birdlime, n.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

birdlime n.¹

[SE bird-lime, a sticky substance spread on twigs so that birds may be caught; the ref. is to the thief’s ‘sticky fingers’]

stealing; a thief.

1607		Middleton Widdow of Watling-streete I iv: Steal my master’s chain, quoth a? No, it shall ne’er be said that Nicholas St Antling’s committed birdlime [...] you know ’tis written, thou shalt not steal.
1705		Vanbrugh Confederacy V i: That Birdlime there – stole it.
[1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) I 116: We had both of us bird-limed our fingers at our departure from Oviedo].
1828		‘The Song of the Young Prig’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 171: My name they say is Young Birdlime.