When it is found necessary to get bagged larks for entering a hobby--I have sometimes used one for entering merlins--they may be obtained in this way. Stick two wattled hurdles into the ground three inches apart and side by side in the middle of a very big field where there are larks. Stuff up the space between the two hurdles with loose straw, all except about a foot at each end. Then take out a merlin and beat the field, driving towards the hurdles. When a lark gets up, if the hawk presses him hard, he will go to the shelter which is so inviting. Then taking down your merlin, and giving her a tiring to amuse her, go and pick out the lark from the straw near one end of the hurdles. I am aware that some writers--and those of the highest authority--have recommended the use of bagged larks after ringing flights when the quarry has put in and cannot quickly be got out; and that the plan is advocated especially in the case of merlins flown at larks. I venture to think, however, that it is a plan which must be resorted to with very great discretion, and only in extreme cases. The idea, of course, is that the bagged bird, let loose at the place where the wild one was seen to put in, is mistaken for the latter by the hawk, which consequently supposes when she has killed that her victim is the one at which she first started. But does the hawk ever make this mistake? A lark, for instance, which has flown a ringing flight is necessarily a good one, whereas the bagged one--unless by a rare accident you have picked one up just before--is necessarily a poor one and generally a bad one; especially if he has been dragged about in a bag or box for an hour or more. Will the merlin believe that this third- or fourth-rate performer is the same bird which a few minutes ago took her up after him into the clouds? Would you yourself, if you had chased a pickpocket or a welsher for half a mile, mistake his identity five minutes afterwards? And the difference between a good and a bad lark is much greater than the difference between a good and a bad pickpocket!