While we are on the subject of the jerking of the bird, we cannot omit mentioning that the bird-catchers frequently lay wagers upon whose call bird can jerk the longest, as that determines their superiority. They place them opposite to each other by an inch of candle, and the bird who jerks the most before the candle is burnt out wins the wager. We have been informed that there have been instances of birds giving one hundred and seventy jerks in a quarter of an hour. It may be here observed that birds when near each other seldom jerk or sing. It is a singular circumstance that the male chaffinches fly by themselves, and in the flight precede the females; but this is not particular with this class of bird. When the larks are caught at the beginning of the season it frequently happens that forty are taken, and not one female among them. An experienced birdcatcher informed us that such birds as breed twice a year generally have in their first brood a majority of males, and in their second of females. The method of birdcatching must have been long practised, as it is brought to a most systematical perfection, and attended with much trouble and expense. The nets are a most ingenious piece of mechanism. They are from ten to twelve and a half yards long, and ten yards and a half in width, and no one on bare inspection would imagine that a bird, who is so quick in all its motions, could be caught by the nets flapping over each other till he becomes an eye-witness of the process. After the birdcatcher and Alf Purvis had taken up their position in the clump of foliage, they waited patiently for more than a quarter of an hour. The adjacent trees and shrubs resounded with chirpings and carollings. “I like to hear them twitter,” said the boy. “It looks like business,” returned his companion. “Pretty――aint it?” “Oh, jolly, and no mistake. I wish I knew the business.” The birds gathering courage began to flutter down upon the net, which soon swarmed with linnets, yellowhammers, and tit-larks. “Pull the string, guv’nor,” said Alf. “Wait a bit, youngster. I want some bullfinches. I can hear ’em piping all around. There’s lots on ’em about these thorn trees.” The bullfinch, though it does not properly belong to what are known as singing birds or birds of flight, as it does not often move farther than from hedge to hedge, yet invariably sells well on account of its learning to whistle tunes, and sometimes flies over the fields where the nets are laid, the birdcatchers have often a call-bird to ensnare it, though most of them can imitate its call with their mouths. It is remarkable with regard to this bird that the female answers the purpose of a call-bird as well as the male, which is not experienced by any other bird taken by the London bird catchers.