or not a bird will be taken. The 

 mode of working the net is easily learnt, and can be applied by any 

 sportsman whose lands are frequented by plover, to the benefit of both 

 his pocket and his table. 



From the men who work these nets, from duck decoy-men, 

 and from ordinary birdcatchers, good specimens may often be 

 obtained ; but there is no doubt that by the blow-pipe, by which 

 some few experts manage to kill small birds, and especially by 

 the gun, which nearly every one can use with more or less 

 success, will the greater number of specimens be procured. In 

 Britain, and, indeed, in most parts of Europe, the battery need 



^ The Fowler in Ireland. 

 ^ Shooting {Moor and MarsK), fourth edition (1893), pp. 203, 204. 



