. Trails and tramps in Alaska and Newfoundland . water, and after awhile would become accustomed to lingeron it before descending to the bath. In afew days we would cut pliant tips of thewillow, smear them with bird-lime, and bymeans of slits cut in the branch would arrangethe besmeared twigs high enough that whenthe bird alighted the limed twigs stuck to hisbreast feathers and swung around under-neath, sticking the wing fast to his side sothat the bird could not move. Invariablyit would fall to the ground, unable in thecase of the smaller birds either to walk orfly, and thus became an easy pr
. Trails and tramps in Alaska and Newfoundland . water, and after awhile would become accustomed to lingeron it before descending to the bath. In afew days we would cut pliant tips of thewillow, smear them with bird-lime, and bymeans of slits cut in the branch would arrangethe besmeared twigs high enough that whenthe bird alighted the limed twigs stuck to hisbreast feathers and swung around under-neath, sticking the wing fast to his side sothat the bird could not move. Invariablyit would fall to the ground, unable in thecase of the smaller birds either to walk orfly, and thus became an easy prey. Ofcourse this was a boyhood prank, and mylove to have the songster with me at homeled me to place him in captivity. My ideashave changed and to-day I love the birds bestin their natural haunts among the environ- 282 In the Springtime ments in which they sing the sweetest, theirplumage is the finest, and where Hberty offlight adds to their grace and charm. In selecting the place to trap the birdswhere they go to bathe, one must bear in mind. Nest of Red-wing Blackbird that some birds will frequent one place,some birds another. We would set out a lineof traps some distance apart. In goingfrom place to place we gave the birds timeto visit in our absence. If perchance a birddisturbed the twigs, we always knew it, forwe kept the number of the smeared twigs seton each branch. If a twig were missing and In the Springtime 283 no bird in sight, on looking around we weresure to find the bird, if small, somewherenear the branch, or in case of larger birds,some distance away, for while the smallerbirds were hopelessl}^ entangled, the larger
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectb, booksubjecthunting
