Notes from an 
Old Diary. 
(44) THE BIRD WORLD. 
Notes from an Old Diary• 
By T. H, KINCH. 
(i Continued from /. 167, Vol. /.) 
As a boy, nesting was my favourite 
pastime, and, as I had the run of a 
large park, I knew well where to find all 
the nests. A great many of the old trees 
had holes in them, which were the 
favourite places for Jackdaws, Owls, 
Hawks, and Pigeons. Some of the holes 
were down so deep I could not reach to 
the bottom of them ; but, not to be done, 
I filled the holes up with stones, turf, 
etc., so as to get within arm’s reach on 
the next occasion. As the Jackdaws 
were so plentiful, I used to gather the 
eggs and sell them, or rather exchange 
them for sweets, to a confectioner, who 
said they made better cake than hens’ 
eggs. Some we used to keep and 
beat up and frv in an old tin over a wood 
fire. With two companions as visitors, 
these teas, with fried eggs and new rolls, 
went down wel 1; but one day we were 
caught nearly firing the outhouse where 
we did the cooking, and then there was 
trouble. I was reminded of this a few 
days ago by an old school chum who 
visited me. This old chum was greatly 
given to practical joking. He would 
catch snakes (the common grass ones), 
skin them, and fill the skin with saw¬ 
dust. Several of these skins he had, 
and he would then put them on ladies’ 
doorsteps and other conspicuous places, 
which caused the finders to scream and 
nearly faint. He also loved to catch a 
mouse and stuff it the same way, to play 
a trick upon his three sisters, who were 
older than he was, by placing it upon 
the cheese dish and then asking for some 
cheese. I have mentioned these boyish 
tricks, not that they are in any way con¬ 
nected with birds, but it has caused my 
friend to become a great naturalist; he 
also can mimic most native birds. VVe 
soon got tired of this, and collected and 
hand-reared the young, principally 
Hawks, Owls, Jackdaws, and Jays. 
Many a mile we tramped to the woods 
for these. After getting them to feed 
and tame we readily sold, but only for 
a few pence. This friend and myself 
were natural climbers. No tree would 
stop us. We invented a patent in those 
days, we thought, by using some old 
“ spurs ” as climbers. This device acted 
well, and many a branchless tree have 
we scaled by these simple means. One 
year we had sixteen Magpies, all hand- 
reared. This for a time was a serious 
drain on our limited finances, but we did 
manage to sell most of these for is. each, 
which we thought was a good price in 
those days. 
We next collected the Blue Rock 
Pigeons and hand-reared about 20. 
These were sold for shooting purposes. 
But we could only make 6d. each of 
them, and so left them for Hawks, 
several nests of which we reared. My 
friend had a book on Hawking, so we 
tried to train them. We first started to 
blow a whistle when we fed them. This 
acted all right for a time, but when it 
was put into practice his theory was soon 
exploded, for the Hawks, having their 
freedom, refused to return. We tried 
for years to train them, but, as boys, I 
suppose we had not sufficient patience, 
although our knowledge was great, or we 
thought so. 
After I left school I started upon 
Canaries and British Birds in earnest, 
and tried my hand at Muling, which 
knowledge I had to gain from experi¬ 
ence, as I had no one to advise me nor 
any books or papers to run to. I can 
now say I am not sorry, for you gain 
more from experience than from books. 
I always had the pluck to try again if 
I failed, and it made me study each 
bird, their habits, and natural food. I 
first bought a Canary for a cock, and, of 
course, I was u had ”■—it turned out to 
