The tricks practised by the bird-sellers are frequent and systematic.
The other day a man connected with the bird-trade had to visit
Holloway, the City, and Bermondsey. In Holloway he saw six men, some
of whom he recognised as regular bird-catchers and street-sellers,
offering sham birds; in the City he found twelve; and in Bermondsey
six, as well as he could depend upon his memory. These, he thought,
did not constitute more than a half of the number now at work as
bird-“duffers,” not including the sellers of foreign birds. In the
summer, indeed, the duffers are most numerous, for birds are cheapest
then, and these tricksters, to economise time, I presume, buy of other
catchers any cheap hens suited to their purpose. Some of them, I am
told, never catch their birds at all, but purchase them.
The greenfinch is the bird on which these men’s art is most commonly
practised, its light-coloured plumage suiting it to their purposes. I
have heard these people styled “bird-swindlers,” but by street-traders
I heard them called “bird-duffers,” yet there appears to be no very
distinctive name for them. They are nearly all men, as is the case in
the bird trade generally, although the wives may occasionally assist
in the street-sale. The means of deception, as regards the greenfinch
especially, are from paint. One aim of these artists is to make their
finch resemble some curious foreign bird, “not often to be sold so
cheap, or to be sold at all in this country.” They study the birds in
the window of the naturalists’ shops for this purpose. Sometimes they
declare these painted birds are young Java sparrows (at one time “a
fashionable bird”), or St. Helena birds, or French or Italian finches.
They sometimes get 5_s._ for such a “duffing bird;” one man has been
known to boast that he once got a sovereign. I am told, however, by a
bird-catcher who had himself supplied birds to these men for duffing,
that they complained of the trade growing worse and worse.
It is usually a hen which is painted, for the hen is by far the
cheapest purchase, and while the poor thing is being offered for sale
by the duffers, she has an unlimited supply of hemp-seed, without
other food, and hemp-seed beyond a proper quantity, is a very strong
stimulus. This makes the hen look brisk and bold, but if newly caught,
as is usually the case, she will perhaps be found dead next morning.
The duffer will object to his bird being handled on account of its
timidity; “but it is timid only with strangers!” “When you’ve had
him a week, ma’am,” such a bird-seller will say, “you’ll find him as
lovesome and tame as can be.” One jealous lady, when asked 5_s._ for
a “very fine Italian finch, an excellent singer,” refused to buy, but
offered a deposit of 2_s._ 6_d._, if the man would leave his bird and
cage, for the trial of the bird’s song, for two or three days. The
duffer agreed; and was bold enough to call on the third day to hear
the result. The bird was dead, and after murmuring a little at the
lady’s mismanagement, and at the loss he had been subjected to, the
man brought away his cage. He boasted of this to a dealer’s assistant
who mentioned it to me, and expressed his conviction that it was true
enough. The paints used for the transformation of native birds into
foreign are bought at the colour-shops, and applied with camel-hair
brushes in the usual way.
When canaries are “a bad colour,” or have grown a paler yellow
from age, they are re-dyed, by the application of a colour sold at
the colour-shops, and known as “the Queen’s yellow.” Blackbirds are
dyed a deeper black, the “grit” off a frying-pan being used for the
purpose. The same thing is done to heighten the gloss and blackness
of a jackdaw, I was told, by a man who acknowledged he had duffed a
little; “people liked a gay bright colour.” In the same way the tints
of the goldfinch are heightened by the application of paint. It is
common enough, moreover, for a man to paint the beaks and legs of the
birds. It is chiefly the smaller birds which are thus made the means of
cheating.
Almost all the “duffing birds” are hawked. If a young hen be passed off
for a good singing bird, without being painted, as a cock in his second
singing year, she is “brisked up” with hemp-seed, is half tipsy in
fact, and so passed off deceitfully. As it is very rarely that even the
male birds will sing in the streets, this is often a successful ruse,
the bird appearing so lively.
A dealer calculated for me, from his own knowledge, that 2000 small
birds were “duffed” yearly, at an average of from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._
each.
As yet I have only spoken of the “duffing” of English birds, but
similar tricks are practised with the foreign birds.
In parrot-selling there is a good deal of “duffing.” The birds are
“painted up,” as I have described in the case of the greenfinches, &c.
Varnish is also used to render the colours brighter; the legs and beak
are frequently varnished. Sometimes a spot of red is introduced, for
as one of these duffers observed to a dealer in English birds, “the
more outlandish you make them look, the better’s the chance to sell.”
Sometimes there is little injury done by this paint and varnish, which
disappear gradually when the parrot is in the cage of a purchaser;
but in some instances when the bird picks himself where he has been
painted, he dies from the deleterious compound. Of this mortality,
however, there is nothing approaching that among the duffed small birds.
Occasionally the duffers carry really fine cockatoos, &c., and if they
can obtain admittance into a lady’s house, to display the beauty of the
bird, they will pretend to be in possession of smuggled silk, &c., made
of course for duffing purposes. The bird-duffers are usually dressed as
seamen, and sometimes pretend they must sell the bird before the ship
sails, for a parting spree, or to get the poor thing a good home. This
trade, however, has from all that I can learn, and in the words of an
informant, “seen its best days.” There are now sometimes six men thus
engaged; sometimes none: and when one of these men is “hard up,” he
finds it difficult to start again in a business for which a capital of
about 1_l._ is necessary, as a cage is wanted generally. The duffers
buy the very lowest priced birds, and have been known to get 2_l._
10_s._ for what cost but 8_s._, but that is a very rare occurrence, and
the men are very poor, and perhaps more dissipated than the generality
of street-sellers. Parrot duffing, moreover, is seldom carried on
regularly by any one, for he will often duff cigars and other things
in preference, or perhaps vend really smuggled and good cigars or
tobacco. Perhaps 150 parrots, paroquets, or cockatoos, are sold in this
way annually, at from 15_s._ to 1_l._ 10_s._ each, but hardly averaging
1_l._, as the duffer will sell, or raffle, the bird for a small sum if
he cannot dispose of it otherwise.