THE CHAFFINCH. 
the bird-dealer’s or make it yourself. I make my own, and I 
can buy none to equal it. I pick the berries off mistletoe, and 
boil them in a little water till they begin to break ; then I put 
them in a sieve to drain, and while they are still warm bray 
them in a mortar. To be good, bird-lime should be capable of 
being pulled out in a thread three feet long without breaking. 
Keep the bird-lime in a little tin box, and, until you want it, 
stand the box, with the lid off, in clean water. 
You will want a stuffed chaffinch mounted on a stick, in the 
end of which is a sharp spike. However, it is by no means 
worth while to make this yourself, as you can buy sticks already 
prepared and mounted at the bird-shops at sixpence each. 
These stuffed birds are called “ stales ” by the “ trade.” Choose 
a “ stale ” with the best and freshest plumage. All you want 
besides the “ pegging finch,” the “ stale,” the bird-lime, and a 
store cage, in which to put your captives, is some sprigs of 
whalebone, eight inches long and thin enough to be moderately 
pliable : at one end of each of these sprigs tightly bind the 
pointed half of a pin. 
But after the trouble I have been at to instruct you in the 
art of pegging, the chance is that I have succeeded in nothing 
else but in offending you, 0 respectable boy. You fancy, you 
say, that you see yourself coming home (going out, as nobody 
is up, might be tolerated) with a chaffinch tied in a handker- 
chief in one hand, a store cage, containing sundry newly-caught 
and savage birds in the other, and your pockets bulging with 
the mounted dummy,- — whose tail is exposed to public gaze, — • 
the whalebone twigs, and the bird-lime box. You picture your- 
self, so equipped, coming down the street, and encountering 
your irascible Uncle Sleektop. 
But know, my dear boy, that it is possible to indulge in the 
pretty sport of pegging for chaffinches without outraging your 
very proper pride and self-respect, — without risking the displea- 
sure of Uncle Sleektop. Although, thank goodness, I have 
neither friend nor relation who would take the trouble to feel 
shocked at anything I might do, still I confess that your 
ideas of propriety correspond exactly with mine own, and it 
was the terrible fear that I might be mistaken for a professed 
“ catcher,” that led to my invention of the “ pegging-bag.” 
True, it is nothing more than an ordinary carpet-bag, the upper 
portion of the sides cut away, and replaced with fide wire-gauze, 
but it quite answers the purpose, and with the whole of my 
apparatus packed therein, were you to meet me, the very worst 
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