FOWLING, the art of taking or killing birds. It is either practised as an amuse ment by persons of rank and property, and then principally consists in killing them with a light fire-arm, called a fowl ing-piece, and the diversion is secured to them by the game-laws ; or it is practised for a livelihood, by persons who use nets and other apparatus. Though there is much skill and knowledge displayed in fowling with the fowling-piece, not only in the use of the instrument, but like wise in the training of dogs, and disco vering and starting the game, we must, from the nature of our limits, avoid en tering into this subject. The other arti fices, by which birds are taken, consist in imitating their voices, or leading them, by other means, into situations, where they become entrapped by nets, or bird lime, or otherwise.
The pipe, or call, affords the most common means used to take great num bers of birds; this is done in the months of September and October. A thin wood is the spot chosen for this pur tinder a tree, a little distant from the others, is erected a cabin, and there are only those branches left on the tree, which are necessary for the placing of the bird-lime, which are supple twigs, and are covered with bird-lime. There are placed around the cabin avenues with twisted perches, which are also besmeared with bird-lime. The bird catcher places himself in the cabin, and at sun-rise and sun-set imitates the cry of a small bird, calling the others to its assistance ; for animals have also their cries to express their different passions, which are well known to each other. if a cry is made to imitate the owl, imme diately different sorts of birds assemble at the cry of their common enemy, and they are seen falling to the ground at every instant, their wings, from the bird lime, being of no use to them. The cries of those birds which are thus caught attract others, and great quanti ties arc in this manner taken. It is only during the night that the great and small owls are taken, by counterfeiting the cry of the mouse.
To take the lark, nets are spread, and about the middle of the net is placed a looking-glass, to which a cord is attach ed, which, upon being drawn, makes the glass turn round like the sails of a wind mill; during the time that the sun shines, it is put in motion, its brilliancy attracts the larks, whose feet get entangled in the meshes of the nets. The clap-net is also made use of during the night ; this is a large slender net, which is supported at each end by two men upon long poles ; they walk about the ground until they hear the larks, when they let it fall, and take by this means vast quantities.
1Vater-fowl may be taken in great num bers, by nets properly managed. The net for this purpose should be always made of the smallest and strongest packthread that can be got. The meshes may be large, but the nets should be lined on both sides with other smaller nets, every mesh of which is to be about an inch and a half square, each way, that as the fowls strike either through them, or against them, the smaller may pass through the great meshes, and so streighten and en tangle the fowl.
These nets are to be pitched for every evening-flight of fowl, about an hour be fore sun-set, staking them on each side of the river, about half a foot within the wa. ter, the lower side of the net being so plummed, that it may sink so far, and no farther ; place the upper side of the net slantwise, shoaling against the water, but not touching it by nearly two feet; and let the strings which support this upper side of the net be fastened to small yield ing sticks set in the bank ; these, as the fowl strikes, will give the net liberty to play, and to entangle them. Several of these nets should be placed at once over different parts of the river, at about twelveseore fathoms distance one from another ; and if any fowl come that way, the sportsman will have a share of them. It is a good method, when the nets are set, to go to places sufficiently distant from them with a gun, to frighten them towards the places where the nets are ; and wherever any of the fowl are started from, it may not be amiss to plant some nets also there, to take them as they re turn. The nets are to be left thus placed all night, and in the morning, the sports man is to go and see what is caught ; he should visit the river first, and take up what are caught there ; and, frightening the rest away to the other places where his nets are, he is next to visit them, and take what are there secured.
The Ceylonese have great plenty of water-fowl wild on their island, and have a very remarkable way of catching them, which is this : the fowler enters a lake or other water, which has a good bottom, and is not very deep ; he puts an earthen pot upon his head, in which there are bored holes, through which he can see ; he keeps himself so bent down in the wa ter, that only the pot is above the surface ; in this manner he enters the place where the wild-fowl are in clusters, and they think it is only some floating block. He then takes some one by the legs, and gently draws it under water, and wrings its neck till he has killed it ; then putting it into his bag, which is fastened about his middle, he takes hold of another in the same manner, and so on, till he has got as many as he can carry off, and then he goes back in the same manner in which he came, not disturbing the rest of the birds, who never miss their companions, as they seem to dive down for their diversion, when the fowler pulls them under. In places where this has been practised so long, or so carelessly, that the birds are shy, the fowler uses a gun ; but this he does in the following manner : he makes a screen of about five feet high, and three feet wide, which he carries in one hand straight between himself and his game, and in the other hand his gun. The birds are not alarmed at what appears only a bush ; for this screen is always covered with branches of trees, fresh cut down, and full of leaves, so that the sportsman behind advances as near as he pleases, and then putting the gun through some crevice of the screen, he fires. See DECOY.