The Larking Glass at Dunstable

A Bermondsey reader told Hone in January 1826 that the lark-catchers of Dunstable used a larking glass to bring larks down out of the sky. It was a hollow wooden piece shaped something like a cucumber, set round with bits of looking-glass and fixed on a pole, and a line worked it back and forth so that it flashed in the sun. The larks came headlong down to it, whether dazzled or taken with their own reflections, and a net was drawn over them. He said a similar instrument was used in many parts of England.