[Loch-Ruadh] Word of the Day, Feb 20

Sonja Crocker lady_cait at lycos.com
Wed Feb 20 21:57:36 PST 2002


bird-lime

A glutinous substance extracted from the inner bark of the holly, and used for catching birds.  The bark is bruised, boiled with water till very soft, and then placed in pits to ferment.
-- T. Ellwood Zell's Popular Encyclopaedia, 1871

On this date in 1791, William Gadesby was executed in Edinburgh.  A Scottish newspaper had described him as "one of the most notorious villains that has figured in the line of roguery in the country for many years.  Though only twenty-eight years of age, his criminal exploits appear, both in variety and number, to equal if not exceed the achievements of the most dextrous and grey-headed offender."  His thefts, which began in childhood, included the ingenious lifting of documents by extending sticks tipped with adherent bird-lime into an otherwise inaccessible door or window.  Just before being hanged, Gadesby declared that three convicted thieves, Falconer, Dick, and Bruce, who had been executed two years earlier, were punished for crimes he himself had committed.




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