The Boy who went 
Bird Catching. 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
(211) 
The Boy Who Went 
Bird Catching. 
He cut a dozen small twigs from the hazels in the 
wood, 
He pared them, and he straightened them, and 
made them trim and good. 
Then he wandered through the woodlands, not 
afraid of snow or frost, 
And his grandma felt uneasy, and thought that he 
was lost. 
She set to and scolded him : “ Pray tell me 
where you’ve been ? 
Oh, dear me, what a fool you are, the like was 
never seen. 
Since you got that book of Bewick’s you have bird 
lore on the brain ; 
Off to bed, you silly fellow, there’s your trousers 
torn again. ” 
That night his grandma wakened with a sounding 
in her sleep, 
“ Dear me, do you hear that youngster decoying 
Bullies in his sleep ? ” 
He begged a drop of linseed from the farmer at 
the Mains, 
And he built an open fireplace at the grove beyond 
the plains. 
Then he set his fire ablazing, while his eyes with 
water ran, 
Then he started to make birdlime in a Dougal’s 
sheep dip can. 
He was piling on the brushwood, when he 
frightened Gipsy Nell, 
And his grandma said the hamlet would be poison’d 
with the smell. 
Then he stirred that awful compound till the 
fading of daylight, 
Though his face was like a harvest moon, and his 
eyes near out of sight. 
Next he held it in cold water, and dropped it on a 
stone, 
Then he gave a cry of triumph, it stuck like glue 
thereon. 
He exchanged his trap and riddle for a call hen 
Bully bird, 
It was old and much asthmatic, but he took the 
miller’s word. 
Samuel Baird gave him a Siskin for a peck of 
thistle seed, 
He set perches for a Redpoll, and he caught him 
on the feed. 
And a Goldfinch from the tailor for a shilling and 
a groat, 
And the cat brought in a Linnet to complete the 
happy lot. 
He saved up every copper, and he purchased nails 
and wires, 
Whilst an hawker gave him boxes and a pair of 
much-used pliers. 
Then he sawed and bored and hammered in the 
henhouse many days, 
Till his grandma saw him fidget, and examined 
him for flaes. 
He stole out in the morning when the household 
were asleep, 
Though the frosty winds were blowing and the 
snow was lying deep. 
All his gear was right and ready, so he hastened 
down the glen, 
And the Lapwings flew around him, with sheep 
bleating in the pen. 
Some wild Ducks at the mill pond were crying 
’mong the segs. 
And a bonny screaming Heron flew away with 
dangling legs. 
So he turned down the streamside by the willows 
at the linn, 
And his call birds set on tressels just below a bush 
of whin. 
He smeared his pins with birdlime, and cast seed 
upon the ground, 
Until he heard the Siskins coming, then he hid 
without a sound. 
Two Robins and a Fieldfare he caught and let 
away, 
Then three Bullies took the perches, but in colour 
rather grey. 
A Brambling and a Chaffinch he trapped beneath 
the beech, 
And a Bunting took the top twig, but it scrambled 
from his reach. 
Two Siskins from the elders took the perches he 
got one. 
But he felt the cold severely, and his birdlime it 
was done. 
So he gathered all his settings and went whistling 
o’er the hill, # 
He was proud as any hero as he trod by Toshie’s 
mill. 
He thought he’d like to breed them in his grand- 
mama’s ©Id home, 
Where he would clean and tend and treat them, 
and his comrades too would come. 
Now the boy has grown to manhood, and is famed 
the country through, 
For his British Mules and Hybrids make the 
English folk look blue. 
And his services for judging are requested far and 
near, 
For his knowledge of the species is considered 
sound and clear. 
He has boys of his own now, and they have the 
wisdom, too, 
For the oldest has a Blue-Tit that has won the 
country through. 
And they study well their “ Cage Birds,” for its 
knowledge they desire, 
And discuss the various beauties that to Palace 
firsts aspire. 
Now around the fire in winter this tale is told with 
joy, 
How their father went bird-catching at the mill 
stream when a boy. 
Bonnybridge. A. F. Anderson. 
