ROBIN TRAPS AND SNARES. 
u The red on the breast of a robin that’s sought, 
Brings blood to the snarer by whom it is caught.’’ 
There are several others that I have heard, but of which I 
have now no recollection. At the present tune I know of an 
honest fellow, — a fish-porter at Billingsgate market, who has 
been a bird-breeder for several years. He shared the general 
prejudice against robin-keeping ; but meeting with a rare bird, 
and being over-persuaded by his wife, he resolved to buy him. 
He did so, and hung it in his room, where it sang splendidly. 
However, as ill-luck would have it, the very next week three of 
his children took measles, and were very ill indeed. All one 
evening he sat smoking and brooding over the fire, till at last 
he exclaimed to his wife, “ Polly, you may depend it’s that 
blessed robin that gave the children the measles.” “ I don’t 
think they could catch it of a little creature like that,” replied 
Polly; “ besides, Hed, I never heard ” “ I don’t mean, 
you stupid woman, that the young ’uns caught it of the robin ; 
I only know and believe it’s all come about through caging h im 
up ; so you see, Polly, our best plan will be to send the bird 
off, and let the babies get well again !” 
So he at once opened the window, and let the redbreast go. 
I have no doubt, that when the blissfully ignorant fish-porter 
reads this he will think it very unkind of me thus to publish 
his weakness, but the story furnishes so apt an illustration to 
my subject that I could not forbear relating it. 
I confess I am somewhat loth to meddle with a belief, 
which, though undoubtedly fallacious, does its possessors no 
harm, while at the same time it secures to thousands of these 
little birds their freedom; yet I see no reason why Master 
Robin, who of all birds is the first to apply to us when he is hi 
distress, should not share with his equally handsome, capable, 
and, in many instances, much more delicate and sensitive 
brethren, their present bondage; therefore I will venture to 
instruct you how to manage him. 
Robin Traps and Snares. — There are several methods, but 
that which is easiest, and in my opinion the most successful, 
is called “ chinking for robins.” You must have a “ clap -trap,” 
which, it may be as well to mention, is a piece of board, to each 
side of which half a net is attached. "When the trap is set, the 
net lies flat on the ground, but by touching a spring in the 
middle of the board, and which is connected with the net, each 
side of the net flies up, claps to, in fact, and secures the bird. 
When I say that the principle of the clap -trap is exactly that 
