Bird-Lime.

Manawatu Herald, 20 May 1902, Page 2

Bird-Lime.

As orchardists naturally desire to re* ' duce the number of their enemies one method of suppression as given at the Fruit Growers and Horticulturists meeting at Dunedin last year may ba . of interest: 1 ' „

where the birds gather tmokly at night, Bird-lime is a viscid and adhesive substance which is placed on twigs of trees or wire netting for the purpose of catching the birds which may alight thereon. A common practice is to place a decoy or tame bird in a cage near where the bird-lime is spread ; the wild birds, attracted to the spot by the song of the tame birds get entangled with the bird-lime. Ihe substance is generally preparcel from the middle bark ot the holly, mistletoe or distaft thistle by-chopping up the bark, treating it with water, boiling for several hours, then straining, and, lastly, concentrating the liquid by evaporation, when the bird-lime assumes a gelatinous consistency resembling that of moist putty. It mainly consists of a substance named by the chemist “ viscin.” A second mode of preparing bird-lime is to employ ordinary wheat-flour; place it in a piece of cotton cloth, tie up the ends so as to form a bag, immerse the whole in a basin ot water or allow a stream of water to flow upon it and repeatedly squeeze the bag and its contents. The result is that the starch of the wheatflour is pressed out of the cloth bag and an adhesive substance named glutten is left on the cloth. This substance resembles in its properties that prepared by the previous process, but the former mode ot preparing bird-lime is a much cheaper plan and is that generally followed. Venice turpentine may also be found of use in making a fairly good bird lime.