Green’s Dictionary of Slang

larcenous, thieving.

1620		J. Howell Familiar Letters (1753) 3 Aug. 229: I am one of them who value not a courtesy that hangs long betwixt the fingers. I love not those viscosa beneficia, those bird-limed kindnesses which Pliny speaks of.
1705		Vanbrugh Confederacy II ii: ’Tis my Rogue of a Son has laid his Bird-lime Fingers on’t.
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 139: The brims, with birdlime fingers, / Brought warbling, seedy Dick, / The prince of ballad-singers.
1833		‘The Christening of Little Joey’ in Corinthian in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 45: [as 1789].