TRAPS AND SNARES POE SKYLARKS. 
that the breast feathers are simply of a dingy white, just tinged 
with light brown. If so, it is a cock. If, on the contrary, the 
ground colour of the breast is nearly white, and vividly span- 
gled with dark -brown specks, it is a hen bird. Beside this, the 
hen bird is smaller. 
For humanity’s sake, bird-buyers should be careful as to 
what dealer they go to. Those who keep their birds well-fed 
and cleanly should be patronised; those, on the contrary, who 
treat birds as anything but creatures endowed with taste and 
feeling, should never be countenanced. 
Almost daily I pass a shop in Old-street, St. Luke’s, and 
there, exhibited in the open window, may always be seen 
a sight loathsome and sickening. Store-cage packed on 
store-cage, and each one literally crammed with birds of 
various kinds, larks, linnets, thrushes, &c. To say the least, 
each cage is half-full of birds, so that they perch on each 
other’s backs, while, at the same time, the cages themselves 
are as filthy and disgusting as can be imagined. I wonder 
what prevents the officers of the Society for the Prevention 
of Cruelty to Animals from giving the bird dealer in question 
a call. 
Traps and Snares por Skylarks. — Among the most favour- 
ite modes of snaring the skylark, the following is one of the 
best. Start at break of day, carrying with you a well-trained 
singing lark. Tie its wings, so that it can do no more than hop 
about the ground, and under the string that confines the wings 
slip the ends of two lengths of flexible whalebone, the projecting 
ends of which must be well smeared with good birdlime. Let 
the limed twigs cross each other over the decoy bird’s back. 
Watch from what part of a meadow a lark rises, and then put 
down your decoy near the spot. As soon as the decoy begins 
to sing, the wild bird — if he be ever so high — will speedily 
drop like a stone on to the back of the trespasser, the lime 
adheres to the wild lark’s spread pinions, and it is caught. 
In the winter after a frost, or when the snow slightly covers 
the ground, larks may be taken in considerable numbers by 
the “ hair noose.” This is accomplished by simply driving 
pieces of wood into the ground frequented by them, so that 
about three inches are above the surface. These strings 
should be about three yards apart, and then — after the fashion 
of laundresses’ clothes lines — stretch twine from stump to 
stump. Then make nooses in lengths of horse-hair and suspend 
them from your lines, so that the running loops dangle freely 
