


8 IMPLEMENTS FOR COLLECTING, AND THEIR USE. 
etc., are projected by force of the breath. It must be quite an 
art to use such a weapon successfully, and its employment is 
necessarily exceptional. Some uncivilized tribes are said to 
possess marvellous skill in the use of long bamboo blow-guns ; 
and such people are often valuable employés of the collector. 
I have had no experience with the noiseless air-gun, which is, 
in effect, a modified blow-gun, compressed air being the explo- 
sive power. Nor can J say much of various methods of trap- 
ping birds that may be practised. On these points I must leave 
you to your own devices, with the remark that horse-hair 
snares, set over a nest, are often of great service in securing 
the parent of eggs that might otherwise remain unidentified. 
I have no practical knowledge of bird-lime; I believe it is 
seldom used in this country. A method of nefting birds alive, 
which I have tried, is both easy and successful. A net of fine 
green silk, some 8 or 10 feet square, is stretched perpendicu- 
larly across a narrow part of one of the tiny brooks, over- 
grown with briers and shrubbery, that intersect many of our 
meadows. Retreating to a distance the collector beats along 
the shrubbery making all the noise he can, urging on the little 
birds till they reach the almost invisible net and become en- 
tangled in trying to fly through. I have in this manner taken 
a dozen sparrows and the like at one ‘‘drive.” But the gun 
can rarely be laid aside for this or any similar device. 
§4. Ammunition. The best powder is that combining 
strength and cleanliness in the highest compatible degree. In 
some brands too much of the latter is sacrificed to the former. 
Other things being equal, a rather coarse powder is preferable, 
since its slower action tends to throw shot closer. Some num- 
bers are said to be ‘too quick”’ for fine breech-loaders. In- 
experienced sportsmen and collectors almost invariably use 
too coarse shot. When unnecessarily large, two evils result: 
the number of pellets in a load is decreased, the chances of 
killing being correspondingly lessened; and the plumage is 
unnecessarily injured, either by direct mutilation, or by subse- 
quent bleeding through large holes. As already hinted, shot 

