The young gypsy-looking lad, who gave me the following account of the
sale of birds’-nests in the streets, was peculiarly picturesque in his
appearance. He wore a dirty-looking smock-frock with large pockets
at the side; he had no shirt; and his long black hair hung in curls
about him, contrasting strongly with his bare white neck and chest.
The broad-brimmed brown Italian-looking hat, broken in and ragged at
the top, threw a dark half-mask-like shadow over the upper part of his
face. His feet were bare and black with mud: he carried in one hand his
basket of nests, dotted with their many-coloured eggs; in the other he
held a live snake, that writhed and twisted as its metallic-looking
skin glistened in the sun; now over, and now round, the thick knotty
bough of a tree that he used for a stick. The portrait of the youth is
here given. I have never seen so picturesque a specimen of the English
nomads. He said, in answer to my inquiries:--
“I am a seller of birds’-nesties, snakes, slow-worms, adders,
‘effets’--lizards is their common name--hedgehogs (for killing black
beetles); frogs (for the French--they eats ’em); snails (for birds);
that’s all I sell in the summer-time. In the winter I get all kinds
of wild flowers and roots, primroses, ‘butter-cups’ and daisies, and
snow-drops, and ‘backing’ off of trees; (‘backing’ it’s called, because
it’s used to put at the back of nosegays, it’s got off the yew trees,
and is the green yew fern). I gather bulrushes in the summer-time,
besides what I told you; some buys bulrushes for stuffing; they’re the
fairy rushes the small ones, and the big ones is bulrushes. The small
ones is used for ‘stuffing,’ that is, for showing off the birds as is
stuffed, and make ’em seem as if they was alive in their cases, and
among the rushes; I sell them to the bird-stuffers at 1_d._ a dozen.
The big rushes the boys buys to play with and beat one another--on a
Sunday evening mostly. The birds’-nesties I get from 1_d._ to 3_d._
a-piece for. I never have young birds, I can never sell ’em; you see
the young things generally dies of the cramp before you can get rid
of them. I sell the birds’-nesties in the streets; the threepenny
ones has six eggs, a half-penny a egg. The linnets has mostly four
eggs, they’re 4_d._ the nest; they’re for putting under canaries, and
being hatched by them. The thrushes has from four to five--five is
the most; they’re 2_d._; they’re merely for cur’osity--glass cases or
anything like that. Moor-hens, wot build on the moors, has from eight
to nine eggs, and is 1_d._ a-piece; they’re for hatching underneath a
bantam-fowl, the same as partridges. Chaffinches has five eggs; they’re
3_d._, and is for cur’osity. Hedge-sparrows, five eggs; they’re the
same price as the other, and is for cur’osity. The Bottletit--the
nest and the bough are always put in glass cases; it’s a long hanging
nest, like a bottle, with a hole about as big as a sixpence, and
there’s mostly as many as eighteen eggs; they’ve been known to lay
thirty-three. To the house-sparrow there is five eggs; they’re 1_d._
The yellow-hammers, with five eggs, is 2_d._ The water-wagtails, with
four eggs, 2_d._ Blackbirds, with five eggs, 2_d._ The golden-crest
wren, with ten eggs--it has a very handsome nest--is 6_d._ Bulfinches,
four eggs, 1_s._; they’re for hatching, and the bulfinch is a very dear
bird. Crows, four eggs, 4_d._ Magpies, four eggs, 4_d._ Starlings, five
eggs, 3_d._ The egg-chats, five eggs, 2_d._ Goldfinches, five eggs,
6_d._, for hatching. Martins, five eggs, 3_d._ The swallow, four eggs,
6_d._; it’s so dear because the nest is such a cur’osity, they build up
again the house. The butcher-birds--hedge-murderers some calls them,
for the number of birds they kills--five eggs, 3_d._ The cuckoo--they
never has a nest, but lays in the hedge-sparrow’s; there’s only one egg
(it’s very rare you see the two, they has been got, but that’s seldom)
that is 4_d._, the egg is such a cur’osity. The greenfinches has four
or five eggs, and is 3_d._ The sparrer-hawk has four eggs, and they’re
6_d._ The reed-sparrow--they builds in the reeds close where the
bulrushes grow; they has four eggs, and is 2_d._ The wood-pigeon has
two eggs, and they’re 4_d._ The horned owl, four eggs; they’re 6_d._
The woodpecker--I never see no more nor two--they’re 6_d._ the two;
they’re a great cur’osity, very seldom found. The kingfishers has four
eggs, and is 6_d._ That’s all I know of.
[Illustration: STREET-SELLER OF BIRDS’ NESTS.]
“I gets the eggs mostly from Witham and Chelmsford, in Essex;
Chelmsford is 20 mile from Whitechapel Church, and Witham, 8 mile
further. I know more about them parts than anywhere else, being used
to go after moss for Mr. Butler, of the herb-shop in Covent Garden.
Sometimes I go to Shirley Common and Shirley Wood, that’s three miles
from Croydon, and Croydon is ten from Westminster-bridge. When I’m
out bird-nesting I take all the cross country roads across fields
and into the woods. I begin bird-nesting in May and leave off about
August, and then comes the bulrushing, and they last till Christmas;
and after that comes the roots and wild flowers, which serves me up
to May again. I go out bird-nesting three times a week. I go away at
night, and come up on the morning of the day after. I’m away a day and
two nights. I start between one and two in the morning and walk all
night--for the coolness--you see the weather’s so hot you can’t
do it in the daytime. When I get down I go to sleep for a couple of
hours. I ‘skipper it’--turn in under a hedge or anywhere. I get down
about nine in the morning, at Chelmsford, and about one if I go to
Witham. After I’ve had my sleep I start off to get my nests and things.
I climb the trees, often I go up a dozen in the day, and many a time
there’s nothing in the nest when I get up. I only fell once; I got on
the end of the bough and slipped off. I p’isoned my foot once with the
stagnant water going after the bulrushes,--there was horseleeches,
and effets, and all kinds of things in the water, and they stung me,
I think. I couldn’t use my foot hardly for six weeks afterwards, and
was obliged to have a stick to walk with. I couldn’t get about at all
for four days, and should have starved if it hadn’t been that a young
man kept me. He was a printer by trade, and almost a stranger to me,
only he seed me and took pity on me. When I fell off the bough I wasn’t
much hurt, nothing to speak of. The house-sparrow is the worst nest of
all to take; it’s no value either when it _is_ got, and is the most
difficult of all to get at. You has to get up a sparapet (a parapet)
of a house, and either to get permission, or run the risk of going
after it without. Partridges’ eggs (they has no nest) they gives you
six months for, if they see you selling them, because it’s game, and
I haven’t no licence; but while you’re hawking, that is showing ’em,
they can’t touch you. The owl is a very difficult nest to get, they
builds so high in the trees. The bottle-tit is a hard nest to find; you
may go all the year round, and, perhaps, only get one. The nest I like
best to get is the chaffinch, because they’re in the hedge, and is no
bother. Oh, you hasn’t got the skylark down, sir; they builds on the
ground, and has five eggs; I sell them for 4_d._ The robin-redbreast
has five eggs, too, and is 3_d._ The ringdove has two eggs, and is
6_d._ The tit-lark--that’s five blue eggs, and very rare--I get 4_d._
for them. The jay has five eggs, and a flat nest, very wiry, indeed;
it’s a ground bird; that’s 1_s._--the egg is just like a partridge egg.
When I first took a kingfisher’s nest, I didn’t know the name of it,
and I kept wondering what it was. I daresay I asked three dozen people,
and none of them could tell me. At last a bird-fancier, the lame man
at the Mile-end gate, told me what it was. I likes to get the nesties
to sell, but I havn’t no fancy for birds. Sometimes I get squirrels’
nesties with the young in ’em--about four of ’em there mostly is, and
they’re the only young things I take--the young birds I leaves; they’re
no good to me. The four squirrels brings me from 6_s._ to 8_s._ After
I takes a bird’s nest, the old bird comes dancing over it, chirupping,
and crying, and flying all about. When they lose their nest they wander
about, and don’t know where to go. Oftentimes I wouldn’t take them if
it wasn’t for the want of the victuals, it seems such a pity to disturb
’em after they’ve made their little bits of places. Bats I never take
myself--I can’t get over ’em. If I has an order for ’em, I buys ’em of
boys.
“I mostly start off into the country on Monday and come up on
Wednesday. The most nesties as ever I took is twenty-two, and I
generally get about twelve or thirteen. These, if I’ve an order, I sell
directly, or else I may be two days, and sometimes longer, hawking them
in the street. Directly I’ve sold them I go off again that night, if
it’s fine; though I often go in the wet, and then I borrow a tarpaulin
of a man in the street where I live. If I’ve a quick sale I get down
and back three times in a week, but then I don’t go so far as Witham,
sometimes only to Rumford; that is 12 miles from Whitechapel Church.
I never got an order from a bird-fancier; they gets all the eggs they
want of the countrymen who comes up to market.
“It’s gentlemen I gets my orders of, and then mostly they tells me to
bring ’em one nest of every kind I can get hold of, and that will often
last me three months in the summer. There’s one gentleman as I sells to
is a wholesale dealer in window-glass--and he has a hobby for them. He
puts ’em into glass cases, and makes presents of ’em to his friends. He
has been one of my best customers. I’ve sold him a hundred nesties, I’m
sure. There’s a doctor at Dalston I sell a great number to--he’s taking
one of every kind of me now. The most of my customers is stray ones in
the streets. They’re generally boys. I sells a nest now and then to a
lady with a child; but the boys of twelve to fifteen years of age is my
best friends. They buy ’em only for cur’osity. I sold three partridges’
eggs yesterday to a gentleman, and he said he would put them under a
bantam he’d got, and hatch ’em.
“The snakes, and adders, and slow-worms I get from where there’s moss
or a deal of grass. Sunny weather’s the best for them, they won’t
come out when it’s cold; then I go to a dung-heap, and turn it over.
Sometimes, I find five or six there, but never so large as the one I
had to-day, that’s a yard and five inches long, and three-quarters of
a pound weight. Snakes is 5_s._ a pound. I sell all I can get to Mr.
Butler, of Covent-garden. He keeps ’em alive, for they’re no good dead.
I think it’s for the skin they’re kept. Some buys ’em to dissect: a
gentleman in Theobalds-road does so, and so he does hedgehogs. Some
buys ’em for stuffing, and others for cur’osities. Adders is the same
price as snakes, 5_s._ a pound after they first comes in, when they’re
10_s._ Adders is wanted dead; it’s only the fat and skin that’s of any
value; the fat is used for curing p’isoned wounds, and the skin is used
for any one as has cut their heads. Farmers buys the fat, and rubs it
into the wound when they gets bitten or stung by anything p’isonous.
I kill the adders with a stick, or, when I has shoes, I jumps on ’em.
Some fine days I get four or five snakes at a time; but then they’re
mostly small, and won’t weigh above half a pound. I don’t get many
adders--they don’t weigh many ounces, adders don’t--and I mostly has
9_d._ a-piece for each I gets. I sells _them_ to Mr. Butler as well.
“The hedgehogs is 1_s._ each; I gets them mostly in Essex. I’ve took
one hedgehog with three young ones, and sold the lot for 2_s._ 6_d._
People in the streets bought them of me--they’re wanted to kill the
black-beetles; they’re fed on bread and milk, and they’ll suck a cow
quite dry in their wild state. They eat adders, and can’t be p’isoned,
at least it says so in a book I’ve got about ’em at home.
“The effets I gets orders for in the streets. Gentlemen gives me their
cards, and tells me to bring them one; they’re 2_d._ apiece. I get them
at Hampstead and Highgate, from the ponds. They’re wanted for cur’osity.
“The snails and frogs I sell to Frenchmen. I don’t know what part they
eat of the frog, but I know they buy them, and the dandelion root.
The frogs is 6_d._ and 1_s._ a dozen. They like the yellow-bellied
ones, the others they’re afraid is toads. They always pick out the
yellow-bellied first; I don’t know how to feed ’em, or else I might
fatten them. Many people swallows young frogs, they’re reckoned very
good things to clear the inside. The frogs I catch in ponds and ditches
up at Hampstead and Highgate, but I only get them when I’ve a order.
I’ve had a order for as many as six dozen, but that was for the French
hotel in Leicester-square; but I _have_ sold three dozen a week to one
man, a Frenchman, as keeps a cigar shop in R--r’s-court.
“The snails I sell by the pailful--at 2_s._ 6_d._ the pail. There
is some hundreds in a pail. The wet weather is the best times for
catching ’em; the French people eats ’em. They boils ’em first to get
’em out of the shell and get rid of the green froth; then they boils
them again, and after that in vinegar. They eats ’em hot, but some of
the foreigners likes ’em cold. They say they’re better, if possible,
than whelks. I used to sell a great many to a lady and gentleman in
Soho-square, and to many of the French I sell 1_s._’s worth, that’s
about three or four quarts. Some persons buys snails for birds, and
some to strengthen a sickly child’s back; they rub the back all over
with the snails, and a very good thing they tell me it is. I used to
take 2_s._’s worth a week to one woman; it’s the green froth that does
the greatest good. There are two more birds’-nest sellers besides
myself, they don’t do as many as me the two of ’em. They’re very naked,
their things is all to ribbins; they only go into the country once
in a fortnight. They was never nothing, no trade--they never was in
place--from what I’ve heard--either of them. I reckon I sell about
20 nesties a week take one week with another, and that I do for four
months in the year. (This altogether makes 320 nests.) Yes, I should
say, I do sell about 300 birds’-nests every year, and the other two,
I’m sure, don’t sell half that. Indeed they don’t want to sell; they
does better by what they gets give to them. I can’t say what they
takes, they’re Irish, and I never was in conversation with them. I
get about 4_s._ to 5_s._ for the 20 nests, that’s between 2_d._ and
3_d._ apiece. I sell about a couple of snakes every week, and for some
of them I get 1_s._, and for the big ones 2_s._ 6_d._; but them _I_
seldom find. I’ve only had three hedgehogs this season, and I’ve done
a little in snails and frogs, perhaps about 1_s._ The many foreigners
in London this season hasn’t done me no good. I haven’t been to
Leicester-square lately, or perhaps I might have got a large order or
two for frogs.”