72 
HINTS ON CAGE-BIRDS. 
with the glutinous mess. It is difficult to remove all traces of the 
lime, even with turpentine, and in the process of cleaning, the 
feathers are almost certain to get either (lulled out or broken. All 
this is most unsatisfactory, and distressing to anyone who loves 
birds. I shall not, therefore, encourage this method of adding to 
one’s stock by explaining the various ways in which bird-lime is 
most effectually used. Savages often make use of some form of 
native bird-lime in the capture of our foreign favourites, but 
Britons should seek to be above savagery. 
Of the various nets used by catchers, the old-fashioned clap- 
nets ai'e very serviceable ; and in 1902 a great improvement upon 
the ancient type was described and illustrated in the pages of The 
Featheied World, And reproduced on page 71. This net not only 
covers an equal area of ground with that of the older and more un- 
wieldy pair, but is more easily pulled over; one sidebeing pegged down 
instead of being attached at each end to a heavy movable pole. 
To show how even an inexperienced catcher, with no brace-bird 
(but I think only a hen Chaffinch in a cage as a decoy), may vet be 
fairly successful with the nets, I may mention that during the 
winter previously referred to, my man took out a pair of old nets 
into a field in this neighbourhood and brought me home thirteen 
Skylarks, one or two Chaffinches, one or two Blackbirds, and a 
Brambling. 1 kept two of the Skylarks, and they made splondid 
songsters; one of them was an exceptionally fine bird, and became 
very tame. Bat-fowling is a common method of netting birds in 
rural districts. It is a wholesale bnt rather cruel practice, 
especial ly as the captured birds are almost invariably killed for the 
pot or thrown away. I have never witnessed this, but am informed 
that it requires several operators. A thick hedge is chosen at night, 
and a man holding the net, which is suspended between two long 
poles, passes down one side of the hedge, whilst his companions 
thrash the other side with sticks. As the wretched birds, disturbed 
from their slumbers, fly out towards the net, the two poles are 
brought, together, and the whole flock enveloped in it. Even if 
saved alive, I should imagine that many of the captives would be 
likely to die from the sudden terror to which they had been 
exposed. 
The common sixpenny or shilling net-trap is a clever little con- 
trivance, worked with a spring wire frame, to which the net is 
fastened. At one end of the platform of this trap is a box in which, 
when ready for catching, the net is folded up and concealed by a 
loose lid, in the front of which is fixed a short straight wire pin ; a 
small platform * and perch are supported upon a sort of axle nearer 
to the middle of the trap, the perch having a pin fastened in the 
back, which, when carefully adjusted over the pin in the lid, keeps 
the latter in position. A mealworm is usually fastened to the 
* A peg undor the back of this prevents it from turning over, if I remem- 
ber rightly. 
