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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Confessions of a Poacher, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Confessions of a Poacher
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Editor: John Watson
+
+Illustrator: James West
+
+Release Date: August 4, 2011 [EBook #36970]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONFESSIONS OF A POACHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Linda Hamilton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+"Poaching is one of the fine arts--how 'fine' only the initiated
+know."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE SQUIRE'S KEEPER.]
+
+
+
+
+  The
+  Confessions
+  of a
+  Poacher
+
+  EDITED BY
+  JOHN WATSON, F.L.S.,
+  Author of "Nature and Woodcraft," "Sylvan Folk," &c., &c.
+
+  ILLUSTRATED BY
+  JAMES WEST.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  LONDON:
+  The Leadenhall Press, 50, Leadenhall Street, E.C.
+  _Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd:
+  New York: Scribner & Welford, 743 & 745, Broadway._
+  1890.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+  THE LEADENHALL PRESS,
+  50, LEADENHALL STREET, LONDON, E.C.
+  T 4,463.
+
+
+
+
+EDITORIAL NOTE.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+The poacher of these "Confessions" is no imaginary being. In the
+following pages I have set down nothing but what has come within his own
+personal experience; and, although the little book is full of strange
+inconsistencies, I cannot, knowing the man, call them by a harder name.
+Nature made old "Phil" a Poacher, but she made him a Sportsman and a
+Naturalist at the same time. I never met any man who was in closer
+sympathy with the wild creatures about him; and never dog or child came
+within his influence but what was permanently attracted by his
+personality. Although eighty years of age there is still some of the old
+erectness in his carriage; some of the old fire in his eyes. As a young
+man he was handsome, though now his features are battered out of all
+original conception. His silvery hair still covers a lion-like head, and
+his tanned cheeks are hard and firm. If his life has been a lawless one
+he has paid heavily for his wrong doings. Great as a poacher, he must
+have been great whatever he had been. In my boyhood he was the hero whom
+I worshipped, and I hardly know that I have gone back on my loyalty.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+  CHAPTER.                         PAGE.
+
+  1. THE EMBRYO POACHER            7
+
+  2. UNDER THE NIGHT               19
+
+  3. GRADUATING IN WOODCRAFT       32
+
+  4. PARTRIDGE POACHING            45
+
+  5. HARE POACHING                 57
+
+  6. PHEASANT POACHING             74
+
+  7. SALMON AND TROUT POACHING     90
+
+  8. GROUSE POACHING               109
+
+  9. RABBIT POACHING               123
+
+  10. TRICKS                       135
+
+  11. PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS          151
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF A POACHER.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 1.
+
+THE EMBRYO POACHER.
+
+
+I do not remember the time when I was not a poacher; and if I may say
+so, I believe our family has always had a genius for woodcraft.
+
+I was bred on the outskirts of a sleepy town in a good game country, and
+my depredations were mostly when the Game Laws were less rigorously
+enforced than now. Our home was roughly adorned in fur and feather, and
+a number of gaunt lurchers always constituted part of the family. An
+almost passionate love of nature, summers of birds' nesting, and a life
+spent almost wholly out of doors constituted an admirable training for
+an embryo poacher. If it is true that poets are born, not made, it is
+equally so of poachers. The successful "moucher" must be an inborn
+naturalist--must have much in common with the creatures of the fields
+and woods around him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There is a miniature bird and animal fauna which constitutes as
+important game to the young poacher as any he is likely to come across
+in after life. There are mice, shrews, voles, for all of which he sets
+some primitive snare and captures. The silky-coated moles in their runs
+offer more serious work, and being most successfully practised at night,
+offers an additional charm. Then there are the red-furred squirrels
+which hide among the delicate leaves of the beeches and run up their
+grey boles--fairy things that offer an endless subject of delight to any
+young savage, and their capturing draws largely upon his inventive
+genius. A happy hunting ground is furnished by farmers who require a lad
+to keep the birds from their young wheat or corn, as when their services
+are required the country is all like a garden. At this time the birds
+seem creatures born of the sun, and not only are they seen in their
+brightest plumage, but when indulging in all their love frolics. By
+being employed by the farmers the erstwhile poacher is brought right
+into the heart of the land, and the knowledge of woodcraft and rural
+life he there acquires is never forgotten. As likely as not a ditch runs
+by the side of the wheat fields, and here the water-hen leads out her
+brood. To the same spot the birds come at noon to indulge their mid-day
+_siesta_, and in the deep hole at the end of the cut a shoal of silvery
+roach fall and rise towards the warm sunlight. Or a brook, which is a
+tiny trout stream, babbles on through the meadows and pastures, and has
+its attractions too. A stream is always the chief artery of the land,
+as in it are found the life-giving elements. All the birds, all the
+plants, flock to its banks, and its wooded sides are hushed by the
+subdued hum of insects. There are tall green brackens--brackens
+unfurling their fronds to the light, and full of the atoms of beautiful
+summer. At the bend of the stream is a lime, and you may almost see its
+glutinous leaves unfolding to the light. Its winged flowers are infested
+with bees. It has a dead bough almost at the bottom of its bole, and
+upon it there sits a grey-brown bird. Ever and anon it darts for a
+moment, hovers over the stream, and then returns to its perch. A hundred
+times it flutters, secures its insect prey, and takes up its old
+position on the stump. Bronze fly, bluebottle, and droning bee are
+secured alike, for all serve as food to the loveable pied fly-catcher.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is the time of the bloom of the first June rose; and here, by the
+margin of the wood, all the ground by fast falling blossom is littered.
+Every blade teems with life, and the air is instinct with the very
+breath of being. Birds' sounds are coming from over and under--from
+bough and brake, and a harmonious discord is flooded from the
+neighbouring copse. The oak above my head is a murmurous haunt of summer
+wings, and wood pigeons coo from the beeches. The air is still, and
+summer is on my cheek; arum, wood-sorrel, and celandine mingle at my
+feet. The starlings are half buried in the fresh green grass, their
+metallic plumage flashing in the sun. Cattle are lazily lying dotted
+over the meadows, and the stream is done in a setting of green and gold.
+Swallows, skimming the pools, dip in the cool water, and are
+gone--leaving a sweet commotion in ever widening circles long after they
+have flown. A mouse-like creeper alights at the foot of a thorn, and
+runs nimbly up the bark; midway it enters a hole in which is its nest.
+A garrulous blue-winged jay chatters from the tall oak, and purple rooks
+are picking among the corn. Butterflies dally through the warm air, and
+insects swarm among the leaves and flowers of the hedge bottoms. A crake
+calls, now here, now far out yonder. Bluebells carpet the wood-margin,
+and the bog is bright with marsh plants.
+
+This, then, is the workshop of the young poacher, and here he receives
+his first impressions. Is it strange that a mighty yearning springs up
+within him to know more of nature's secrets? He finds himself in a fairy
+place, and all unconsciously drinks in its sweets. See him now deeply
+buried in a golden flood of marsh marigolds! See how he stands
+spellbound before saxifrages which cling to a dripping rock. Water
+avens, wild parsley, and campions crowd around him, and flags of the
+yellow and purple iris tower over all. He watches the doings of the
+reed-sparrows deep down in the flags, and sees a water-ouzel as it
+rummages among the pebbles at the bottom of the brook. The larvæ of
+caddis flies, which cover the edge of the stream, are a curious mystery
+to him, and he sees the kingfisher dart away as a bit of green light.
+Small silvery trout, which rise in the pool, tempt him to try for them
+with a crooked pin, and even now with success. He hears the cuckoos
+crying and calling as they fly from tree to tree, and quite unexpectedly
+finds the nest of a yellow-hammer, between a willow and the bank,
+containing its curiously speckled eggs.
+
+Still the life, and the "hush," and the breath go on. Everything
+breathes, and moves, and has its being; the things of the day are the
+essence thereof. On the margin of the wood are a few young pines, their
+delicate plumes just touched with the loveliest green. An odour of
+resinous gum is wafted from them, and upon one of the slender sprays a
+pair of diminutive goldcrests have hung their procreant cradle. These
+things are enough to win any young Bohemian to their ways, and although
+as yet they only comprise "the country," soon their wondrous detail
+lures their lover on, and he seeks to satisfy the thirst within him by
+night as well as by day.
+
+Endless acquaintances are to be made in the fields, and those of the
+most pleasurable description. Nests containing young squirrels can be
+found in the larch tree tops, and any domestic tabby will suckle these
+delightful playthings. Young cushats and cushats' eggs can be obtained
+from their wicker-like nests, and sold in the villages. A prickly pet
+may be captured in a hedgehog trotting off through the long grass, and
+colonies of young wild rabbits may be dug from the mounds and braes. The
+skin of every velvety mole is one patch nearer the accomplishment of a
+warm, furry vest for winter, and this, if the pests of which it is
+comprised are the owner's taking, is worn with pardonable pride. A
+moleskin vest constitutes a graduation in woodcraft so to speak.
+Sometimes a brace of leverets are found in a tussocky grass clump, but
+these are more often allowed to remain than taken. And there are almost
+innumerable captures to be made among the feathered as well as furred
+things of the fields and woods. Chaffinches are taken in nooses among
+the corn, as are larks and buntings. Crisp cresses from the springs
+constitute an important source of income, and the embrowned nuts of
+autumn a harvest in themselves. It is during his early days of working
+upon the land that the erstwhile poacher learns of the rain-bringing
+tides; of the time of migration of birds; of the evening gamboling of
+hares; of the coming together of the partridge to roost; of the spawning
+of salmon and trout; and a hundred other scraps of knowledge which will
+serve him in good stead in his subsequent protest against the Game Laws.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Almost every young rustic who develops into a poacher has some such
+outdoor education as that sketched above. He has about him much ready
+animal ingenuity, and is capable of almost infinite resource. His snares
+and lines are constructed with his pocket knife, out of material he
+finds ready to hand in the woods. He early learns to imitate the call of
+the game birds, so accurately as to deceive even the birds themselves;
+and his weather-stained clothes seem to take on themselves the duns and
+browns and olives of the woods. A child brought up in the lap of Nature
+is invariably deeply marked with her impress, and we shall see to what
+end she has taught him.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 2.
+
+UNDER THE NIGHT.
+
+    Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
+    Had in her sober liv'ry all things clad.
+
+
+When the embryo poacher has once tasted the forbidden fruits of the
+land--and it matters not if his game be but field-mice and
+squirrels--there is only one thing wanting to win him completely to
+Nature's ways. This is that he shall see her sights and hear her sounds
+under the night. There is a charm about the night side of nature that
+the town dweller can never know. I have been once in London, and well
+remember what, as a country lad, impressed me most. It was the fact that
+I had, during the small hours of the morning, stood alone on London
+Bridge. The great artery of life was still; the pulse of the city had
+ceased to beat. Not a moving object was visible. Although bred among the
+lonely hills, I felt for the first time that this was to be alone; that
+this was solitude. I felt such a sense as Macaulay's New Zealander may
+experience when he sits upon the ruins of the same stupendous structure;
+and it was then for the first time I knew whence the inspiration, and
+felt the full force and realism of a line I had heard, "O God! the very
+houses seemed to sleep." I could detect no definite sound, only that
+vague and distant hum that for ever haunts and hangs over a great city.
+Then my thoughts flew homeward (to the fells and upland fields, to the
+cold mists by the river, to the deep and sombre woods). I had never
+observed such a time of quiet there; no absolute and general period of
+repose. There was always something abroad, some creature of the fields
+or woods, which by its voice or movements was betrayed. Just as in an
+old rambling house there are always strange noises that cannot be
+accounted for, so in the night-paths of nature there are innumerable
+sounds which can never be localised. To those, however, who pursue night
+avocations in the country, there are always calls and cries which
+bespeak life as animate under the night as that of the day. This is
+attributable to various animals and birds, to beetles, to night-flying
+insects, even to fish; and part of the education of the young poacher is
+to track these sounds to their source.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I have said that our family was a family of poachers. The old instinct
+was in us all, though I believe that the same wild spirit which drove
+us to the moor and covert at night was only the same as was strongly
+implanted in the breast of Lord ----, our neighbour, who was a
+legitimate sportsman and a Justice of the Peace. If we were not allowed
+to see much real poaching when we were young we saw a good deal of the
+preparations for it. As the leaves began to turn in autumn there was
+great activity in our old home among nets and snares. When wind and
+feather were favourable, late afternoon brought home my father, and his
+wires and nets were already spread on the clean sanded floor. There was
+a peg to sharpen, or a broken mesh to mend. Every now and then he would
+look out on the darkening night, always directing his glance upward. The
+two dogs would whine impatiently to be gone, and in an hour, with bulky
+pockets, he would start, striking right across the land and away from
+the high road. The dogs would prick out their ears on the track, but
+stuck doggedly to his heels; and then, as we watched, the darkness would
+blot him out of the landscape, and we turned with our mother to the
+fireside. In summer we saw little but the "breaking" of the lurchers.
+These dogs take long to train, but, when perfected, are invaluable. All
+the best lurchers are the produce of a cross between the sheep-dog and
+greyhound, a combination which secures the speed and silence of the one,
+and the "nose" of the other. From the batches of puppies we always saved
+such as were rough-coated, as these were better able to stand the
+exposure of long, cold nights. In colour the best are fawn or
+brown--some shade which assimilates well to the duns and browns and
+yellows of the fields and woods; but our extended knowledge of the dogs
+came in after years.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The oak gun-rack in our old home contained a motley collection of
+fowling pieces, mostly with the barrels filed down. This was that the
+pieces might be more conveniently stowed away in the pocket until it was
+policy to have them out. The guns showed every graduation in age, size,
+and make, and among them was an old flint-lock which had been in the
+family for generations. This heirloom was often surreptitiously stolen
+away, and then we were able to bring down larger game. Wood pigeons were
+waited for in the larches, and shot as they came to roost. The crakes
+were called by the aid of a small "crank," and shot as they emerged from
+the lush summer grass. Large numbers of green plover were bagged from
+time to time, and often in winter we had a chance at their grey cousins,
+the whistling species. Both these fed in the water-meadows through
+winter, and the former were always abundant. In spring, "trips" of rare
+dotterel often led us about the higher hills for days, and sometimes we
+had to stay all night on the mountain. Then we were up with the first
+gray light in the morning, and generally managed to bring down a few
+birds. The feathers of these are extremely valuable for fishing, and my
+father invariably supplied them to the county justices who lived near
+us. He trained a dog to hunt dotterel, and so find their nests, and in
+this was most successful--more so than an eminent naturalist who spent
+five consecutive summers about the summits of our highest mountains,
+though without ever coming across a nest or seeing the birds. Sometimes
+we bagged a gaunt heron as it flapped heavily from a ditch--a greater
+fish poacher than any in the country side. One of our great resorts on
+winter evenings was to an island which bordered a disused mill-dam. This
+was thickly covered with aquatic vegetation, and to it came teal,
+mallard, and poachard. All through the summer we had worked assiduously
+at a small "dug-out," and in this we waited, snugly stowed away behind a
+willow root. When the ducks appeared on the sky-line the old flint-lock
+was out, a sharp report tore the darkness, and a brace of teal or
+mallard floated down stream, and on to the mill island. In this way half
+a dozen ducks would be bagged, and, dead or dying, they were left where
+they fell, and retrieved next morning. Sometimes big game was obtained
+in the shape of a brace of geese, which proved themselves the least wary
+of a flock; but these only came in the severest weather.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Cutting the coppice, assisting the charcoal burners, or helping the old
+woodman--all gave facilities for observing the habits of game, and none
+of these opportunities were missed. In this way we were brought right
+into the heart of the land, and our evil genius was hardly suspected. An
+early incident in the woods is worth recording. I have already said that
+we took snipe and woodcock by means of "gins" and "springes," and one
+morning on going to examine a snare, we discovered a large buzzard near
+one which was "struck." The bird endeavoured to escape, but, being
+evidently held fast, could not. A woodcock had been taken in one of our
+snares, which, while fluttering, had been seen and attacked by the
+buzzard. Not content, however, with the body of the woodcock, it had
+swallowed a leg also, around which the nooze was drawn, and the limb was
+so securely lodged in its stomach that no force which the bird could
+exert could withdraw it. The gamekeepers would employ us to take
+hedgehogs, which we did in steel traps baited with eggs. These prickly
+little animals were justly blamed for robbing pheasants' nests, and many
+a one paid the penalty for so doing. We received so much per head for
+the capture of these, as also for moles which tunnelled the banks of
+the water meadows. Being injurious to the stream sides and the young
+larches, the farmers were anxious to rid these; and one summer we
+received a commission to exercise our knowledge of field-craft against
+them. But in the early days our greatest successes were among the sea
+ducks and wildfowl which haunted the marram-covered flats and ooze banks
+of an inland bay a few miles from our home. Mention of our capturing the
+sea birds brings to mind some very early rabbit poaching. At dusk the
+rabbits used to come down from the woods, and on to the sandy saline
+tracts to nibble the short sea grass. As twilight came we used to lie
+quiet among the rocks and boulders, and, armed with the old flint-lock,
+knock over the rabbits as soon as they had settled to feed. But this was
+only tasting the delights of that first experience in "fur" which was to
+become so widely developed in future years. Working a duck decoy--when
+we knew where we had the decoyman--was another profitable night
+adventure, which sometimes produced dozens of delicate teal, mallard
+and widgeon. Another successful method of taking seafowl was by the
+"fly" or "ring" net. When there was but little or no moon these were set
+across the banks last covered by the tide. The nets were made of fine
+thread, and hung on poles from ten to twenty yards apart. Care had to be
+taken to do this loosely, so as to give the nets plenty of "bag."
+Sometimes we had these nets hung for half a mile along the mud flats,
+and curfew, whimbrel, geese, ducks, and various shore-haunting birds
+were taken in them. Sometimes a bunch of teal, flying down wind, would
+break right through the net and escape. This, however, was not a
+frequent occurrence.
+
+There is one kind of poaching, which, as a lad, I was forbidden, and I
+have never indulged in it from that day to this. This was egg poaching.
+In our own district it was carried on to a large extent, though I never
+heard of it until the artificial rearing of game came in. The squire's
+keeper will give sixpence each for pheasants' eggs, and fourpence for
+those of partridges. I know for certain that he often buys eggs
+(unknowingly, of course) from his master's preserves as well as those of
+his neighbours. In the hedge bottom, along the covert side, or among
+broom and gorse, the farm labourer notices a pair of partridges roaming
+morning after morning. Soon he finds their oak-leaf nest and olive eggs.
+These the keeper readily buys, winking at what he knows to be dishonest.
+Ploughboys and farm labourers have peculiarly favourable opportunities
+for egg poaching. As to pheasants' eggs, if the keeper be an honest man
+and refuses to buy, there are always large town dealers who will. Once
+in the coverts pheasants' eggs are easily found. The birds get up
+heavily from their nests, and go away with a loud whirring of wings. In
+this species of poaching women and children are largely employed, and at
+the time the former are ostensibly gathering sticks, the latter wild
+flowers. I have known the owner of the "smithy," who was the receiver in
+our village, send to London in the course of a week a thousand eggs,
+every one of them gathered off the neighbouring estates.
+
+When I say that I never indulged in egg poaching I do not set up for
+being any better than my neighbours. I had been forbidden to do it as a
+lad because my father give it the ugly name of thieving, and it had
+never tempted me aside. It was tame work at best, and there was none of
+the exhilarating fascination about it that I found in going after the
+game birds themselves.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 3.
+
+GRADUATING IN WOODCRAFT.
+
+    We hear the cry
+      Of their voices high,
+    Falling dreamily through the sky;
+      But their forms we cannot see.
+
+
+Just as the sportsman loves "rough shooting," so the poacher invariably
+chooses wild ground for his depredations. There is hardly a sea-parish
+in the country which has not its shore shooter, its poacher, and its
+fowler. Fortunately for my graduation in woodcraft I fell in with one of
+the latter at the very time I most needed his instructions. As the
+"Snig," as I was generally called, was so passionately fond of "live"
+things, old "Kittiwake" was quite prepared to be companionable.
+Although nearly three score years and ten divided our lives, there was
+something in common between us. Love of being abroad beneath the moon
+and stars; of wild wintry skies; of the weird cries that came from out
+the darkness--love of everything indeed that pertained to the night side
+of nature. What terrible tales of the sands and marshes the old man
+would tell as we sat in his turf-covered cottage, listening to the
+lashing storm and driving water without. Occasionally we heard sounds of
+the Demon Huntsman and his Wish-hounds as they crossed the wintry skies.
+If Kittiwake knew, he would never admit that these were the wild swans
+coming from the north, which chose the darkest nights for their
+migration. When my old tutor saw that I was already skilled in the use
+of "gins" and "springes," and sometimes brought in a snipe or woodcock,
+his old eyes glistened as he looked upon the marsh-birds. It was on one
+such occasion, pleased at my success, that he offered what he had never
+offered to mortal--to teach me the whole art of fowling. I remember the
+old man as he lay on his heather bench when he made this magnanimous
+offer. In appearance he was a splendid type of a northern yeoman, his
+face fringed with silvery hair, and cut in the finest features. One eye
+was bright and clear even at his great age, though the other was rheumy,
+and almost blotted out. He rarely undressed at nights, his outward garb
+seemed more a production of nature than of art, and was changed, when,
+like the outer cuticle of the marsh vipers, it sloughed off. It was only
+in winter that the old man lived his lonely life on the mosses and
+marshes, for during the summer he turned from fowler to fisher, or
+assisted in the game preserves. The haunts and habits of the marsh and
+shore birds he knew by heart, and his great success in taking them lay
+in the fact that he was a close and accurate observer. He would watch
+the fowl, then set his nets and noozes by the light of his acquired
+knowledge. These things he had always known, but it was in summer, when
+he was assisting at pheasant rearing, that he got to know all about
+game in fur and feather. He noted that the handsome cock pheasants
+always crowed before they flew up to roost; that in the evening the
+partridges called as they came together in the grass lands; and he
+watched the ways of the hares as they skipped in the moonlight. These
+things we were wont to discuss when wild weather prevented our leaving
+the hut; and all our plans were tested by experiment before they were
+put into practice. It was upon these occasions, too, that the garrulous
+old man would tell of his early life. That was the time for fowl; but
+now the plough had invaded the sea-birds' haunt. He would tell of
+immense flocks of widgeon, of banks of brent geese, and clouds of
+dunlin. Bitterns used to boom and breed in the bog, and once, though
+only once, a great bustard was shot. In his young days Kittiwake had
+worked a decoy, as had his father and grandfather before him; and when
+any stray fowler or shore-shooter told of the effect of a single shot of
+their big punt-guns, he would cap their stories by going back to the
+days of decoying. Although decoying had almost gone out, this was the
+only subject that the old man was reticent upon, and he surrounded the
+craft with all the mystery he was able to conjure up. The site of his
+once famous decoy was now drained, and in summer ruddy corn waved above
+it. Besides myself, Kittiwake's sole companion on the mosses was an old
+shaggy galloway, and it was almost as eccentric and knowing as its
+master. So great was the number of gulls and terns that bred on the
+mosses, that for two months during the breeding season the old horse was
+fed upon their eggs. Morning and evening a basketful was collected, and
+so long as these lasted Dobbin's coat continued sleek and soft.
+
+In August and September we would capture immense numbers of
+"flappers"--plump wild ducks--but, as yet, unable to fly. These were
+either caught in the pools, or chased into nets which we set to
+intercept them. As I now took more than my share of the work, and made
+all the gins, springes, and noozes which we used, a rough kind of
+partnership sprung up between us. The young ducks brought us good
+prices, and there was another source of income which paid well, but was
+not of long duration. There is a short period in each year when even the
+matured wild ducks are quite unable to fly. The male of the common wild
+duck is called the mallard, and soon after his brown duck begins to sit
+the drake moults the whole of its flight feathers. So sudden and
+simultaneous is this process that for six weeks in summer the usually
+handsome drake is quite incapable of flight, and it is probably at this
+period of its ground existence that the assumption of the duck's plumage
+is such an aid to protection. Quite the handsomest of the wildfowl on
+the marsh were a colony of sheldrakes which occupied a number of disused
+rabbit-burrows on a raised plateau overlooking the bay. The ducks were
+bright chestnut, white, and purple, and in May laid from nine to a dozen
+creamy eggs. As these birds brought high prices for stocking ornamental
+waters, we used to collect the eggs and hatch them out under hens in the
+turf cottage. This was a quite successful experiment up to a certain
+point; but the young fowl, immediately they were hatched, seemed to be
+able to smell the salt water, and would cover miles to gain the creek.
+With all our combined watchfulness the downy ducklings sometimes
+succeeded in reaching their loved briny element, and once in the sea
+were never seen again. The pretty sea swallows used to breed on the
+marsh, and the curious ruffs and reeves. These indulged in the strangest
+flights at breeding time, and it was then that we used to capture the
+greatest numbers. We took them alive in nets, and then fattened them on
+soaked wheat. The birds were sent all the way to London, and brought
+good prices. By being kept closely confined and frequently fed, in a
+fortnight they became so plump as to resemble balls of fat, and then
+brought as much as a florin a piece. If care were not taken to kill the
+birds just when they attained to their greatest degree of fatness they
+fell rapidly in condition, and were nearly worthless. To kill them we
+were wont to pinch off the head, and when all the blood had exuded the
+flesh remained white and delicate. Greater delicacies even than ruffs
+and reeves were godwits, which were fatted in like manner for the table.
+Experiments in fattening were upon one occasion successfully tried with
+a brood of greylag geese which we discovered on the marshes. As this is
+the species from which the domestic stock is descended, we found little
+difficulty in herding, though we were always careful to house them at
+night, and pinioned them as the time of the autumnal migration came
+round. We well knew that the skeins of wild geese which at this time
+nightly cross the sky, calling as they fly, would soon have robbed us of
+our little flock.
+
+In winter, snipe were always numerous on the mosses, and were among the
+first birds to be affected by severe weather. If on elevated ground when
+the frost set in, they immediately betake themselves to the lowlands,
+and at these times we used to take them in pantles made of twisted
+horsehair. In preparing these we trampled a strip of oozy ground until,
+in the darkness, it had the appearance of a narrow plash of water. The
+snipe were taken as they came to feed on ground presumably containing
+food of which they were fond. As well as woodcock and snipe, we took
+larks by thousands. The pantles for these we set somewhat differently
+than those intended for the minor game birds. A main line, sometimes as
+much as a hundred yards in length, was set along the marsh; and to this
+at short intervals were attached a great number of loops of horsehair in
+which the birds were strangled. During the migratory season, or in
+winter when larks are flocked, sometimes a hundred bunches of a dozen
+each would be taken in a single day.
+
+During the rigour of winter great flocks of migratory ducks and geese
+came to the bay, and prominent among them were immense flocks of
+scoters. Often from behind an ooze bank did we watch parties of these
+playing and chasing each other over the crests of the waves, seeming
+indifferent to the roughest seas. The coming of the scoter brought flush
+times, and in hard weather our takes were tremendous. Another of the
+wild ducks which visited us was the pochard or dunbird. We mostly called
+it "poker" and "redhead," owing to the bright chestnut of its neck and
+head. It is somewhat heavily made, swims low in the water, and from its
+legs being placed far behind for diving it is very awkward on land. In
+winter the pochard was abundant on the coast, but as it was one of the
+shyest of fowl it was always difficult to approach. If alarmed it
+paddles rapidly away, turning its head, and always keeping an eye to the
+rear. On account of its wariness it is oftener netted than shot. The
+shore-shooters hardly ever get a chance at it. We used to take it in the
+creeks on the marsh, and, as the matter is difficult to explain, I will
+let the following quotation tell how it was done:
+
+"The water was surrounded with huge nets, fastened with poles laid flat
+on the ground when ready for action, each net being, perhaps, sixty feet
+long and twenty feet deep. When all was ready the pochards were
+frightened off the water. Like all diving ducks they were obliged to
+fly low for some distance, and also to head the wind before rising. Just
+as the mass of birds reached the side of the pool, one of the immense
+nets, previously regulated by weights and springs, rose upright as it
+was freed from its fastenings by the fowler from a distance with a long
+rope. If this were done at the right moment the ducks were met full in
+the face by a wall of net, and thrown helpless into a deep ditch dug at
+its foot for their reception."
+
+In addition to our nets and snares we had a primitive fowling-piece,
+though we only used it when other methods failed. It was an ancient
+flint-lock, with tremendously long barrels. Sometimes it went off;
+oftener it did not. I well remember with what desperation I, upon one
+occasion, clung to this murderous weapon whilst it meditated, so to
+speak. It is true that it brought down quite a wisp of dunlins, but then
+there was almost a cloud of them to fire at. These and golden plover
+were mainly the game for the flint-lock, and with them we were
+peculiarly successful. If we had not been out all night we were
+invariably abroad at dawn, when golden plover fly and feed in close
+bodies. Upon these occasions sometimes a dozen birds were bagged at a
+shot, though, after all, the chief product of our days were obtained in
+the cymbal nets. We invariably used a decoy, and when the wild birds
+were brought down, and came within the workings of the net, it was
+rapidly pulled over and the game secured. For the most part, however,
+only the smaller birds were taken in this way. Coots came round in their
+season, and although they yielded a good harvest, netting them was not
+very profitable, for as their flesh was dark and fishy only the
+villagers and fisher-folk would buy them.
+
+A curious little bird, the grebe or dabchick, used to haunt the pools
+and ditches of the marsh, and we not unfrequently caught them in the
+nets whilst drawing for salmon which ran up the creek to spawn. They had
+curious feet, lobed like chestnut leaves, and hardly any wing. This
+last was more like a flipper, and upon one occasion, when no less than
+three had caught in the meshes, a dispute arose between us as to whether
+they were able to fly. Kittiwake and I argued that whilst they were
+resident and bred in the marshes, yet their numbers were greatly
+augmented in autumn by other birds which came to spend the winter.
+Whilst I contended that they flew, Kittiwake said that their tiny wings
+could never support them, and certainly neither of us had ever seen them
+on their journeyings. Two of the birds we took a mile from the water,
+and then threw them into the air, when they darted off straight and
+swift for the mosses which lay stretched at our feet a mile below.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 4.
+
+PARTRIDGE POACHING.
+
+
+The bloom on the brambles; the ripening of the nuts; and the ruddiness
+of the corn all acted as reminders that the "fence" time was rapidly
+drawing to a close. So much did the first frosts quicken us that it was
+difficult to resist throwing up our farm work before the game season was
+fairly upon us. There was only one way in which we could curb the wild
+impulse within. We stood up to the golden corn and smote it from the
+rising to the going down of the sun. The hunters' moon tried hard to
+win us to the old hard life of sport; but still the land must be
+cleared. There was a double pleasure in the ruddy sheaves, for they told
+of golden guineas, and until the last load was carried neither nets,
+gins, nor the old duck-gun were of any use. The harvest housed the game
+could begin, and then the sweet clover, which the hares loved, first
+pushed their shoots between the stubble stalks. But neither the hares on
+the fallows, the grouse on the moor, nor the pheasants on the bare
+branches brought us so much pleasure as the partridge. A whole army of
+shooters love the little brown birds, and we are quite of their way of
+thinking.
+
+A long life of poaching has not cooled our ardour for this phase of
+woodcraft. At the outset we may state that we have almost invariably
+observed close times, and have rarely killed a hare or game-bird out of
+season. The man who excels in poaching must be country bred. He must not
+only know the land, but the ways of the game by heart. Every sign of
+wind and weather must be observed, as all help in the silent trade.
+Then there is the rise and wane of the moon, the rain-bringing tides,
+and the shifting of the birds with the seasons. These and a hundred
+other things must be kept in an unwritten calendar, and only the poacher
+can keep it. Speaking from hard experience, his out-door life will make
+him quick; will endow him with much ready animal ingenuity. He will take
+in an immense amount of knowledge of the life of the fields and woods;
+and it is this teaching which will ultimately give him accuracy of eye
+and judgment sufficient to interpret what he sees aright. To succeed the
+poacher must be a specialist. It is better if he directs his attention
+to "fur," or to "feather" alone; but it is terribly hard to resist going
+in for both. There is less scope for field ingenuity in taking game
+birds; but at the same time there is always the probability of more
+wholesale destruction. This arises from the fact of the birds being
+gregarious. Both grouse and partridge go in coveys, and pheasants are
+found in the company of their own kind. Partridges roost on the ground,
+and sleep with tails tucked together and heads outwards. Examine the
+fallow after they have left it in a morning, and this will be at once
+apparent. A covey in this position represents little more than a mass of
+feathers. It is for protective reasons that partridges always spend
+their nights in the open. Birds which do not perch would soon become
+extinct were they to seek the protection of woods and hedge-bottoms by
+night. Such ground generally affords cover for vermin--weazels,
+polecats, and stoats. Although partridges roam far by day, they
+invariably come together at night, being partial to the same fields and
+fallows. They run much, and rarely fly, except when passing from one
+feeding ground to another. In coming together in the evening their calls
+may be heard to some distance. These were the sounds we listened for,
+and marked. We remembered the gorse bushes, and knew that the coveys
+would not be far from them.
+
+We always considered partridge good game, and sometimes were watching a
+dozen coveys at the same time. September once in, there was never a
+sun-down that did not see one of us on our rounds making mental notes.
+It was not often, however, that more than three coveys were marked for a
+night's work. One of these, perhaps, would be in turnips, another among
+stubble, and the third on grass. According to the nature of the crop,
+the lay of the land, wind, &c., so we varied our tactics. Netting
+partridges always requires two persons, though a third to walk after the
+net is helpful. If the birds have been carefully marked down, a narrow
+net is used; if their roosting-place is uncertain a wider net is better.
+When all is ready this is slowly dragged along the ground, and is thrown
+down immediately the whirr of wings is heard. If neatly and silently
+done, the whole covey is bagged. There is a terrible flutter, a cloud of
+brown feathers, and all is over. It is not always, however, that the
+draw is so successful. In view of preventing this method of poaching,
+especially on land where many partridges roost, keepers plant low
+scrubby thorns at intervals. These so far interfere with the working of
+the net as to allow the birds time to escape. We were never much
+troubled, however, in this way. As opportunity offered the quick-thorns
+were torn up, and a dead black-thorn bough took their place. As the
+thorns were low the difference was never noticed, even by the keepers,
+and, of course, they were carefully removed before, and replaced after,
+netting. Even when the dodge was detected the fields and fallows had
+been pretty much stripped of the birds. This method is impracticable
+now, as the modern method of reaping leaves the brittle stubble as bare
+as the squire's lawn. We had always a great objection to use a wide net
+where a narrow one would suit the purpose. Among turnips, and where
+large numbers of birds were supposed to lie, a number of rows or "riggs"
+were taken at a time, until the whole of the ground had been traversed.
+This last method is one that requires time and a knowledge of the
+keeper's beat. On rough ground the catching of the net may be obviated
+by having about eighteen inches of smooth glazed material bordering the
+lowest and trailing part of it. Some of the small farmers were as fond
+of poaching as ourselves, and here is a trick which one of them
+successfully employed whenever he heard the birds in his land. He
+scattered a train of grain from the field in which the partridge
+roosted, each morning bringing it nearer and nearer to the stack-yard.
+After a time the birds became accustomed to this mode of feeding, and as
+they grew bolder the grain-train was continued inside the barn. When
+they saw the golden feast invitingly spread, they were not slow to
+enter, and the doors were quickly closed upon them. Then the farmer
+entered with a bright light and felled the birds with a stick.
+
+In the dusk of a late autumn afternoon a splendid "pot" shot was
+sometimes had at a bunch of partridges just gathered for the night. I
+remember a score such. The call of the partridge is less deceptive than
+any other game bird, and the movements of a covey are easily watched.
+This tracking is greatly aided if the field in which the birds are is
+bounded by stone walls. As dusk deepens and draws to dark, they run and
+call less, and soon all is still. The closely-packed covey is easy to
+detect against the yellow stubble, and resting the gun on the wall, a
+charge of heavy shot fired into their midst usually picks off the lot.
+If in five minutes the shot brings up the keeper it matters little, as
+then you are far over the land.
+
+Partridges feed in the early morning--as soon as day breaks, in fact.
+They resort to one spot, and are constant in their coming, especially if
+encouraged. This fact I well knew, and laid my plans accordingly. By the
+aid of the moon a train of grain was laid straight as a hazel wand. Upon
+these occasions I never went abroad without an old duck-gun, the barrels
+of which had been filed down. This enabled me to carry the gun-stock in
+one pocket, the barrels in the other. The shortness of the latter in
+nowise told against the shooting, as the gun was only required to use at
+short distances. The weapon was old, thick at the muzzle, and into it I
+crammed a heavy charge of powder and shot. Ensconced in the scrub I had
+only now to wait for the dawn. Almost before it was fully light the
+covey would come with a loud whirring of wings, and settle to feed
+immediately. This was the critical moment. Firing along the line a
+single shot strewed the ground with dead and dying; and in ten minutes,
+always keeping clear of the roads, I was a mile from the spot.
+
+I had yet another and a more successful method of taking partridges.
+When, from the watchfulness or cleverness of keepers (they are not
+intelligent men as a rule), both netting and shooting proved
+impracticable, I soaked grain until it became swollen, and then steeped
+it in the strongest spirit. This, as before, was strewn in the morning
+paths of the partridge, and, soon taking effect, the naturally
+pugnacious birds were presently staggering and fighting desperately.
+Then I bided my time, and as opportunity offered, knocked the
+incapacitated birds on the head.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+One of the most ingenious and frequently successful methods I employed
+for bagging partridge was by the aid of an old setter bitch having a
+lantern tied to her neck. Being somewhat risky, I only employed it when
+other plans failed, and when I had a good notion of the keeper's
+whereabouts. The lantern was made from an old salmon canister stripped
+of its sides, and contained a bit of candle. When the bitch was put off
+into seeds or stubble she would range quietly until she found the birds,
+then stand as stiffly as though done in marble. This shewed me just
+where the covey lay, and as the light either dazzled or frightened the
+birds, it was not difficult to clap the net over them. It sometimes
+happened that others besides myself were watching this strange luminous
+light, and it was probably set down as some phenomenon of the night-side
+of nature. Once, however, I lost my long silk net, and as there was
+everything to be gained by running, and much to be lost by staying, I
+ran desperately. Only an old, slow dog can be used in this species of
+poaching, and it is marvellous to see with what spirit and seeming
+understanding it enters into the work.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 5.
+
+HARE POACHING.
+
+    The merry brown hares came leaping
+      Over the crest of the hill,
+    Where the clover and corn lay sleeping
+      Under the moonlight still.
+
+
+Our hare season generally began with partridge poaching, so that the
+coming of the hunter's moon was always an interesting autumnal event. By
+its aid the first big bag of the season was made. When a field is sown
+down, which it is intended to bring back to grass, clover is invariably
+sown with the grain. This springs between the corn stalks, and by the
+time the golden sheaves are carried, has swathed the stubble with
+mantling green. This, before all others, is the crop which hares love.
+
+Poaching is one of the fine arts, and the man who would succeed must be
+a specialist. If he has sufficient strength to refrain from general
+"mouching," he will succeed best by selecting one particular kind of
+game, and directing his whole knowledge of woodcraft against it. In
+spring and summer I was wont to closely scan the fields, and as
+embrowned September drew near, knew the whereabouts of every hare in the
+parish--not only the field where it lay, but the very clump of rushes in
+which was its form. As puss went away from the gorse, or raced down the
+turnip-rigg, I took in every twist and double down to the minutest
+detail.
+
+Then I scanned the "smoots" and gates through which she passed, and was
+always careful to approach these laterally. I left no trace of hand nor
+print of foot, nor disturbed the rough herbage. Late afternoon brought
+me home, and upon the hearth the wires and nets were spread for
+inspection. When all was ready, and the dogs whined impatiently to be
+gone, I would strike right into the heart of the land, and away from the
+high-road.
+
+Mention of the dogs brings me to my fastest friends. Without them
+poaching for fur would be almost impossible. I invariably used bitches,
+and as success depended almost wholly upon them, I was bound to keep
+only the best. Lurchers take long to train, but when perfected are
+invaluable. I have had, maybe, a dozen dogs in all, the best being the
+result of a pure cross between greyhound and sheepdog. In night work
+silence is essential to success, and such dogs never bark; they have the
+good nose of the one, and the speed of the other. In selecting puppies
+it is best to choose rough-coated ones, as they are better able to stand
+the exposure of cold, rough nights. Shades of brown and fawn are
+preferable for colour, as these best assimilate to the duns and browns
+of the fields and woods. The process of training would take long to
+describe; but it is wonderful how soon the dog takes on the habits of
+its master. They soon learn to slink along by hedge and ditch, and but
+rarely shew in the open. They know every field-cut and by-path for
+miles, and are as much aware as their masters that county constables
+have a nasty habit of loitering about unfrequented lanes at daybreak.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The difficulty lies not so much in obtaining game as in getting it home
+safely; but for all that I was but rarely surprised with game upon me in
+this way. Disused buildings, stacks, and dry ditches are made to contain
+the "haul" until it can be sent for--an office which I usually got some
+of the field-women to perform for me. Failing these, country carriers
+and early morning milk-carts were useful. When I was night poaching, it
+was important that I should have the earliest intimation of the approach
+of a possible enemy, and to secure this the dogs were always trained to
+run on a few hundred yards in advance. A well-trained lurcher is almost
+infallible in detecting a foe, and upon meeting one he runs back to his
+master under cover of the _far side_ of a fence. When the dog came back
+to me in this way I lost not a second in accepting the shelter of the
+nearest hedge or deepest ditch till the danger was past. If suddenly
+surprised and without means of hiding, myself and the dog would make off
+in different directions. Then there were times when it was inconvenient
+that we should know each other, and upon such occasions the dogs would
+not recognise me even upon the strongest provocation.
+
+My best lurchers knew as much of the habits of game as I did. According
+to the class of land to be worked they were aware whether hares,
+partridges, or rabbits were to constitute the game for the night. They
+judged to a nicety the speed at which a hare should be driven to make a
+snare effective, and acted accordingly. At night the piercing scream of
+a netted hare can be heard to a great distance, and no sound sooner puts
+the keeper on the alert.
+
+Consequently, when "puss" puts her neck into a wire, or madly jumps into
+a gate-net, the dog is on her in an instant, and quickly stops her
+piteous squeal. In field-netting rabbits, lurchers are equally quick,
+seeming quite to appreciate the danger of noise. Once only have I heard
+a lurcher give mouth. "Rough" was a powerful, deep-chested bitch, but
+upon one occasion she failed to jump a stiff, stone fence, with a
+nine-pound hare in her mouth. She did not bark, however, until she had
+several times failed at the fence, and when she thought her whereabouts
+were unknown. Hares and partridges invariably squat on the fallow or in
+the stubble when alarmed, and remain absolutely still till the danger is
+passed. This act is much more likely to be observed by the dog than its
+master, and in such cases the lurchers gently rubbed my shins to apprise
+me of the fact. Then I moved more cautiously. Out-lying pheasants,
+rabbits in the clumps, red grouse on the heather--the old dog missed
+none of them. Every movement was noted, and each came to the capacious
+pocket in turn. The only serious fights I ever had were when keepers
+threatened to shoot the dogs. This was a serious matter. Lurchers take
+long to train, and a keeper's summary proceeding often stops a whole
+winter's work, as the best dogs cannot easily be replaced. Many a one of
+our craft would as soon have been shot himself as seen his dog
+destroyed; and there are few good dogs which have not, at one time or
+other, been riddled with pellets during their lawless (save the mark!)
+career. If a hare happens to be seen, the dog sometimes works it so
+cleverly as to "chop" it in its "form"; and both hares and rabbits are
+not unfrequently snapped up without being run at all. In fact,
+depredations in fur would be exceedingly limited without the aid of
+dogs; and one country squire saved his ground game for a season by
+buying my best brace of lurchers at a very fancy price; while upon
+another occasion a bench of magistrates demanded to see the dogs of
+whose doings they had heard so much. In short, my lurchers at night
+embodied all my senses.
+
+Whilst preparing my nets and wires, the dogs would whine impatiently to
+be gone. Soon their ears were pricked out on the track, though until
+told to leave they stuck doggedly to heel. Soon the darkness would blot
+out even the forms of surrounding objects, and our movements were made
+more cautiously. A couple of snares are set in gaps in an old thorn
+fence not more than a yard apart. These are delicately manipulated, as
+we know from previous knowledge that the hare will take one of them. The
+black dog is sent over, the younger fawn bitch staying behind. The
+former slinks slowly down the field, sticking close to the cover of a
+fence running at right angles to the one in which the wires are set. I
+have arranged that the wind shall blow from the dog and across to the
+hare's seat when the former shall come opposite. The ruse acts; "puss"
+is alarmed, but not terrified; she gets up and goes quietly away for the
+hedge. The dog is crouched, anxiously watching; she is making right for
+the snare, though something must be added to her speed to make the wire
+effective. As the dog closes in, I wait, bowed, with hands on knees,
+still as death, for her coming. I hear the brush of the grass, the trip,
+trip, trip, as the herbage is brushed. There is a rustle among the dead
+leaves, a desperate rush, a momentary squeal--and the wire has tightened
+round her throat.
+
+Again we trudge silently along the lane, but soon stop to listen. Then
+we disperse, but to any on-looker would seem to have dissolved. This dry
+ditch is capacious, and its dead herbage tall and tangled. A heavy foot,
+with regular beat, approaches along the road, and dies slowly away in
+the distance.
+
+Hares love green cornstalks, and a field of young wheat is at hand; I
+spread a net, twelve feet by six, at the gate, and at a sign the dogs
+depart different ways. Their paths soon converge, for the night is torn
+by a piteous cry; the road is enveloped in a cloud of dust; and in the
+midst of the confusion the dogs dash over the fence. They must have
+found their game near the middle of the field, and driven the hares--for
+there are two--so hard that they carried the net right before them;
+every struggle wraps another mesh about them, and, in a moment, their
+screams are quieted. By a quick movement I wrap the long net about my
+arm, and, taking the noiseless sward, get hastily away from the spot.
+
+In March, when hares are pairing, four or five may frequently be found
+together in one field. Although wild, they seem to lose much of their
+natural timidity, and during this month I usually reaped a rich harvest.
+I was always careful to set my wires and snares on the side _opposite_
+to that from which the game would come, for this reason--that hares
+approach any place through which they are about to pass in a zig-zag
+manner. They come on, playing and frisking, stopping now and then to
+nibble the herbage. Then they canter, making wide leaps at right angles
+to their path, and sit listening upon their haunches. A freshly
+impressed footmark, the scent of dog or man, almost invariably turns
+them back. Of course these traces are certain to be left if the snare be
+set on the _near_ side of the gate or fence, and then a hare will refuse
+to take it, even when hard pressed. Now here is a wrinkle to any keeper
+who cares to accept it. Where poaching is prevalent and hares abundant,
+_every hare on the estate should be netted_, for it is a fact well known
+to every poacher versed in his craft, that an escaped hare that has
+once been netted can never be retaken. The process, however, will
+effectually frighten a small percentage of hares off the land
+altogether.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The human scent left at gaps and gateways by ploughmen, shepherds, and
+mouchers, the wary poacher will obliterate by driving sheep over the
+spot before he begins operations. On the sides of fells and uplands
+hares are difficult to kill. This can only be accomplished by swift
+dogs, which are taken _above_ the game. Puss is made to run down-hill,
+when, from her peculiar formation, she goes at a disadvantage.
+
+Audacity almost invariably stands the poacher in good stead. Here is an
+actual incident. I knew of a certain field of young wheat in which was
+several hares--a fact observed during the day. This was hard by the
+keeper's cottage, and surrounded by a high fence of loose stones. It
+will be seen that the situation was somewhat critical, but that night my
+nets were set at the gates through which the hares always made. To drive
+them the dog was to range the field, entering it at a point furthest
+away from the gate. I bent my back in the road a yard from the wall to
+aid the dog. It retired, took a mighty spring, and barely touching my
+shoulders, bounded over the fence. The risk was justified by the haul,
+for that night I bagged nine good hares.
+
+Owing to the scarcity of game, hare-poaching is now hardly worth
+following, and I believe that what is known as the _Ground Game Act_ is
+mainly responsible for this. A country Justice, who has often been my
+friend when I was sadly in need of one, asked me why I thought the Hares
+and Rabbits Act had made both kinds of fur scarcer. I told him that the
+hare would become abundant again if it were not beset by so many
+enemies. Since 1880 it has had no protection, and the numbers have gone
+down amazingly. A shy and timid animal, it is worried through every
+month of the year. It does not burrow, and has not the protection of the
+rabbit. Although the colour of its fur resembles that of the dead grass
+and herbage among which it lies, yet it starts from its "form" at the
+approach of danger, and from its size makes an easy mark. It is not
+unfrequently "chopped" by sheep-dogs, and in certain months hundreds of
+leverets perish in this way. Hares are destroyed wholesale during the
+mowing of the grass and the reaping of the corn. For a time in summer,
+leverets especially seek this kind of cover, and farmers and
+farm-labourers kill numbers with dog and gun--and this at a time when
+they are quite unfit for food. In addition to these causes of scarcity
+there are others well known to sportsmen. When harriers hunt late in the
+season--as they invariably do now-a-days--many leverets are "chopped,"
+and for every hare that goes away three are killed in the manner
+indicated. At least, that is my experience while mouching in the wake of
+the hounds. When hunting continues through March, master and huntsman
+assert that this havoc is necessary in order to kill off superabundant
+jack-hares, and so preserve the balance of stock. Doubtless there was
+reason in this argument before the present scarcity, but now there is
+none. March, too, is a general breeding month, and the hunting of
+doe-hares entails the grossest cruelty. Coursing is confined within no
+fixed limits, and is prolonged far too late in the season. What has been
+said of hunting applies to coursing, and these things sportsmen can
+remedy if they wish. There is more unwritten law in connection with
+British field-sports than any other pastime; but obviously it might be
+added to with advantage. If something is not done the hare will
+assuredly become extinct. To prevent this a "close time" is, in the
+opinion of those best versed in woodcraft, absolutely necessary. The
+dates between which the hare would best be protected are the first of
+March and the first of August. Then we would gain all round. The recent
+relaxation of the law has done something to encourage poaching, and
+poachers now find pretexts for being on or about land which before were
+of no avail, and to the moucher accurate observation by day is one of
+the essentials to success.
+
+Naturalists ought to know best; but there has been more unnatural
+history written concerning hares than any other British animal. It is
+said to produce two young ones at a birth, but observant poachers know
+that from three to five leverets are not unfrequently found: then it is
+stated that hares breed twice, or at most thrice, a year. Anyone,
+however, who has daily observed their habits, knows that there are but
+few months in which leverets are not born. In mild winters young ones
+are found in January and February, whilst in March they have become
+common. They may be seen right on through summer and autumn, and last
+December I saw a brace of leverets a month old. Does shot in October are
+sometimes found to be giving milk, and in November old hares are not
+unfrequently noticed in the same patch of cover. These facts would seem
+to point to the conclusion that the hare propagates its species almost
+the whole year round--a startling piece of evidence to the older
+naturalists. Add to this that hares pair when a year old, that gestation
+lasts only thirty days, and it will be seen what a possibly prolific
+animal the hare may be. The young are born covered with fur, and after a
+month leave their mother to seek their own subsistence.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 6.
+
+PHEASANT POACHING.
+
+
+Through late summer and autumn the poacher's thoughts go out to the
+early weeks of October. Neither the last load of ruddy corn, nor the
+actual netting of the partridge gladden his heart as do the first signs
+of the dying year. There are certain sections of the Game Laws which he
+never breaks, and only some rare circumstance tempts him to take
+immature birds. But by the third week of October the yellow and sere of
+the year has come. The duns and browns are over the woods, and the
+leaves come fitfully flickering down. Everything out of doors testifies
+that autumn is waning, and that winter will soon be upon us. The colours
+of the few remaining flowers are fading, and nature is beginning to have
+a washed-out appearance. The feathery plumes of the ash are everywhere
+strewn beneath the trees, for, just as the ash is the first to burst
+into leaf, so it is the first to go. The foliage of the oak is already
+assuming a bright chestnut, though the leaves will remain throughout the
+year. In the oak avenues the acorns are lying in great quantities,
+though oak mast is not now the important product it once was, cheap
+grain having relegated it almost exclusively to the use of the birds.
+And now immense flocks of wood pigeons flutter in the trees or pick up
+the food from beneath. The garnering of the grain, the flocking of
+migratory birds, the wild clanging of fowl in the night sky--these are
+the sights and sounds that set the poacher's thoughts off in the old
+grooves.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Of all species of poaching, that which ensures a good haul of pheasants
+is most beset with difficulty. Nevertheless there are silent ways and
+means which prove as successful in the end as the squire's guns, and
+these without breaking the woodland silence with a sound. The most
+successful of these I intend to set down, and only such will be
+mentioned as have stood me in good stead in actual night work. Among
+southern woods and coverts the pheasant poacher is usually a desperate
+character; not so in the north. Here the poachers are more skilled in
+woodcraft, and are rarely surprised. If the worst comes to the worst it
+is a fair stand-up fight with fists, and is usually bloodless. There is
+little greed of gain in the night enterprise, and liberty by flight is
+the first thing resorted to.
+
+It is well for the poacher, and well for his methods, that the pheasant
+is rather a stupid bird. There is no gainsaying its beauty, however, and
+a brace of birds, with all the old excitement thrown in, are well worth
+winning, even at considerable risk. In a long life of poaching I have
+noticed that the pheasant has one great characteristic. It is fond of
+wandering; and this cannot be prevented. Watch the birds: even when fed
+daily, and with the daintiest food, they wander off, singly or in pairs,
+far from the home coverts. This fact I knew well, and was not slow to
+use my knowledge. When October came round they were the very first birds
+to which I directed my attention. Every poacher observes, year by year
+(even leaving his own predaceous paws out of the question), that it by
+no means follows that the man who rears the pheasants will have the
+privilege of shooting them. There is a very certain time in the life of
+the bird when it disdains the scattered corn of the keeper, and begins
+to anticipate the fall of beech and oak mast. In search of this the
+pheasants make daily journeys, and consume great quantities. They feed
+principally in the morning; dust themselves in the roads or
+turnip-fields at mid-day, and ramble through the woods in the afternoon.
+And one thing is certain: That when wandered birds find themselves in
+outlying copses in the evening they are apt to roost there. As already
+stated, these were the birds to which I paid my best attention. When
+wholesale pheasant poaching is prosecuted by gangs, it is in winter,
+when the trees are bare. Guns, with the barrels filed down, are taken in
+sacks, and the pheasants are shot where they roost. Their bulky forms
+stand sharply outlined against the sky, and they are invariably on the
+lower branches. If the firing does not immediately bring up the keepers,
+the game is quickly deposited in bags, and the gang makes off. And it is
+generally arranged that a light cart is waiting at some remote lane end,
+so that possible pursuers may be quickly outpaced. The great risk
+incurred by this method will be seen, when it is stated that pheasants
+are generally reared close by the keeper's cottage, and that their
+coverts immediately surround it. It is mostly armed mouchers who enter
+these, and not the more gifted (save the mark!) country poacher. And
+there are reasons for this. Opposition must always be anticipated, for,
+speaking for the nonce from the game-keeper's standpoint, the covert
+never should be, and rarely is, unwatched. Then there are the certain
+results of possible capture to be taken into account. This affected, and
+with birds in one's possession, the poacher is liable to be indicted
+upon so many concurrent charges, each and all having heavy penalties.
+Than this I obtained my game in a different and quieter way. My custom
+was to carefully eschew the preserves, and look up all outlying birds. I
+never went abroad without a pocketful of corn, and day by day enticed
+the wandered birds further and further away. This accomplished,
+pheasants may be snared with hair nooses, or taken in spring traps. One
+of my commonest and most successful methods with wandered birds was to
+light brimstone beneath the trees in which they roosted. The powerful
+fumes soon overpowered them, and they came flopping down the trees one
+by one. This method has the advantage of silence, and if the night be
+dead and still, is rarely detected. Away from the preserves, time was
+never taken into account in my plans, and I could work systematically. I
+was content with a brace of birds at a time, and usually got most in the
+end, with least chance of capture.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I have already spoken at some length of my education in field and
+wood-craft. An important (though at the time unconscious) part of this
+was minute observation of the haunts and habits of all kinds of game;
+and this knowledge was put to good use in my actual poaching raids.
+Here is an instance of what I mean: I had noticed the great pugnacity of
+the pheasant, and out of this made capital. After first finding out the
+whereabouts of the keeper, I fitted a trained game-cock with artificial
+spurs, and then took it to the covert side. The artificial spurs were
+fitted to the natural ones, were sharp as needles, and the plucky bird
+already knew how to use them. Upon his crowing, one or more cock
+pheasants would immediately respond, and advance to meet the adversary.
+A single blow usually sufficed to lay low the pride of the pheasant, and
+in this way half-a-dozen birds were bagged, whilst my own representative
+remained unhurt.
+
+I had another ingenious plan (if I may say so) in connection with
+pheasants, and, perhaps, the most successful. I may say at once that
+there is nothing sportsmanlike about it; but then that is in keeping
+with most of what I have set down. If time and opportunity offer there
+is hardly any limit to the depredation which it allows. Here it is: A
+number of dried peas are taken and steeped in boiling water; a hole is
+then made through the centre, and through this again a stiff bristle is
+threaded. The ends are then cut off short, leaving only about a quarter
+of an inch of bristle projecting on each side. With these the birds are
+fed, and they are greedily eaten. In passing down the gullet, however, a
+violent irritation is set up, and the pheasant is finally choked. In a
+dying condition the birds are picked up beneath the hedges, to the
+shelter of which they almost always run. The way is a quiet one; it may
+be adopted in roads and lanes where the birds dust themselves, and does
+not require trespass.
+
+In this connection I may say that I only used a gun when every other
+method failed. Game-keepers sometimes try to outwit poachers by a device
+which is now of old standing. Usually knowing from what quarter the
+latter will enter the covert, wooden blocks representing roosting birds
+are nailed to the branches of the open beeches. I was never entrapped
+into firing at these dummies, and it is only with the casual that the
+ruse acts. He fires, brings the keepers from their hiding places, and is
+caught. Still another method of bagging "long-tails," though one
+somewhat similar to that already set down: It requires two persons, and
+the exact position of the birds must be known. A black night is
+necessary; a stiff bamboo rod, and a dark lantern. One man flashes the
+concentrated light upon the bare branches, when immediately half a dozen
+necks are stretched out to view the apparition. Just then the "angler"
+slips a wire nooze over the craned neck nearest him, and it is jerked
+down as quickly, though as silently as possible. Number two is served in
+like manner, then a third, a fourth, and a fifth. This method has the
+advantage of silence, though, if unskilfully managed, sometimes only a
+single bird is secured, and the rest flutter wildly off into the
+darkness.
+
+Poachers often come to untimely ends. Here is an actual incident which
+befell one of my companions--as clever a poacher, and as decent and
+quiet a man as need be. I saw him on the night previous to the morning
+of his death, though he did not see me. It was a night at the end of
+October. The winds had stripped the leaves from the trees, and the
+dripping branches stood starkly against the sky. I was on the high road
+with a vehicle, when plashes of rain began to descend, and a low
+muttering came from out the dull leaden clouds. As the darkness
+increased, occasional flashes tore zig-zag across the sky, and the rain
+set to a dead pour. The lightning only served to increase the darkness.
+I could just see the mare's steaming shoulders butting away in front,
+and her sensitive ears alternately pricked out on the track. The pitchy
+darkness increased, I gave the mare her head, and let the reins hang
+loosely on her neck. The lightning was terrible, the thunder almost
+continuous, when the mare came to a dead stop. I got down from the trap
+and found her trembling violently, with perspiration pouring down her
+flanks. All her gear was white with lather, and I thought it best to
+lead her on to where I knew was a chestnut tree, and there wait for a
+lull in the storm. As I stood waiting, a black lurcher slunk along under
+the sodden hedge, and seeing the trap, immediately stopped and turned in
+its tracks. Having warned its master, the two reconnoitered and then
+came on together. The "Otter" (for it was he), bade a gruff "good-night"
+to the enshrouded vehicle and passed on into the darkness. He slouched
+rapidly under the rain, and went in the direction of extensive woods and
+coverts. Hundreds of pheasants had taken to the tall trees, and, from
+beneath, were visible against the sky. Hares abounded on the fallows,
+and rabbits swarmed everywhere. The storm had driven the keepers to
+their cosy hearths, and the prospect was a poacher's paradise. Just what
+occurred next can only be surmised. Doubtless the "Otter" worked long
+and earnestly through that terrible night, and at dawn staggered from
+the ground under a heavy load.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Just at dawn the poacher's wife emerged from a poor cottage at the
+junction of the roads, and after looking about her as a hunted animal
+might look, made quietly off over the land. Creeping closely by the
+fences she covered a couple of miles, and then entered a disused,
+barn-like building. Soon she emerged under a heavy load, her basket, as
+of old, covered with crisp, green cresses. These she had kept from last
+evening, when she plucked them in readiness, from the spring. After two
+or three journeys she had removed the "plant," and as she eyed the game
+her eyes glistened, and she waited now only for _him_. As yet she knew
+not that he would never more come--that soon she would be a lone and
+heart-broken creature. For, although his life was one long warfare
+against the Game Laws, he had always been good and kind to her. His end
+had come as it almost inevitably must. The sound of a heavy unknown
+footstep on his way home, had turned him from his path. He had then made
+back for the lime-kiln to obtain warmth and to dry his sodden clothes.
+Once on the margin he was soon asleep. The fumes dulled his senses, and
+in his restless sleep he had rolled on to the stones. In the morning the
+Limestone Burner coming to work found a handful of pure white ashes. A
+few articles were scattered about, and he guessed the rest.
+
+And so the "Otter" went to God.... The storm cleared, and the heavens
+were calm. In the sky, on the air, in the blades of grass were signs of
+awakening life. Morning came bright and fair, birds flew hither and
+thither, and the autumn flowers stood out to the sun. All things were
+glad and free, but one wretched stricken thing.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 7.
+
+SALMON AND TROUT POACHING.
+
+    Flashes the blood-red gleam
+      Over the midnight slaughter;
+    Wild shadows haunt the stream;
+      Dark forms glance o'er the water.
+    It is the leisterers' cry!
+      A salmon, ho! oho!
+    In scales of light, the creature bright
+      Is glimmering below.
+
+
+Most country poachers begin by loving Nature and end by hating the Game
+Laws. Whilst many a man is willing to recognize "property" in hares and
+pheasants, there are few who will do so with regard to salmon and trout.
+And this is why fish poachers have always swarmed. A sea-salmon is in
+the domain of the whole world one day; in a trickling runner among the
+hills the next. Yesterday it belonged to anybody; and the poacher,
+rightly or wrongly, thinks it belongs to him if only he can snatch it.
+There are few fish poachers who in their time have not been anglers; and
+anglers are of two kinds: there are those who fish fair, and those who
+fish foul. The first set are philosophical and cultivate patience: the
+second are predatory and catch fish, fairly if they can--but they catch
+fish.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Just as redwings and field-fares constitute the first game of young
+gunners, so the loach, the minnow, and the stickleback, are the prey of
+the young poacher. If these things are small, they are by no means to be
+despised, for there is a tide in the affairs of men when these "small
+fry" of the waters afford as much sport on their pebbly shallows as do
+the silvery-sided salmon in the pools of Strathspay. As yet there is no
+knowledge of gaff or click hook--only of a willow wand, a bit of string,
+and a crooked pin. The average country urchin has always a considerable
+dash of the savage in his composition, and this first comes out in
+relation to fish rather than fowl. See him during summer as he wantons
+in the stream like a dace. Watch where his brown legs carry him; observe
+his stealthy movements as he raises the likely stones; and note the
+primitive poaching weapon in his hand. That old pronged fork is every
+whit as formidable to the loach and bullhead as is the lister of the
+man-poacher to salmon and trout--and the wader uses it almost as
+skillfully. He has a bottle on the bank, and into this he pours the fish
+unhurt which he captures with his hands. Examine his aquarium, and
+hidden among the weeds you will find three or four species of small fry.
+The loach, the minnow, and the bullhead are sure to be there, with
+perhaps a tiny stickleback, and somewhere, outside the bottle--stuffed
+in cap or breeches pocket--crayfish of every age and size. During a long
+life I have watched the process, and this is the stuff out of which
+fish-poachers are made.
+
+It is part of the wisdom of nature's economy that when furred and
+feathered game is "out," fish are "in." It might be thought that
+poachers would recognize neither times nor seasons, but this is a
+mistake. During fence time game is nearly worthless; and then the
+prospective penalties of poaching out of season have to be taken into
+account. Fish poaching is practised none the less for the high
+preservation and strict watching which so much prevails now-a-days; it
+seems even to have grown with them. In outlying country towns with
+salmon and trout streams in the vicinity, poaching is carried on to an
+almost incredible extent. There are men who live by it and women to whom
+it constitutes a thriving trade. The "Otter," more thrifty than the rest
+of us, has purchased a cottage with the proceeds of his poaching; and I
+know four or five families who live by it. Whilst our class provide the
+chief business of the country police courts, and is a great source of
+profit to the local fish and game dealer, there is quite another and a
+pleasanter side, to the picture. But this later. The wary poacher never
+starts for the fishing ground without having first his customer; and it
+is surprising with what lax code of morals the provincial public will
+deal, when the silent night worker is one to the bargain. Of course the
+public always gets cheap fish and fresh fish, so fresh indeed that
+sometimes the life has hardly gone out of it. It is a perfectly easy
+matter to provide fish and the only difficulty lies in conveying it into
+the towns and villages. I never knew but what I might be met by some
+county constable, and consequently never carried game upon me. This I
+secreted in stack, rick, or disused farm building, until such time as it
+could be safely fetched. Country carriers, early morning milk-carts, and
+women are all employed in getting the hauls into town. In this women are
+by far the most successful. Sometimes they are seen labouring under a
+heavy load carried in a sack, with faggots and rotten sticks protruding
+from the mouth; or again, with a large basket innocently covered with
+crisp, green cresses which effectually hide the bright silvery fish
+beneath. Our methods of fish poaching are many. As we work silently and
+in the night, the chances of success are all in our favour. We walk much
+by the stream side during the day, and take mental notes of men and
+fish. We know the beats of the watchers, and have the water-side by
+heart. Long use has accustomed us to work as well in the dark as in the
+light, and this is essential. During summer, when the water is low, the
+fish congregate in deep "dubs." This they do for protection, and here,
+if overhung by trees, there is always abundance of food. Whenever it was
+our intention to net a dub, we carefully examined every inch of its
+bottom beforehand. If it had been "thorned," every thorn was carefully
+removed--small thorn bushes with stones attached, and thrown in by the
+watchers to entangle nets. Of course fish-poaching can never be tackled
+single-handed. In "long-netting" the net is dragged by a man on each
+side, a third wading after to lift it over the stakes, and to prevent
+the fish from escaping. When the end of the pool is reached the salmon
+and trout are simply drawn out upon the pebbles. This is repeated
+through the night until half-a-dozen pools are netted--probably
+depopulated of their fish. Netting of this description is a wholesale
+method of capture, always supposing that we are allowed our own time. It
+requires to be done slowly, however, as if alarmed we can do nothing but
+abandon the net. This is necessarily large, and when thoroughly wet is
+cumbersome and exceedingly heavy. The loss of one of our large nets
+was a serious matter, not only in time but money. For narrow streams, a
+narrow net is used, this being attached to two poles. It is better to
+cut the poles (of ash) only when required, as they are awkward objects
+to carry. The method of working the "pod-net" is the same in principle
+as the last. The older fish poachers rarely go in for poisoning. This is
+a cowardly method, and kills everything, both great and small, for miles
+down stream. Chloride of lime is the agent mostly used, as it does not
+injure the edible parts. The lime is thrown into the river where fish
+are known to lie, and its deadly influence is soon seen. The fish,
+weakened and poisoned, float belly uppermost. This at once renders them
+conspicuous, and they are simply lifted out of the water in a
+landing-net. Salmon and trout which come by their death in this way have
+the usually pink parts of a dull white, with the eyes and gill-covers of
+the same colour, and covered with a fine white film. This substance is
+much used in mills on the banks of trout-streams, and probably more fish
+are "poached" by this kind of pollution in a month than the most
+inveterate moucher will kill in a year.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is only poachers of the old school that are careful to observe close
+times, and they do their work mostly in summer. Many of the younger and
+more desperate hands, however, do really serious business when the fish
+are out of season. When salmon and trout are spawning their senses seem
+to become dulled, and then they are not difficult to approach in the
+water. They seek the highest reaches to spawn and stay for a
+considerable time on the spawning beds. A salmon offers a fair mark, and
+these are obtained by spearing. The pronged salmon spear is driven into
+the fleshy shoulders of the fish, when it is hauled out on to the bank.
+In this way I have often killed more fish in a single day than I could
+possibly carry home--even when there was little or no chance of
+detection. There is only one practicable way of carrying a big salmon
+across country on a dark night, and that is by hanging it round one's
+neck and steadying it in front. I have left tons of fish behind when
+chased by the watchers, as of all things they are the most difficult
+to carry. The best water bailiffs are those who are least seen, or who
+watch from a distance. So as to save sudden surprise, and to give timely
+warning of the approach of watchers, one of the poaching party should
+always command the land from a tree top.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The flesh of spawning fish is loose and watery, insipid and tasteless,
+and rarely brings more than a few pence per pound. In an out-lying
+hamlet known to me, poached salmon, during last close time, was so
+common that the cottagers fed their poultry upon it through the winter.
+Several fish were killed each over 20 lbs. in weight. Than netting,
+another way of securing salmon and trout from the spawning redds is by
+"click" hooks. These are simply large salmon hooks bound shaft to shaft
+and attached to a long cord; a bit of lead balances them and adds
+weight. These are used in the "dubs" when spearing by wading is
+impracticable. When a salmon is seen the hooks are simply thrown beyond
+it, then gently dragged until they come immediately beneath; when a
+sharp click sends them into the soft under parts of the fish, which is
+then dragged out. As the pike, which is one of nature's poachers, is
+injurious to our interests as well as those of the angler, we never miss
+an opportunity of treating him in the same summary manner. Of course,
+poaching with click-hooks requires to be done during the day, or by the
+aid of an artificial light. Light attracts salmon just as it attracts
+birds, and tar brands are frequently used by poachers. A good, rough
+bulls-eye lantern, to aid in spearing, can be made from a disused salmon
+canister. A circular hole should be made in the side, and a bit of
+material tied over to hide the light when not in use. Shooting is
+sometimes resorted to, but for this class of poaching the habits and
+beats of the water bailiffs require to be accurately known. The method
+has the advantage of quickness, and a gun in skilful hands and at short
+distance may be used without injuring the fleshy parts of the fish. That
+deadly bait, salmon row, is now rarely used, the method of preparing it
+being unknown to the younger generation. It can, however, be used with
+deadly effect. Although both ourselves and our nets were occasionally
+captured, the watchers generally found this a difficult matter. In
+approaching our fishing grounds we did not mind going sinuously and
+snake-like through the wet meadows, and as I have said, our nets were
+rarely kept at home. These were secreted in stone heaps, and among
+bushes in close proximity to where we intended to use them. Were they
+kept at home the obtaining of a search warrant by the police or local
+Angling Association would always render their custody a critical
+business. When, upon any rare occasion, the nets were kept at home, it
+was only for a short period, and when about to be used. Sometimes,
+though rarely, the police have discovered them secreted in the chimney,
+between bed and mattrass, or, in one case, wound about the portly person
+of a poacher's wife. As I have already said, the women are not always
+simply aiders and abettors, but in the actual poaching sometimes play an
+important part. They have frequently been taken red-handed by the
+watchers. Mention of the water-bailiffs reminds me that I must say a
+word of them too. Their profession is a hard one--harder by far than the
+poacher's. They work at night, and require to be most on the alert
+during rough and wet weather; especially in winter when fish are
+spawning. Sometimes they must remain still for hours in freezing
+clothes; and even in summer not unfrequently lie all night in dank and
+wet herbage. They see the night side of nature, and many of them are as
+good naturalists as the poachers. If a lapwing gets up and screams in
+the darkness the cleverer of them know how to interpret the sound, as
+also a hare rushing wildly past. I must add, however, that it is in the
+nature of things that at all points the fish poacher is cleverer and of
+readier wit than the river watcher.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Looking back it does not seem long since county constables first became
+an institution in this part of the country. I remember an amusing
+incident connected with one of them who was evidently a stranger to many
+of the phases of woodcraft. We had been netting a deep dub just below a
+stone bridge, and were about to land a splendid haul. Looking up, a
+constable was watching our operations in an interested sort of way, and
+for a moment we thought we were fairly caught. Just as we were about to
+abandon the net and make off through the wood, the man spoke. In an
+instant I saw how matters stood. He failed to grasp the situation--even
+came down and helped us to draw the net on to the bank. In thanking us
+for a silvery five-pound salmon we gave him he spoke with a southern
+accent, and I suppose that poachers and poaching were subjects that had
+never entered into his philosophy.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 8.
+
+GROUSE POACHING.
+
+
+For pleasurable excitement, to say nothing of profit, the pick of all
+poaching is for grouse. However fascinating partridge poaching may be;
+however pleasurable picking off pheasants from bare boughs; or the
+night-piercing screams of a netted hare--none of these can compare with
+the wild work of the moors. I am abroad on the heather just before the
+coming of the day. My way lies now along the rugged course of a fell
+"beck," now along the lower shoulder of the mountain. The grey
+dissolves into dawn, the dawn into light, and the first blackcock crows
+to his grey hen in the hollow. As my head appears above the burn side,
+the ever-watchful curlews whistle and the plovers scream. A dotterel
+goes plaintively piping over the stones, and the "cheep, cheep," of the
+awakening ling-birds rises from every brae. A silent tarn lies
+shimmering in a green hollow beneath, and over its marge constantly flit
+a pair of summer snipe. The bellowing of red deer comes from a
+neighbouring corrie, and a herd of roe are browsing on the confines of
+the scrub. The sun mounts the Eastern air, drives the mists away and
+beyond the lichen patches loved by the ptarmigan--and it is day.
+
+A glorious bird is the red grouse! Listen to his warning "kok, kok,
+kok," as he eyes the invader of his moorland haunts. Now that it is day
+his mate joins him on the "knowe." The sun warms up his rufus plumage,
+and the crescent-shaped patch of vermilion over the eye glows in the
+strong light. It is these sights and sounds that warm me to my work,
+and dearly I love the moor-game. Years ago I had sown grain along the
+fell-side so as to entice the grouse within range of an old flint-lock
+which I used with deadly effect from behind a stone wall. Then snares
+were set on the barley sheaves and corn stooks, by which a brace of
+birds were occasionally bagged. In after years an unforseen grouse
+harvest came in quite an unexpected manner. With the enclosure of the
+Commons hundreds of miles of wire fencing was erected, and in this way,
+before the birds had become accustomed to it, numbers were killed by
+flying against the fences. The casualties mostly occurred during
+"thick" weather, or when the mists had clung to the hills for days. At
+such times grouse fly low, and strike before seeing the obstacle. I
+never failed to note the mist-caps hanging to the fell-tops, and then,
+bag in hand, walked parallel to miles and miles of flimsy fence.
+Sometimes a dozen brace of birds were picked up in a morning; and, on
+the lower grounds, an occasional partridge, woodcock, or snipe.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Grouse are the only game that ever tempted me to poach during close
+time, and then I only erred by a few days. Birds sold in London on the
+morning of the "Twelfth" bring the biggest prices of the season, and to
+supply the demand was a temptation I could never resist. Many a
+"Squire," many a Country Justice has been tempted as I was, and fell as
+I fell. It is not too much to say that every one of the three thousand
+birds sold in London on the opening day has been poached during the
+"fence" time. In the north, country station-masters find hampers dropped
+on their platforms addressed to London dealers, but, as to who brought
+them, or how they came there, none ever knows.
+
+The only true prophet of the grouse-moors is the poacher. Months before
+the "squire" and keeper he knows whether disease will assert itself or
+no. By reason of his out-door life he has accuracy of eye and judgment
+sufficient to interpret what he sees aright. He is abroad in all
+weathers, and through every hour of the day and night. His clothes have
+taken on them the duns and browns of the moorlands; and he owns the
+subtle influence which attracts wild creatures to him. He has watched
+grouse "at home" since the beginning of the year. On the first spring
+day the sun shines brightly at noon. The birds bask on the brae, and
+spread their wings to the warmth. As the sun gains in power, and spring
+comes slowly up the way, the red grouse give out gurgling notes, and
+indulge in much strutting. The fell "becks" sparkles in the sun; the
+merlin screams over the heather, and the grouse packs break up. The
+birds are now seen singly or in pairs, and brae answers brae from dawn
+till dark. The cock grouse takes his stand on some grey rock, and erects
+or depresses at pleasure his vermilion eye-streak. Pairing is not long
+continued, and the two find out a depression in the heather which they
+line with bents and mountain grasses. About eight eggs are laid, and the
+cock grouse takes his stand upon the "knowe" to guard the nest from
+predaceous carrion and hooded crows. If hatching is successful the young
+birds are quickly on their legs, and through spring and summer follow
+the brooding birds. They grow larger and plumper each day, until it is
+difficult to detect them from the adult. Meanwhile August has come, and
+soon devastating death is dealt out to them. The sport, so far as the
+poacher is concerned, begins at the first rolling away of the morning
+mists; and then he often makes the best bag of the year. It was rarely
+that I was abroad later than two in the morning, and my first business
+was to wade out thigh-deep into the purple heather. From such a
+position it is not difficult to locate the crowing of the moorbirds as
+they answer each other across the heather. When this was done I would
+gain a rough stone wall, and then, by imitating the gurgling call-notes
+of cock or hen I could bring up every grouse within hearing. Sometimes a
+dozen would be about me at one time. Then the birds were picked off as
+they flew over the knolls and braes, or as they boldly stood on any
+eminence near. If this method is deadly in early August, it is
+infinitely more so during pairing time. Then, if time and leisure be
+allowed, and the poacher is a good "caller," almost every bird on a moor
+may be bagged.
+
+The greatest number of grouse, and consequently the best poaching, is to
+be had on moors on which the heather is regularly burned. Grouse love
+the shoots of ling which spring up after burning, and the birds which
+feed upon this invariably have the brightest plumage. On a well-burnt
+moor the best poaching method is by using a silk net. By watching for
+traces during the day it is not difficult to detect where the birds
+roost, and once this is discovered the rest is easy. The net is trailed
+along the ground by two men, and dropped instantly on the whirr of
+wings. The springing of the birds is the only guide in the darkness,
+though the method skilfully carried out is most destructive, and
+sometimes a whole covey is bagged at one sweep. Silk nets have three
+good qualities for night work, those made of any other material being
+cumbersome and nearly useless. They are light, strong, and are easily
+carried. It is well to have about eighteen inches of glazed material
+along the bottom of the net, or it is apt to catch in dragging. Where
+poaching is practised, keepers often place in the likeliest places a
+number of strong stakes armed with protruding nails. These, however, may
+be removed and replanted after the night's work; or, just at dusk a
+bunch of white feathers may be tied to point the position of each.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The planting of grain patches along the moor-side has been mentioned,
+and on these in late autumn great numbers of birds are bagged. Grouse
+are exceedingly fond of oats, and in the early morning the stooks are
+sometimes almost black with them. A pot shot here from behind a wall or
+fence is generally a profitable one, as the heavy charge of shot is sent
+straight at the "brown." Black-game are as keen as red grouse on oats,
+and a few sheaves thrown about always attracts them. Although the
+blackcock is a noble bird in appearance, he is dull and heavy, and is
+easily bagged. Early in the season the birds lie until almost trod upon,
+and of all game are the easiest to net. They roost on the ground, and
+usually seek out some sheltered brae-side on which to sleep. If closely
+watched at evening, it is not difficult to clap a silk net over them
+upon the first favourable night, when both mother and grown young are
+bagged together. That there are gentlemen poachers as well as casuals
+and amateurs, the following incident relating to black-game shows: "On a
+dull misty day they are easily got at: they will sit on the thorn bushes
+and alders, and let the shooter pick them off one by one. I remember
+once, on such a day, taking a noble sportsman who was very keen to shoot
+a blackcock, up to some black game sitting on a thorn hedge. When he got
+within about twenty-five yards he fired his first barrel (after taking a
+very deliberate aim) at an old grey hen. She took no notice, only
+shaking her feathers a little, and hopping a short distance further on.
+The same result with the second barrel. He loaded again and fired. This
+time the old hen turned round, and looked to see where the noise and
+unpleasant tickling sensation came from, and grew uneasy; the next
+attempt made her fly on to where her companions were sitting, and our
+friend then gave up his weapon to me in despair. Black game grow very
+stupid also when on stubbles; they will let a man fire at them, and if
+they do not see him, will fly round the field and settle again, or pitch
+on a wall quite near to him. Grouse will do the same thing. There is not
+much 'sport' in such shooting as this, but when out alone, and wanting
+to make a bag, it is a sure and quick way to do so. It may be called
+'poaching'--all I can say is, there would be many more gentlemen
+poachers if they could obtain such chances, and could not get game in
+any other way."
+
+Both grouse and black game may frequently be brought within range by
+placing a dead or stuffed bird on a rock or a stone wall. A small forked
+stick is made to support the head and neck of the decoy "dummy," which,
+if there are birds in the vicinity, soon attracts them. As a rule the
+lure is not long successful, but sufficiently so as to enable the
+poacher to make a big bag. Upon one occasion I made a remarkable
+addition to our fur and feather. In the darkness a movement was heard
+among the dense branches of a Scotch fir, when, looking up, a large bird
+which seemed as big as a turkey commenced to flutter off. It was stopped
+before it had flown many yards, and proved to be a handsome cock
+Capercailzie in splendid plumage. Had I been certain as to what it was I
+certainly should not have fired.
+
+Grouse stalking is fascinating sport, and by this method I usually made
+my greatest achievements. The stalking was mainly done from behind an
+old moorland horse, with which I had struck up an acquaintance; and it
+learned to stand fire like a war veteran. I used to think it enjoyed the
+sport, and I believe it did. With the aid of my shaggy friend I have
+successfully stalked hundreds of grouse, as its presence seemed to allay
+both fear and suspicion. Firing over its back, its neck, or beneath its
+belly--all were taken alike, patiently and sedately. An occasional
+handful of oats, or half a loaf, cemented the friendship of the old
+horse--my best and most constant poaching companion for years.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 9.
+
+RABBIT POACHING.
+
+
+If well trained lurchers are absolutely necessary to hare poaching,
+ferrets are just as important to successful rabbit poaching. Nearly
+nothing in fur can be done without them. However lucky the moucher may
+be among pheasants, partridge, or grouse, rabbits are and must be the
+chief product of his nights. Of the methods of obtaining them--field
+netting, well-traps, shooting--all are as nothing compared with silent
+ferreting.
+
+In the north we have two well-defined varieties of ferret--one a brown
+colour and known as the polecat-ferret; the other, the common white
+variety. The first is the hardier, and it is to secure this quality that
+poachers cross their ferrets with the wild polecat. Unlike lurchers,
+ferrets require but little training, and seem to work instinctively.
+There are various reasons why poachers prefer white ferrets to the
+polecat variety. At night a brown ferret is apt to be nipped up in
+mistake for a rabbit; while a white one is always apparent, even when
+moving among the densest herbage. Hence mouchers invariably use white
+ones. Gamekeepers who know their business prefer ferrets taken from
+poachers to any other. I was always particularly careful in selecting my
+stock, as from the nature of my trade I could ill afford to use bad
+ones. Certain strains of ferrets cause rabbits to bolt rapidly, while
+others are slow and sluggish. It need hardly be said that I always used
+the former. Even the best, however, will sometimes drive a rabbit to the
+end of a "blind" burrow; and after killing it will not return until it
+has gorged itself with blood. And more trouble is added if the ferret
+curls itself up for an after-dinner sleep. Then it has either to be left
+or dug out. The latter process is long, the burrows ramify far into the
+mound, and it is not just known in which the ferret remains. If it be
+left it is well to bar every hole with stones, and then return with a
+dead rabbit when hunger succeeds the gorged sleep. It is to guard
+against such occasions as these that working ferrets are generally
+muzzled. A cruel practise used to obtain among poachers of stitching
+together the lips of ferrets to prevent their worrying rabbits and then
+"laying up." For myself I made a muzzle of soft string which was
+effective, and at the same time comfortable to wear. When there was a
+chance of being surprised at night work I occasionally worked ferrets
+with a line attached; but this is an objectionable practice and does not
+always answer. There may be a root or stick in which the line gets
+entangled, when there will be digging and no end of trouble to get the
+ferret out. From these facts, and the great uncertainty of ferreting, it
+will be understood why poachers can afford to use only the best
+animals. A tangled hedgebank with coarse herbage was always a favourite
+spot for my depredations. There are invariably two, often half a dozen
+holes, to the same burrow. Small purse nets are spread over these, and I
+always preferred these loose to being pegged or fixed in any way. When
+all the nets are set the ferrets are turned in. They do not proceed
+immediately, but sniff the mouth of the hole; their indecision is only
+momentary, however, for soon the tip of the tail disappears in the
+darkness. And now silence is essential to success, as rabbits refuse to
+bolt if there is the slightest noise outside. A dull thud, a rush, and a
+rabbit goes rolling over and over entangled in the purse. Reserve nets
+are quickly clapped on the holes as the rabbits bolt, the latter
+invariably being taken except where a couple come together. Standing on
+the mound a shot would stop these as they go bounding through the dead
+leaves, but the sound would bring up the keeper, and so one has to
+practise self-denial. Unlike hares, rabbits rarely squeal when they
+become entangled; and this allows one to ferret long and silently.
+Rabbits bolt best on a windy day and before noon; after that they are
+sluggish and often refuse to come out at all. This is day ferreting, but
+of course mine was done mainly at night. In this case the dogs always
+ranged the land, and drove everything off it before we commenced
+operations. On good ground a mound or brae sometimes seemed to explode
+with rabbits, so wildly did they fly before their deadly foe. I have
+seen a score driven from one set of holes, while five or six couples is
+not at all uncommon. When ferrets are running the burrows, stoats and
+weasels are occasionally driven out; and among other strange things
+unearthed I remember a brown owl, a stock-dove, and a shell-drake--each
+of which happened to be breeding in the mounds.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The confines of a large estate constitute a poacher's paradise, for
+although partridge and grouse require land suited to their taste,
+rabbits and pheasants are common to all preserved ground. And then the
+former may be taken at any time, and in so many different ways. They
+are abundant, too, and always find a ready market. The penalties
+attached to rabbit poaching are less than those of game, and the conies
+need not be followed into closely preserved coverts. The extermination
+of the rabbit will be contemporaneous with that of the lurcher and
+poacher--two institutions of village life which date back to the time of
+the New Forest. Of the many mouching modes for taking conies,
+ferretting, as already stated, and field netting are the most common.
+Traps with steel jaws are sometimes set in runs, inserted in the turf so
+as to bring them flush with the sward. But destruction by this method is
+not sufficiently wholesale, and the upturned white under-parts of the
+rabbit's fur show too plainly against the green. The poacher's methods
+must be quick, and he cannot afford to visit by day traps set in the
+dark. The night must cover all his doings. When the unscrupulous keeper
+finds a snare he sometimes puts a leveret into it, and secretes himself.
+Then he waits, and captures the poacher "in the act." As with some
+other methods already mentioned, the trap poacher is only a casual.
+Ferretting is silent and almost invariably successful. In warrens, both
+inequalities of the ground, mounds, and ditches afford good cover. My
+best and most wholesale method of field-poaching for rabbits was by
+means of two long nets. These are from a hundred to a hundred and fifty
+yards in length, and about four feet high. They are usually made of
+silk, and are light and strong, and easily portable. These are set
+parallel to each other along the edge of a wood, about thirty yards out
+into the pasture. Only about four inches divides the nets. A dark windy
+night is best for the work, as in such weather rabbits feed far out in
+the fields. On a night of this character, too, the game neither hears
+nor sees the poacher. The nets are long--the first small in mesh, that
+immediately behind large. When a rabbit or hare strikes, the impetus
+takes a part of the first net and its contents through the larger mesh
+of the second, and there, hanging, the creature struggles until it is
+knocked on the head with a stick. Immediately the nets are set, two men
+and a brace of lurchers range the ground in front, slowly and patiently,
+and gradually drive every feeding thing woodwards. A third man quietly
+paces the sward behind the nets, killing whatever strikes them. In this
+way I have taken many scores of rabbits in a single night. On the
+confines of a large estate a rather clever trick was once played upon
+us. Each year about half-a-dozen black or white rabbits were turned down
+into certain woods. Whilst feeding, these stood out conspicuously from
+the rest, and were religiously preserved. Upon these the keepers kept a
+close watch, and when any were missing it was suspected what was going
+on, when the watching strength was increased. As soon as we detected the
+trick, we were careful to let the coloured rabbits go free. We found
+that it was altogether to our interest to preserve them.
+
+During night poaching for rabbits and hares the ground game is driven
+from its feeding ground to the woods or copses. Precisely the reverse
+method is employed during the day when the game is in cover. The
+practice is to find a spinny in which both rabbits and hares are known
+to lie; and then to set purse nets on the outside of every opening which
+may possibly be used by the frightened animals. The smaller the wood or
+patch of cover the easier it is to work. A man, with or without a dog,
+enters the covert, and his presence soon induces the furry denizens to
+bolt. As these rush through their customary runs they find themselves in
+the meshes of a net, and every struggle only makes them faster. This
+method has the disadvantage of being done in the light, but where there
+is much game is very deadly.
+
+Snares for hares and rabbits are not used nearly so much now as
+formerly. For all that, they are useful in outlying districts, or on
+land that is not closely watched. For hares the snare is a wire noose
+tied to a stick with string, and placed edgeways in the trod. To have
+the snare the right height is an important matter; and it will be found
+that two fists high for a hare, and one for a rabbit, is the most
+deadly. Casuals set their snares in hedge-bottoms, but these are no
+good. Two or three feet away from the hedge is the most killing
+position--for this reason: when a hare canters up to a fence it never
+immediately bounds through; it pauses about a yard away, then leaps into
+the hedge-bottom. It is during this last leap that it puts its neck into
+the noose and is taken. If a keeper merely watches a snare until it is
+"lifted," good and well; but to put a hare or rabbit into it and then
+pounce on the moucher--well, that is a different matter. It is not
+difficult to see where a hare has been taken, especially if the run in
+which the snare was set was damp. There will be the hole where the peg
+has been, and the ground will be beaten flat by the struggles of the
+animal in endeavouring to free itself.
+
+Field-netting for rabbits may be prevented in the same way as for
+partridges--by thorning the ground where the game feeds. It is quite a
+mistake to plant thorns, or even to stake out large branches. The only
+ones that at all trouble the poacher are small thorns which are left
+absolutely free on the ground. These get into the net, roll it up
+hopelessly in a short time, and if this once occurs everything escapes.
+Large thorns are easily seen and easily removed, but the abominable ones
+are the small ones left loose on the surface of the ground.
+
+The most certain and wholesale method of rabbit poaching I ever
+practised was also the most daring. The engine employed was the
+"well-trap." This is a square, deep box, built into the ground, and
+immediately opposite to a smoot-hole in the fence through which the
+rabbits run from wood or covert to field or pasture. Through a hole in
+the wall or fence a wooden trough or box is inserted. As the rabbits run
+through, the floor opens beneath their weight, and they drop into the
+"well." Immediately the pressure is removed the floor springs back to
+its original position, and thus a score or more rabbits are often taken
+in a single night. In the construction of these "well-traps," rough and
+unbarked wood is used, though, even after this precaution, the rabbits
+will not take them for weeks. Then, they become familiar; the weather
+washes away all scent, and the "well" is a wholesale engine of
+destruction. All surface traces of the existence of the trap must be
+covered over with dead leaves and woodland debris. The rabbits, of
+course, are taken alive, and the best way of killing them is by
+stretching them across the knee, and so dislocating the spine. If the
+keeper once finds out the trap the game is up. Whilst it lasts, however,
+it kills more rabbits than every other stroke of woodcraft the poacher
+knows.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 10.
+
+TRICKS.
+
+
+When it is known that a man's life is one long protest against the Game
+Laws he has to be exceedingly careful of his comings and goings. Every
+constable, every gamekeeper, and most workers in woodcraft are aware of
+the motives which bring him abroad at night. More eyes are upon him
+than he sees, and no one knows better than he that the enemies most to
+be feared are those who are least seen; and the man who has tasted the
+bitterness of poaching penalties will do everything in his power to
+escape detection. Probably the greatest aid to this end is knowing the
+country by heart; the field-paths and disused bye-ways, the fordable
+parts of the river, and a hundred things beside. The poacher is and must
+be suspicious of everyone he meets.
+
+In planning and carrying out forays I was always careful to observe two
+conditions. No poaching secret was ever confided to another; and I
+invariably endeavoured to get to the ground unseen. If my out-going was
+observed it often entailed a circuit of a dozen miles in coming home,
+and even then the entry into town was not without considerable risk. The
+hand of everyone was against me in my unlawful calling, and many were
+the shifts I had to make to escape detection or capture. To show with
+what success this may be carried out, the following incident will show.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I conceived the idea of openly shooting certain well-stocked coverts
+during the temporary absence of the owner. These were so well watched
+that all the ordinary measures at night seemed likely to be baffled. To
+openly shoot during broad day, and under the very eye of the keeper, was
+now the essential part of the programme; and to this end I must explain
+as follows: The keeper on the estate was but lately come to the
+district. Upon two occasions when I had been placed in the dock, I had
+been described as "a poacher of gentlemanly appearance," and "the
+gentleman poacher again." (My forefathers had been small estatesmen for
+generations, and I suppose that some last lingering air of gentility
+attached to me). Well, I had arranged with a confederate to act as bag
+carrier; he was to be very servile, and not to forget to touch his cap
+at pretty frequent intervals. After "making up" as a country squire--(I
+had closely studied the species on the "Bench")--and providing a
+luncheon in keeping with my temporary "squiredom," we started for the
+woods. It was a bright morning in the last week of October, and
+game--hares, pheasants, and woodcock--was exceedingly plentiful. The
+first firing brought up the keeper, who touched his hat in the most
+respectful fashion. He behaved, in short, precisely as I would have had
+him behave. I lost no time on quietly congratulating him on the number
+and quality of his birds; told him that his master would return from
+town to-morrow (which I had learned incidentally), and ended by handing
+him my cartridge bag to carry. A splendid bag of birds had been made by
+luncheon time, and the viands which constituted the meal were very much
+in keeping with my assumed position. Dusk came at the close of the short
+October afternoon, and with it the end of our day's sport. The bag was
+spread out in one of the rides of the wood, and in imagination I can see
+it now--thirty-seven pheasants, nine hares, five woodcock, a few
+rabbits, some cushats, and the usual "miscellaneous." The man of gaiters
+was despatched a couple of miles for a cart to carry the spoil, and a
+substantial "tip" gave speed to his not unwilling legs. The game,
+however, was not to occupy the cart. A donkey with panniers was waiting
+in a clump of brush by the covert side, and as soon as the panniers were
+packed, its head was turned homeward over a wild bit of moorland. With
+the start obtained, chase would have been fruitless had it ever been
+contemplated--which it never was. I need not detail the sequel to the
+incident here, and may say that it was somewhat painful to myself as
+well as my bag carrier. And I am sorry to say that the keeper was
+summarily dismissed by the enraged squire as a reward for his innocence.
+As to the coverts, they were so well stocked, that after a few days'
+rest there appeared as much game as ever, and the contents of our little
+bag were hardly missed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Another trick to which my co-worker used to resort was to attire himself
+in broad-brimmed hat and black coat similar to those worn a century ago
+by the people called Quakers. In the former he carried his nets, and in
+the capacious pockets of the latter the game he took. These outward
+guarantees of good faith, away from his own parish, precluded him from
+ever once being searched. I have already remarked, and every practical
+poacher knows it to be the fact, that the difficulty is not so much to
+obtain game as to transport it safely home. Although our dogs were
+trained to run on a hundred yards in advance so as to give warning of
+the approach of a possible enemy--even this did not always save us. A
+big bag of game handicaps one severely in a cross-country run, and it is
+doubly galling to have to sacrifice it. Well, upon the particular
+occasion to which I refer there was to be a country funeral with a
+hearse from the neighbouring market town, and of this I was determined
+to take advantage. By arranging with the driver I was enabled to stow
+myself and a large haul in the body of the vehicle, and, although the
+journey was a cramped and stuffy one, we in time reached our
+destination. As we came behind the nearest game shop the driver undid
+the door, and the questionable corpse was safely landed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I need hardly say that in a long life of poaching there were many
+occasions when I was brought to book. These, however, would form but a
+small percentage of the times I was "out." My success in this way was
+probably owing to the fact that I was chary as to those I took into
+confidence, and knew that above all things keeping my own council was
+the best wisdom. Another moucher I knew, but with whom I would have
+nothing to do, was an instance of one who told poaching secrets to
+village gossips. The "Mole" spent most of _his_ time in the county gaol,
+and just lately he completed his sixty-fifth incarceration--only a few
+of which were for offences outside the game laws. Well, there came a
+time when all the keepers round the country side had their revenge on
+me, and they made the most of it. I and my companion were fairly caught
+by being driven into an ambuscade by a combination of keepers. Exultant
+in my capture, the keepers from almost every estate in the neighbourhood
+flocked to witness my conviction. Some of them who had at times only
+seen a vanishing form in the darkness, now attended to see the man, as
+they put it. As I had always been followed at nights by an old black
+bitch, she, too, was produced in court, and proved an object of much
+curiosity. Well, our case was called, and, as we had no good defence to
+set up, it was agreed that my companion should do the talking. Without
+letting it appear so, we had a very definite object in prolonging the
+hearing of the case. There was never any great inclination to hurry such
+matters, as the magistrates always seemed to enjoy them. "We had been
+taken in the act," my co-worker told the bench. "We deserved no quarter,
+and asked none. Poaching was right by the Bible, but wrong by the
+law,"--and so he was rushing on. One of the Justices deigned to remark
+that it was a question of "property" not morality. "Oh!" rejoined the
+"Otter," "because blue blood doesn't run in my veins that's no reason
+why I shouldn't have my share. But it's a queer kind of property that's
+yours in that field, mine on the turnpike, and a third man's over the
+next fence." The end of it was, however, a fine of £5, with an
+alternative. And so the case ended. But that day the keepers and their
+assistants had forgotten the first principles of watching. The best
+keeper is the one that is the least seen. Only let the poacher know his
+whereabouts, and the latter's work is easy. It was afterwards remarked
+that during our trial not a poacher was in court. To any keeper skilled
+in his craft this fact must have appeared unusual--and significant. It
+became even more so when both of us were released by reason of our heavy
+fine having been paid the same evening. Most of the keepers had had
+their day out, and were making the most of it. Had their heads not been
+muddled they might have seen more than one woman labouring under loaded
+baskets near the local game dealers; these innocently covered with
+mantling cresses, and so, at the time, escaping suspicion. Upon the
+memorable day the pheasants had been fed by unseen hands--and had
+vanished. The only traces left by the covert side were fluffy feathers
+everywhere. Few hares remained on the land; the rest had either been
+snared or netted at the gates. The rabbits' burrows had been ferreted,
+the ferrets having been slyly borrowed at the keeper's cottage during
+his absence for the occasion. I may say that, in connection with this
+incident, we always claimed to poach square, and drew the line at
+home-reared pheasants--allowing them "property." Those found wild in the
+woods were on a different footing, and we directed our whole knowledge
+of woodcraft against them.
+
+Here is another "court" incident, in which I and my companion played a
+part. We came in contact with the law just sufficient to make us know
+something of its bearings. When charged with being in possession of
+"game" we reiterated the old argument that rabbits were vermin--but it
+rarely stood us in good stead. On one occasion, however, we scored.
+Being committed for two months for "night poaching," we respectfully
+informed the presiding Justice that, at the time of our capture, the sun
+had risen an hour; and further, that the law did not allow more than
+half the sentence just passed upon us. Our magistrate friend--to whom I
+have more than once referred--was on the bench, and he told his brother
+Justices that he thought there was something in the contention. The old
+Clerk looked crabbed as he fumbled for his horn spectacles, and, after
+turning over a book called "Stone's Justices' Manual," he solemnly
+informed the bench that defendants in their interpretation were right.
+We naturally remember this little incident, and as the law has had the
+whip hand of us upon so many occasions, chuckle over it.
+
+We invariably made friends with the stone-breakers by the road-sides,
+and just as invariably carried about us stone-breakers' hammers, and
+"preserves" for the eyes. When hard pressed, and if unknown to the
+pursuing keeper, nothing is easier than to dismiss the dog, throw off
+one's coat, plump down upon the first stone heap on the road, and go to
+work. If the thing is neatly done, and the "preserves" cover the face,
+it is wonderful how often this ruse is successful. The keeper may put a
+hasty question, but he oftener rushes after his man. Mention of
+stone-heaps reminds me of the fact that they are better "hides" for nets
+than almost anything else, especially the larger unbroken heaps. We
+invariably hid our big cumbrous fishing nets beneath them, and the
+stones were just as invariably true to their trust.
+
+Going back to my earliest poaching days I remember a cruel incident
+which had a very different ending to what its author intended. A young
+keeper had made a wager that he would effect my capture within a certain
+number of days, and my first intimation of this fact was a sickening
+sight which I discovered in passing down a woodland glade just at dawn
+on a bright December morning. I heard a groan, and a few yards in front
+saw a man stretched across the ride. His clothes were covered with hoar
+frost, he was drenched in blood, and the poor fellow's pale face showed
+me that of the keeper. He was held fast in a man-trap which had terribly
+lacerated his lower limbs. He was conscious, but quite exhausted.
+Although in great agony he suffered me to carry him to a neighbouring
+hay-rick, from whence we removed him to his cottage. He recovered
+slowly, and the man-trap which he had set the night before was, I
+believe, the last ever used in that district.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 11.
+
+PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS.
+
+
+When I had finished the last chapter I thought I had completed my work,
+but the gentleman who is to edit these "Confessions" now tells me that I
+am to confess more. He reminds me that I cannot have been an active
+poacher nearly all my life without having had numerous personal
+encounters with keepers and others. And in this he is right. But there
+is some difficulty in my additional task for the following reasons: I
+have never cared to take much credit to myself for having broken the
+head of a keeper, and there is but little pleasure to me in recounting
+the occasions when keepers have broken mine. However, speaking of broken
+heads reminds me of an incident which was amusing, though, at the time,
+somewhat painful to me.
+
+One night in November when the trees were bare, and the pheasants had
+taken to the branches, we were in a mixed wood of pine and beech. A good
+many birds roosted on its confines, and, to a practised eye, were not
+difficult to see against the moon as they sat on the lower limbs of the
+trees, near the trunks. I and my companion had old, strong guns with
+barrels filed down, and, as we got very near to the birds, we were using
+small charges of powder. As the night was windy the shots would not be
+heard very far, and we felt fairly safe. When we had obtained about
+three brace of birds, however, I heard a sudden crash among the
+underwood, when I immediately jumped behind the bole of a tree, and kept
+closely against it.
+
+The head-keeper had my companion down before he could resist, and I only
+remained undiscovered for a few seconds. One of the under-keepers seized
+me, but, being a good wrestler, I soon threw him into a dense brake of
+brambles and blackthorn. Then I bolted with the third man close behind.
+I could easily have outrun him over the rough country that lay outside
+the wood, but--ah! these "buts"--there was a stiff stone fence fully
+five feet high betwixt me and the open. Unless I could "fly" the fence
+he would have me. I clutched my pockets, steadied myself for the
+leap--and then sprang. I heard my pursuer stop for a second to await the
+issue. Weighted as I was I caught the coping, and fell back heavily into
+the wood. As soon as the keeper saw I was down he rushed forward and hit
+me heavily on the head with a stave. The sharp corner cut right through
+the skin, and blood spurted out in little jets. Then I turned about,
+determined to close with my opponent if he was inclined for further
+roughness. But he was not. When he saw that the blood was almost
+blinding me he dropped his hedge-stake, and ran, apparently terrified at
+what he had done. I leaned for a few moments against the wall, then
+dragged myself over, and started for a stream which ran down the field.
+But I felt weaker at every step, and soon crept into a bed of tall
+brackens, and plugged the wound in my head with a handful of wet moss,
+keeping it in position with my neckerchief. After this I munched some
+bread and hard cheese, sucked the dew from the fern fronds, and then
+fell into a broken sleep. I must have slept for four or five hours, when
+I woke thirsty and feverish, and very weak. I tried to walk, but again
+and again fell down. Then I crawled for about a hundred yards, but this
+caused my wound to bleed afresh, and I fainted. Just as day was coming a
+farm labourer came across, and kindly helped me to his cottage. He and
+his wife bathed my head and eyes, and then assisted me to the bed from
+which they had just risen. At noon I was able to take some bread and
+milk, and at night, an hour after darkness had fallen, I was able to
+start for home.
+
+Well, the sequel came in due time. We each received a summons (my
+companion had been released after identification), we were tried in
+about a fortnight from the date of our capture. There was a full bench
+of Magistrates; my companion pleaded guilty (with a view to a lenient
+sentence); myself--not guilty. In the first instance the case was clear,
+but not one of the three keepers (to their credit) would swear to me.
+They looked me carefully over, particularly my assailant. He was
+reminded that it was a fine, moonlight night. Yes, but his man, he
+thought, was taller, was more strongly built, and looked pale and
+haggard--no, he would not say that I was the man--in short, he thought I
+was not. Then came my innings. The keeper had sworn that, after running
+a mile, the poacher he chased had turned on him, and threatened to "do
+for him," if he advanced; that he had hit him on the head with his
+stick, and must have wounded him severely. He was also careful to
+explain that he had done this in "self defence." I then pointed out to
+the "bench" that it was no longer a matter of opinion; that I claimed to
+have my head examined, and asked that the Police Superintendent, who was
+conducting the case, should settle the point.
+
+But my assumption of an air of injured innocence had already done its
+work, and the presiding Magistrate said there was no evidence against
+me; that the case as against me was dismissed.
+
+I had hard work to get out of the box without smiling, for even then the
+pain in my head was acute, and I was not right for weeks after. I knew,
+however, that my wound was a dangerous possession, and close attention
+to my thick, soft hair, enabled me to hide it, always providing that it
+was not too closely examined. My companion was less fortunate, and his
+share of the proceedings, poor fellow, was "two months."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Here is the record of another encounter. There was a certain wood, the
+timber in which had been felled and carted. It had previously contained
+a good deal of "coppice," and after the wood-cutters had done their
+work, this had been utilized by the charcoal burners. The ashes from the
+charcoal had promoted quite an unseasonable growth, and everywhere about
+the stoles of the ash roots and hazel snags, fresh green grass and
+clover were springing. The hares on the neighbouring estate had found
+out this, and came nightly to the clearing to feed. As there were
+neither gaps nor gates we found it impossible to net them, and so had to
+resort to another device. Before the wood had been cleared rabbits had
+swarmed in it, and these had found ingress and egress through "smoots"
+in the stone fences. Upon examination we found that the larger of these
+were regularly used by our quarry, and, as we could not net them, we
+determined to plant a purse net at every smoot, drive the wood with fast
+dogs, and so bag our game. When everything was ready the lurchers
+commenced their work, and, thoroughly grasping the programme, worked up
+to it admirably. Each dog that "found" drove its hare fast and furiously
+(this was necessary), and, in an hour, a dozen were bagged. There was
+only this disadvantage. The wood was so large, the smoots so far apart,
+that many of the hares screamed for some seconds before they could be
+dispatched. The continuance of this screaming brought up the keepers,
+and our game was up, and with it what we had bagged. The watchers
+numbered four or five, and, leaving everything, we ran. In our line of
+retreat was an abandoned hut built by the charcoal burners, consisting
+of poles, with heather and fern for roof and sides. We made for this,
+hoping, in the darkness, to elude our pursuers, then double in our
+tracks as soon as they had passed. But they were not so easily deceived.
+As soon as the crackling of the dead sticks caused by our tread had
+ceased, they evidently suspected some trick, and knew that we were still
+in the wood. And the hut was the first object of search. As they were
+quite unaware of our number they declined to enter, but invited us into
+the open. We replied by barricading the narrow doorway with poles and
+planks which we found within. Of course this was only completing our
+imprisonment, but we felt that one or more of their number would be sent
+for further help, and that then we would make a dash to escape. We
+agreed to take off in different directions, to divide the attacking
+force, and then lead them across the roughest country we could find. A
+deep stream was not far off, and here we would probably escape. But our
+scheme went wrong--or, rather, we had no opportunity to put it into
+practice. After waiting and listening awhile we saw lights glisten in
+the chinks of the heather walls, and then fumes of smoke began to creep
+up them. They were burning us out. Quietly as we could we undid the
+barricading, and, as the air rushed in, tiny tongues of flame shot up
+the heather. Now we lay low with our faces on the damp floor. Then a
+pole was thrust through. Another current of air and the flames shot
+everywhere. The thick smoke nearly stifled us, and the heat became
+intense. The fire ran up the poles, and burning bits of the heather roof
+began to fall. Then came the crisis. A fir pole had been raised without,
+and then was to crash through the hut. This was the first outside
+proceeding we had seen--we saw it through the riddled walls. As soon as
+the men loosed their hold of the tree for its fall we sprang from the
+doorway; and then for a few seconds the sight was magnificent. As the
+roof crashed in the whole hut was one bright mass of flame, and a sheet
+of fire shot upwards into the night. The burning brackens and ling sent
+out myriads of sparks, and these falling around gave us a few seconds'
+start. As agreed, we each hurled a burning brand among the keepers, then
+disappeared in the darkness. Certainly no one followed us out of the
+wood. We had simply scored by lying low with the fire about us, taking
+advantage of the confusion and dazzling light, and then knowing our way
+out of the difficulty. The squire's son, we saw, was one of the
+attacking party. We were a bit burnt, we lost the game and nets, but
+were quite content to have escaped so easily.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There is another incident which I have good cause to remember all my
+life. It is of a somewhat different nature to the foregoing, and
+occurred on the estuary of the river which I used frequently to net with
+good results. Someone who was certainly not very friendly disposed had
+seen me and my companion start for our fishing ground, and had made the
+most of their knowledge. After getting to the near vicinity of our work,
+we lay down beneath a hay-rick to wait for a degree of darkness. Then we
+crawled on hands and knees by the side of a fence until it brought us to
+a familiar pool which we knew to be well stocked with salmon and trout.
+As we surveyed the water we heard voices, and knew that the pool was
+watched. These sounds seemed to come from the lower limbs of a big tree,
+and soon one of the watchers hidden in the branches stupidly struck a
+match to light his pipe. This not only frescoed two forms against the
+night, but lit up their faces with a red glow. The discovery was a
+stroke of luck. We knew where we had the water bailiffs, and the rest
+was easy. We got quietly away from the spot, and soon were at work in a
+pool further up stream. No one but a gaunt heron objected to our
+fishing, and we made a splendid haul. The salmon and sea-trout had begun
+to run, and swarmed everywhere along the reaches. We hid our net in the
+"otter" holes, and, under heavy loads, made for home across the meadows.
+We were well aware that the local police changed duty at six in the
+morning, and timed our entry into town precisely at that hour. But our
+absence of the previous night had gone further abroad, and the local
+Angling Association, the Conservancy Board, and the police had each
+interested themselves in our doings. It was quite unsafe to hide the
+spoil, as was usual, and home it must be carried. I was now alone. In
+the open I felt comparatively safe, but as I neared my destination I
+knew not whom I should meet round the next turn. Presently, however, it
+seemed as though I was in luck. Every wall, every hedgerow, every
+mound aided my going. Now a dash across an open field would land me
+almost at my own door. Then I should be safe. I had hardly had time to
+congratulate myself on my getting in unobserved when a constable, then a
+second, and a third were all tearing down upon me from watch points,
+where they had been in hiding. The odds were against me, but I grasped
+my load desperately, drew it tightly upon my shoulders, and ran. The
+police had thrown down their capes, and were rapidly gaining upon me. I
+got into a long slouching trot, however, determined to make a desperate
+effort to get in, where I should have been safe. This they knew. Strong
+and fleet as I was I was too heavily handicapped, but I felt that even
+though I fell exhausted on the other side of the door-way, I would gain
+it. My pursuers--all heavy men--were blown, and in trouble, and I knew
+there was now no obstacle before me. Now it was only a distance of
+twenty yards--now a dozen. The great thuds of the men's feet were close
+upon me, and they breathed like beaten horses. My legs trembled beneath
+me, and I was blinded by perspiration. "Seize him," "seize him," gasped
+the sergeant--but I was only a yard from the door. With a desperate
+feeling that I had won, I grasped the handle and threw my whole weight
+and that of my load against the door, only to find it--locked. I fell
+back on to the stones, and the stern chase was ended.
+
+For a minute nobody spoke--nobody was able to. I lay where I fell, and
+the men leaned against what was nearest them. Then the sergeant
+condescended to say "poor beggar"--and we all moved off. The fish were
+turned out on the grass in the police station yard, and were a sight to
+see. There were ninety trout, thirty-seven salmon-morts, and two salmon.
+I was not detained. One of the men handed me a mort, telling me I would
+be ready for a substantial breakfast. I knew what it all meant, and
+first thought of bolting, then settled that I would do as I had always
+done--face it out. But I little knew what this meant, as will
+presently be seen. I knew sufficient of the law to forsee that I should
+be charged with trespassing; with night poaching; with being in illegal
+possession of fish; with illegally killing and taking salmon; perhaps
+other counts besides. But what I did _not_ know was that I should be
+charged, in addition, with being in illegal possession of one hundred
+and twenty-nine salmon and trout _during the close season_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And this is how it came about. There had been an agitation throughout
+the whole of the Conservancy district. It was contended that the fishing
+season extended too far into Autumn by a fortnight--that by that time
+the fish had begun to spawn. The old condition of things had held for
+years, and the new Conservancy bye-laws had only just come into
+operation. And so I was trapped. The case came on, and a great shoal of
+magistrates with it. Two of them were personally interested, and were
+charitable enough to retire from the Bench--they pushed their chairs
+back about an inch from the table. I pleaded guilty to all the charges
+except the last, and explained the case as clearly as I could. The
+Conservancy solicitor, who prosecuted, did then what he had never done
+before. It was a bad case he said, but added that I had never before
+been charged with netting during "close-time," and had never used lime
+or other wholesale methods of poisoning. He pointed out, too, to the
+presiding Justice that I always claimed to "poach square"--at which all
+the young ones laughed. He did not press for the heaviest penalty. But
+this was quite unnecessary, as I got it without. I never quite
+understood how they made it up, but I was fined ninety-seven pounds. I
+told the Chairman that I should pay it "in kind," and went to "hard" for
+nine months.
+
+
+
+
+WORKS BY JOHN WATSON.
+
+
+  NATURE AND WOODCRAFT.
+  Crown 8vo, 5/.
+  With Illustrations by G. E. LODGE.
+  LONDON: SMITH & INNES.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  SYLVAN FOLK:
+  SKETCHES OF BIRD AND ANIMAL LIFE IN BRITAIN.
+  Crown 8vo, 3/6.
+  LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  BRITISH SPORTING FISHES.
+  Crown 8vo, with Frontispiece, 3/6.
+  LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _IN THE PRESS._
+  THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY.
+
+
+
+
+  _Crown 8vo, 286 pp., cloth, 3s. 6d._
+  SYLVAN FOLK:
+  Sketches of Bird and Animal Life in Britain,
+  BY
+  JOHN WATSON, F.L.S.,
+  _Author of "Nature and Woodcraft," etc._
+
+
+NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
+
+     "Written by a born naturalist.... Characterised by that indefinable
+     something which distinguishes the observer of the fields and woods
+     from the mere book student."--_Daily News._
+
+     "It is this freshness, this out-door atmosphere, that gives its
+     charm to these sketches of bird and animal life, and that leads the
+     reader along in fascinated interest from the first to the last
+     page."--_Literary World._
+
+     "May be placed on the same shelf with that of the greatest of all
+     writers on English rural life without any quarrel being
+     incurred.... At once a morally bracing and most instructive
+     book."--_Christian Leader._
+
+     "He fully deserves the high compliment of being compared with
+     Jefferies.... This beautiful book, in which a zoologist might find
+     new facts, a poet light, and any thoughtful reader an
+     inspiration."--_Fishing Gazette._
+
+     "There is the same enthusiasm and sincerity that marked Jefferies'
+     work. Mr. Watson always writes like a man who has his eye on his
+     subject. 'Nature by Night' is a thoroughly charming prose idyl,
+     every detail in which is obviously taken at first hand from
+     Nature."--_Observer._
+
+     "Full of delicate description as enchanting as a fairy tale. Dull
+     indeed must be the reader who is insensible to its delightful
+     charm.... Does the increase of such books mean that we are tired of
+     the civilisation of the streets, and are ready to turn back for a
+     while to the relics of a freer and wilder state?"--_Manchester
+     Examiner._
+
+     "After the laboured imitations of Jefferies, Mr. Watson's 'Sylvan
+     Folk' comes like a breath of sweet country air into the atmosphere
+     of an emporium of stuffed birds and calico flowers. A sympathetic,
+     keen-eyed, worshipful observer of Nature, Mr. Watson writes with
+     the simplicity and directness of a man who knows what he is about.
+     There is not an uninteresting page in 'Sylvan Folk' from first to
+     last."--_Echo._
+
+     "He knows how to interpret many of the innumerable signs and
+     symbols which are readily misunderstood, or altogether overlooked,
+     by less careful inquirers.... His descriptions are so fresh--they
+     suggest so vividly the idea of happy hours spent among attractive
+     scenes in the open air--that they will give genuine pleasure to
+     everyone who reads them."--_Nature._
+
+LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.C.
+
+
+
+
+  _Crown 8vo, 302 pp., cloth, 3s. 6d._
+  NATURE AND WOODCRAFT
+  BY
+  JOHN WATSON, F.L.S.,
+  _Author of "Sylvan Folk," &c._
+
+
+NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
+
+     "A delightfully fresh and enjoyable book. Those who know the open
+     air and the life of animated nature will enjoy the skill with which
+     Mr. Watson translates its aspects and its actions into literary
+     expression. Those who dwell in cities will enjoy it because the
+     papers induce the illusion that one is in the
+     country."--_Scotsman._
+
+     "Written with real ability as well as adequate knowledge. On every
+     page there is evidence of genuine though never paraded enthusiasm
+     for the calm delights of the country. Mr. Watson writes in a clear
+     and attractive manner, and one, moreover, around which an
+     imaginative glamour rests."--_Leeds Mercury._
+
+     "Mr. Watson writes effectively, from the accumulations of years of
+     close observation of nature. Since the death of Mr. Jefferies few
+     living writers can compete with him in this particular path of
+     literature."--_Bookseller._
+
+     "This is the best written and most valuable of Mr. Watson's books.
+     Best of all are his chapters on the old Statesman theory of life in
+     the North."--_Academy._
+
+     "Nothing can be better than all those chapters which describe life
+     among the Cumbrian mountains; this is Mr. Watson's real theme, and
+     he deserves all the thanks we can give him for executing it with
+     such true feeling."--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+     "Mr. Watson's volume 'Nature and Woodcraft' deserves a hearty
+     welcome, and will doubtless get it. He writes with a grace and
+     fluency that make his book hard to leave."--_Yorkshire Post._
+
+     "Many admirers of Richard Jefferies will be glad to see that one
+     still lives who can write so charmingly of nature and
+     woodcraft."--_Perthshire Advertiser._
+
+     "As an observer pure and simple, and as a bright and pleasing
+     recorder, Mr. Watson can hold his own with anybody; and his range
+     is sufficiently extensive to secure, in addition to all other
+     charms, the charm of variety."--_Manchester Examiner._
+
+LONDON: WALTER SMITH & INNES, BEDFORD ST., STRAND, W.C.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+
+Illustrations have been moved near the relevant section of the text.
+
+Inconsistencies have been retained in hyphenation and grammar, except
+where indicated in the list below.
+
+Here is a list of the minor typographical corrections made:
+
+  - "curiouly" changed to "curiously" on Page 15
+  - Period added after "2" on Page 19
+  - "the the" changed to "the" on Page 22
+  - "avourable" changed to "favourable" on Page 22
+  - Period moved from after "Chapter" to after "3" on Page 32
+  - "sucseeded" changed to "succeeded" on Page 38
+  - "succesfully" changed to "successfully" on Page 39
+  - "dfficult" changed to "difficult" on Page 45
+  - Period added after "apart" on Page 65
+  - Period added after "day" on Page 69
+  - "croocked" changed to "crooked" on Page 92
+  - "difficut" changed to "difficult" on Page 114
+  - "is is" changed to "is" on Page 116
+  - "an" changed to "and" on Page 124
+  - "ha" changed to "has" on Page 124
+  - "troub" changed to "trouble" on Page 124
+  - "alwasy" changed to "always" on Page 126
+  - Comma removed after "Bench" on Page 137
+  - "its" changed to "it's" on Page 144
+  - "fnrther" changed to "further" on Page 159
+  - Single quote changed to double quote after "Nature." on Page 174
+  - "witten" changed to "written" on Page 175
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Confessions of a Poacher, by Anonymous
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONFESSIONS OF A POACHER ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Confessions of a Poacher, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Confessions of a Poacher
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Editor: John Watson
+
+Illustrator: James West
+
+Release Date: August 4, 2011 [EBook #36970]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONFESSIONS OF A POACHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Linda Hamilton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p style="margin-left:20%;margin-right:20%;">"Poaching is one of the fine arts&mdash;how 'fine' only
+the initiated know."</p>
+
+<a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>
+
+<a name="frontispiece"></a><div class="figcenter" style="width:700px;padding-bottom:2em;padding-top:2em;">
+<img src="images/i001.png" border="0" alt="" title="" width="622" height="700">
+<p class="caption">THE SQUIRE'S KEEPER.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="linearound newpg">
+
+
+<h1 style="line-height:150%;padding-top:1em;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size: .7em;">The</span><br>
+Confessions<br><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size: .7em;">of a</span><br>Poacher</h1>
+
+<div class="center" style="padding-top:1.5em;padding-bottom:.5em;margin-right:10%;margin-left:10%;line-height:1.4;">
+<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size: .7em;display:block;">EDITED BY<br></span>
+<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1em;">JOHN WATSON, F.L.S.,<br></span>
+<span style="font-weight: normal;font-size: .7em;">Author of "Nature and Woodcraft," "Sylvan Folk," &amp;c., &amp;c.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="center" style="padding-top:1.5em;padding-bottom:.5em;margin-right:10%;margin-left:10%;line-height:1.4;">
+<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size: .7em;display:block;">ILLUSTRATED BY<br></span>
+<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1em;">JAMES WEST.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/p004.png" border="0" alt="" title="" width="71" height="70"></div>
+
+<div class="center" style="padding-top:.8em;padding-bottom:2em;margin-right:10%;margin-left:10%;line-height:140%;">
+<span style="font-weight: normal;font-size: 1em;display:block;">LONDON:<br></span>
+<span style="font-weight: normal;font-size: 1em;">The Leadenhall Press, 50, Leadenhall Street, E.C.<br></span>
+<hr style="width: 30%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.5em;">
+<span style="font-weight: normal;font-size: 1em;"><i>Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent &amp; Co., Ltd:</i><br></span>
+<span style="font-weight: normal;font-size: 1em;"><i>New York: Scribner &amp; Welford, 743 &amp; 745, Broadway.</i><br></span>
+<hr style="width: 15%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.5em;">
+<span style="font-weight: normal;font-size: 1em;">1890.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>
+
+<div class="figcenter newpg" style="width:700px;padding-bottom:2em;padding-top:3em;">
+<img src="images/i002.png" border="0" alt="" title="" width="200" height="178">
+<p class="center" style="margin-top:.25em;"><span class="smcap">The Leadenhall Press,<br>
+50, Leadenhall Street, London, E.C.</span><br>T 4,463.z</p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>
+<h2>EDITORIAL NOTE.</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/p006.png" border="0" alt="" title="" width="87" height="56"></div>
+
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i012_worda.png" width="138" height="43" alt="The" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i012_wordb.png" width="81" height="38" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i012_wordc.png" width="138" height="22" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">poacher of these "Confessions" is no imaginary
+being. In the following pages I have
+set down nothing but what has come within
+his own personal experience; and, although the little book
+is full of strange inconsistencies, I cannot, knowing the man,
+call them by a harder name. Nature made old "Phil"
+a Poacher, but she made him a Sportsman and a
+Naturalist at the same time. I never met any man
+who was in closer sympathy with the wild creatures
+about him; and never dog or child came within his
+influence but what was permanently attracted by his
+personality. Although eighty years of age there is still
+some of the old erectness in his carriage; some of the
+old fire in his eyes. As a young man he was handsome,
+though now his features are battered out of all original
+conception. His silvery hair still covers a lion-like head,
+and his tanned cheeks are hard and firm. If his life has
+been a lawless one he has paid heavily for his wrong doings. Great as a poacher, he must have been great
+whatever he had been. In my boyhood he was the
+hero whom I worshipped, and I hardly know that I
+have gone back on my loyalty.</p>
+<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/p004.png" border="0" alt="" title="" width="71" height="70"></div>
+
+<table border="0" width="70%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="6" summary="Contents" align="center">
+<tr style="vertical-align:bottom;">
+<th colspan="2" style="text-align:left;font-weight:normal;width:90%;padding-bottom: 0em;"><span class="smaller">CHAPTER</span></th>
+<th colspan="2" style="text-align:center;font-weight:normal;width:10%;padding-bottom: 0em;"><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></th>
+</tr>
+<tr style="vertical-align:top;">
+<td style="text-align:right;width:10%;">1.&nbsp;</td>
+<td style="text-align:left;width:80%;"><span class="toctext smcap">The Embryo Poacher</span></td>
+<td style="text-align:right;width:7%;"><a href="#CHAPTER_1">7</a></td>
+<td style="width:3%;">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr style="vertical-align:top;">
+<td style="text-align:right;">2.&nbsp;</td>
+<td style="text-align:left;"><span class="toctext smcap">Under the Night</span></td>
+<td style="text-align:right;"><a href="#CHAPTER_2">19</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr style="vertical-align:top;">
+<td style="text-align:right;">3.&nbsp;</td>
+<td style="text-align:left;"><span class="toctext smcap">Graduating in Woodcraft</span></td>
+<td style="text-align:right;"><a href="#CHAPTER_3">32</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr style="vertical-align:top;">
+<td style="text-align:right;">4.&nbsp;</td>
+<td style="text-align:left;"><span class="toctext smcap">Partridge Poaching</span></td>
+<td style="text-align:right;"><a href="#CHAPTER_4">45</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr style="vertical-align:top;">
+<td style="text-align:right;">5.&nbsp;</td>
+<td style="text-align:left;"><span class="toctext smcap">Hare Poaching</span></td>
+<td style="text-align:right;"><a href="#CHAPTER_5">57</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr style="vertical-align:top;">
+<td style="text-align:right;">6.&nbsp;</td>
+<td style="text-align:left;"><span class="toctext smcap">Pheasant Poaching</span></td>
+<td style="text-align:right;"><a href="#CHAPTER_6">74</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr style="vertical-align:top;">
+<td style="text-align:right;">7.&nbsp;</td>
+<td style="text-align:left;"><span class="toctext smcap">Salmon and Trout Poaching</span></td>
+<td style="text-align:right;"><a href="#CHAPTER_7">90</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr style="vertical-align:top;">
+<td style="text-align:right;">8.&nbsp;</td>
+<td style="text-align:left;"><span class="toctext smcap">Grouse Poaching</span></td>
+<td style="text-align:right;"><a href="#CHAPTER_8">109</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr style="vertical-align:top;">
+<td style="text-align:right;">9.&nbsp;</td>
+<td style="text-align:left;"><span class="toctext smcap">Rabbit Poaching</span></td>
+<td style="text-align:right;"><a href="#CHAPTER_9">123</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr style="vertical-align:top;">
+<td style="text-align:right;">10.&nbsp;</td>
+<td style="text-align:left;"><span class="toctext smcap">Tricks</span></td>
+<td style="text-align:right;"><a href="#CHAPTER_10">135</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr style="vertical-align:top;">
+<td style="text-align:right;">11.&nbsp;</td>
+<td style="text-align:left;"><span class="toctext smcap">Personal Encounters</span></td>
+<td style="text-align:right;"><a href="#CHAPTER_11">151</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>
+
+<div style="padding-top:1.5em;padding-bottom:1em;margin-right:10%;margin-left:10%;">
+<p style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1.25em;display:block;" class="center">THE</p>
+<p style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1.25em;" class="center">CONFESSIONS OF A POACHER.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<a name="CHAPTER_1"></a>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i003.png" border="0" alt="Chapter 1." title="" width="700" height="363"></div>
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.06em;">
+<h2 class="smcap">The Embryo Poacher.</h2>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i003_worda.png" width="140" height="38" alt="I do" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i003_wordb.png" width="69" height="65" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">not remember the time when I was
+not a poacher; and if I may say so, I
+believe our family has always had a
+genius for woodcraft.</p>
+
+<p>I was bred on the outskirts of a sleepy
+town in a good game country, and my depredations
+were mostly when the Game Laws<a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>
+were less rigorously enforced than now. Our
+home was roughly adorned in fur and feather,
+and a number of gaunt lurchers always
+constituted part of the family. An almost
+passionate love of nature, summers of birds'
+nesting, and a life spent almost wholly out of
+doors constituted an admirable training for an
+embryo poacher. If it is true that poets are
+born, not made, it is equally so of poachers.
+The successful "moucher" must be an inborn
+naturalist&mdash;must have much in common with
+the creatures of the fields and woods around
+him.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="padding-bottom:.3em;padding-top:.3em;"><img src="images/i004.png" border="0" alt="Bird" title="" width="500" height="358"></div>
+
+<p>There is a miniature bird and animal fauna
+which constitutes as important game to the
+young poacher as any he is likely to come
+across in after life. There are mice, shrews,
+voles, for all of which he sets some primitive
+snare and captures. The silky-coated moles
+in their runs offer more serious work, and
+being most successfully practised at night,
+offers an additional charm. Then there are
+the red-furred squirrels which hide among the
+delicate leaves of the beeches and run up their<a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>
+grey boles&mdash;fairy things that offer an endless
+subject of delight to any young savage, and
+their capturing draws largely upon his inventive
+genius. A happy hunting ground is furnished
+by farmers who require a lad to keep the birds
+from their young wheat or corn, as when their
+services are required the country is all like a
+garden. At this time the birds seem creatures
+born of the sun, and not only are they seen in
+their brightest plumage, but when indulging in
+all their love frolics. By being employed by
+the farmers the erstwhile poacher is brought
+right into the heart of the land, and the knowledge
+of woodcraft and rural life he there
+acquires is never forgotten. As likely as not
+a ditch runs by the side of the wheat
+fields, and here the water-hen leads out
+her brood. To the same spot the birds come
+at noon to indulge their mid-day <i>siesta</i>, and in
+the deep hole at the end of the cut a shoal of
+silvery roach fall and rise towards the warm
+sunlight. Or a brook, which is a tiny trout
+stream, babbles on through the meadows and
+pastures, and has its attractions too. A stream<a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>
+is always the chief artery of the land, as in it
+are found the life-giving elements. All the
+birds, all the plants, flock to its banks, and its
+wooded sides are hushed by the subdued hum
+of insects. There are tall green brackens&mdash;brackens
+unfurling their fronds to the light,
+and full of the atoms of beautiful summer. At
+the bend of the stream is a lime, and you may
+almost see its glutinous leaves unfolding to
+the light. Its winged flowers are infested with
+bees. It has a
+dead bough almost
+at the bottom
+of its bole,
+and upon it there
+sits a grey-brown
+bird. Ever and
+anon it darts
+for a moment,
+hovers over the
+stream, and then returns to its perch. A
+hundred times it flutters, secures its insect
+prey, and takes up its old position on the
+stump. Bronze fly, bluebottle, and droning<a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>
+bee are secured alike, for all serve as food
+to the loveable pied fly-catcher.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i005.png" border="0" alt="Boy Fishing" title="" width="700" height="459"></div>
+
+<p>It is the time of the bloom of the first June
+rose; and here, by the margin of the wood, all
+the ground by fast falling blossom is littered.
+Every blade teems with life, and the air is instinct
+with the very breath of being. Birds'
+sounds are coming from over and under&mdash;from
+bough and brake, and a harmonious discord is
+flooded from the neighbouring copse. The
+oak above my head is a murmurous haunt of
+summer wings, and wood pigeons coo from
+the beeches. The air is still, and summer is
+on my cheek; arum, wood-sorrel, and celandine
+mingle at my feet. The starlings are
+half buried in the fresh green grass, their
+metallic plumage flashing in the sun. Cattle
+are lazily lying dotted over the meadows, and
+the stream is done in a setting of green and
+gold. Swallows, skimming the pools, dip in
+the cool water, and are gone&mdash;leaving a sweet
+commotion in ever widening circles long after
+they have flown. A mouse-like creeper alights
+at the foot of a thorn, and runs nimbly up the<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>
+bark; midway it enters a hole in which is its
+nest. A garrulous blue-winged jay chatters
+from the tall oak, and purple rooks are picking
+among the corn. Butterflies dally through the
+warm air, and insects swarm among the leaves
+and flowers of the hedge bottoms. A crake
+calls, now here, now far out yonder. Bluebells
+carpet the wood-margin, and the bog is
+bright with marsh plants.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, is the workshop of the young
+poacher, and here he receives his first impressions.
+Is it strange that a mighty yearning
+springs up within him to know more of nature's
+secrets? He finds himself in a fairy place,
+and all unconsciously drinks in its sweets. See
+him now deeply buried in a golden flood of
+marsh marigolds! See how he stands spellbound
+before saxifrages which cling to a
+dripping rock. Water avens, wild parsley,
+and campions crowd around him, and flags
+of the yellow and purple iris tower over all.
+He watches the doings of the reed-sparrows
+deep down in the flags, and sees a water-ouzel
+as it rummages among the pebbles at the<a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>
+bottom of the brook. The larv&aelig; of caddis
+flies, which cover the edge of the stream, are
+a curious mystery to him, and he sees the
+kingfisher dart away as a bit of green light.
+Small silvery trout, which rise in the pool,
+tempt him to try for them with a crooked pin,
+and even now with success. He hears the
+cuckoos crying and calling as they fly from
+tree to tree, and quite unexpectedly finds the
+nest of a yellow-hammer, between a willow
+and the bank, containing its <a name="tn_png_18"></a><!--TN: "curiouly" changed to "curiously"-->curiously speckled
+eggs.</p>
+
+<p>Still the life, and the "hush," and the
+breath go on. Everything breathes, and
+moves, and has its being; the things of the
+day are the essence thereof. On the margin
+of the wood are a few young pines, their delicate
+plumes just touched with the loveliest
+green. An odour of resinous gum is wafted
+from them, and upon one of the slender sprays
+a pair of diminutive goldcrests have hung their
+procreant cradle. These things are enough to
+win any young Bohemian to their ways,
+and although as yet they only comprise "the<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>
+country," soon their wondrous detail lures
+their lover on, and he seeks to satisfy the
+thirst within him by night as well as by day.</p>
+<div class="figleft" style="padding-bottom:.3em;padding-top:.3em;"><img src="images/i006.png" border="0" alt="Man Kneeling in Woods" title="" width="492" height="600"></div>
+
+<p>Endless acquaintances are to be made
+in the fields, and those of the most pleasurable
+description. Nests containing young
+squirrels can be found in the larch tree tops,
+and any domestic tabby will suckle these
+delightful playthings. Young cushats and
+cushats' eggs can be obtained from their
+wicker-like nests, and sold in the villages. A
+prickly pet may be captured in a hedgehog
+trotting off through the long grass, and colonies
+of young wild rabbits may be dug from
+the mounds and braes. The skin of every
+velvety mole is one patch nearer the accomplishment
+of a warm, furry vest for winter,
+and this, if the pests of which it is comprised
+are the owner's taking, is worn with pardonable
+pride. A moleskin vest constitutes a graduation
+in woodcraft so to speak. Sometimes a
+brace of leverets are found in a tussocky grass
+clump, but these are more often allowed to
+remain than taken. And there are almost<a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>
+innumerable captures to be made among the
+feathered as well as furred things of the fields
+and woods. Chaffinches are taken in nooses
+among the corn, as are larks and buntings.
+Crisp cresses from the springs constitute an
+important source of income, and the embrowned
+nuts of autumn a harvest in themselves. It is
+during his early days of working upon the
+land that the erstwhile
+poacher learns of the
+rain-bringing tides;
+of the time of
+migration of
+birds; of the
+evening gamboling
+of hares; of
+the coming together
+of the
+partridge to
+roost; of the
+spawning of
+salmon and
+trout; and a hundred
+other scraps<a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>
+of knowledge which will serve him in good
+stead in his subsequent protest against the
+Game Laws.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>Almost every young rustic who develops into
+a poacher has some such outdoor education as
+that sketched above. He has about him
+much ready animal ingenuity, and is capable
+of almost infinite resource. His snares and
+lines are constructed with his pocket knife, out
+of material he finds ready to hand in the woods.
+He early learns to imitate the call of the game
+birds, so accurately as to deceive even the
+birds themselves; and his weather-stained
+clothes seem to take on themselves the duns
+and browns and olives of the woods. A child
+brought up in the lap of Nature is invariably
+deeply marked with her impress, and we shall
+see to what end she has taught him.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_2"></a>
+<a name="tn_png_22"></a><!--TN: Period added after "2"-->
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i007.png" border="0" alt="Chapter 2." title="" width="700" height="356"></div>
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.06em;">
+<h2 class="smcap">Under the Night.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:1em;">
+<span class="i0">Now came still evening on, and twilight gray<br></span>
+<span class="i0">Had in her sober liv'ry all things clad.<br></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:0em;padding-top:0em;"><img src="images/spacer.png" border="0" alt="" title="" width="1" height="1"></div>
+
+
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i007_worda.png" width="236" height="60" alt="When" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i007_wordb.png" width="118" height="43" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="padding-bottom:.3em;padding-top:.3em;"><img src="images/i008.png" border="0" alt="Owl" title="" width="500" height="462"></div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">the embryo poacher has once
+tasted the forbidden fruits of the
+land&mdash;and it matters not if his
+game be but field-mice and squirrels&mdash;there is
+only one thing wanting to win him completely
+to Nature's ways. This is that he shall see
+her sights and hear her sounds under the night.
+There is a charm about the night side of nature
+that the town dweller can never know. I<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>
+have been once in London, and well remember
+what, as a country lad, impressed me
+most. It was the fact that I had, during the
+small hours of the morning, stood alone on
+London Bridge. The great artery of life was
+still; the pulse of the city had ceased to beat.
+Not a moving object was visible. Although
+bred among the lonely hills, I felt for the
+first time that this was to be alone; that
+this was solitude. I felt such a sense as
+Macaulay's New Zealander may experience
+when he sits upon the ruins of the same stupendous
+structure; and it was then for the
+first time I knew whence the inspiration, and
+felt the full force and realism of a line I had
+heard, "O God! the very houses seemed to
+sleep." I could detect no definite sound, only
+that vague and distant hum that for ever
+haunts and hangs over a great city. Then
+my thoughts flew homeward (to the fells and
+upland fields, to the cold mists by the river, to
+the deep and sombre woods). I had never observed
+such a time of quiet there; no absolute
+and general period of repose. There was<a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>
+always something abroad,
+some creature of the
+fields or woods, which
+by its voice or movements
+was betrayed.
+Just as in an old rambling
+house there
+are always strange
+noises that cannot
+be accounted for, so
+in the night-paths of
+nature there are innumerable
+sounds which can never be localised.
+To those, however, who pursue night avocations
+in the country, there are always calls and cries
+which bespeak life as animate under the night
+as that of the day. This is attributable to
+various animals and birds, to beetles, to night-flying
+insects, even to fish; and part of the
+education of the young poacher is to track
+these sounds to their source.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="padding-bottom:.3em;padding-top:.3em;"><img src="images/i009.png" border="0" alt="Father and Mother and Two Dogs" title="" width="570" height="600"></div>
+
+
+<p>I have said that our family was a family of
+poachers. The old instinct was in us all,
+though I believe that the same wild spirit<a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>
+which drove us to <a name="tn_png_25"></a><!--TN: "the the" changed to "the"-->the moor and covert at
+night was only the same as was strongly implanted
+in the breast of Lord &mdash;&mdash;, our
+neighbour, who was a legitimate sportsman
+and a Justice of the Peace. If we were not
+allowed to see much real poaching when
+we were young
+we saw a good
+deal of the preparations
+for it.
+As the leaves
+began to turn in
+autumn there
+was great activity
+in our old
+home among
+nets and snares.
+When wind and
+feather were
+<a name="tn_png_25a"></a><!--TN: "avourable" changed to "favourable"-->favourable,
+late afternoon
+brought home my father, and his wires
+and nets were already spread on the clean
+sanded floor. There was a peg to sharpen, or<a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>
+a broken mesh to mend. Every now and then
+he would look out on the darkening night,
+always directing his glance upward. The two
+dogs would whine impatiently to be gone, and
+in an hour, with bulky pockets, he would start,
+striking right across the land and away from
+the high road. The dogs would prick out
+their ears on the track, but stuck doggedly to
+his heels; and then, as we watched, the darkness
+would blot him out of the landscape, and
+we turned with our mother to the fireside. In
+summer we saw little but the "breaking" of
+the lurchers. These dogs take long to train,
+but, when perfected, are invaluable. All the
+best lurchers are the produce of a cross
+between the sheep-dog and greyhound, a
+combination which secures the speed and silence
+of the one, and the "nose" of the other.
+From the batches of puppies we always saved
+such as were rough-coated, as these were
+better able to stand the exposure of long,
+cold nights. In colour the best are fawn or
+brown&mdash;some shade which assimilates well to
+the duns and browns and yellows of the fields<a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>
+and woods; but our extended knowledge of
+the dogs came in after years.</p>
+
+<p>The oak gun-rack in our old home contained
+a motley collection of fowling pieces,
+mostly with the barrels filed down. This was
+that the pieces might be more conveniently
+stowed away in the pocket until it was
+policy to have them out. The guns showed
+every graduation in age, size, and make, and
+among them was an old flint-lock which had
+been in the family for generations. This heirloom
+was often surreptitiously stolen away,
+and then we were able to bring down larger
+game. Wood pigeons were waited for in the
+larches, and shot as they came to roost. The
+crakes were called by the aid of a small
+"crank," and shot as they emerged from the
+lush summer grass. Large numbers of green
+plover were bagged from time to time, and
+often in winter we had a chance at their grey
+cousins, the whistling species. Both these fed
+in the water-meadows through winter, and
+the former were always abundant. In
+spring, "trips" of rare dotterel often led us<a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>
+about the higher hills for days, and sometimes
+we had to stay all night on the mountain.
+Then we were up with the first gray light in
+the morning, and generally managed to bring
+down a few birds. The feathers of these are
+extremely valuable for fishing, and my father
+invariably supplied them to the county justices
+who lived near us. He trained a dog to hunt
+dotterel, and so find their nests, and in this
+was most successful&mdash;more so than an eminent
+naturalist who spent five consecutive
+summers about the summits of our highest
+mountains, though without ever coming across
+a nest or seeing the birds. Sometimes we
+bagged a gaunt heron as it flapped heavily from<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>
+a ditch&mdash;a greater fish poacher than any in the
+country side. One of our great resorts on
+winter evenings was to an island which bordered
+a disused mill-dam. This was thickly
+covered with aquatic vegetation, and to it
+came teal, mallard, and poachard. All through
+the summer we had worked assiduously at a
+small "dug-out," and in this we waited, snugly
+stowed away behind a willow root. When the
+ducks appeared on the sky-line the old flint-lock
+was out, a sharp report tore the darkness,
+and a brace of teal or mallard floated down
+stream, and on to the mill island. In this way
+half a dozen ducks would be bagged, and, dead
+or dying, they were left where they fell, and
+retrieved next morning. Sometimes big game
+was obtained in the shape of a brace of geese,
+which proved themselves the least wary of a
+flock; but these only came in the severest
+weather.</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:.1em;padding-top:.1em;"><img src="images/i010.png" border="0" alt="Flying Heron" title="" width="700" height="303"></div>
+
+<p>Cutting the coppice, assisting the charcoal
+burners, or helping the old woodman&mdash;all gave
+facilities for observing the habits of game, and
+none of these opportunities were missed. In<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>
+this way we were brought right into the heart
+of the land, and our evil genius was hardly
+suspected. An early incident in the woods is
+worth recording. I have already said that we
+took snipe and woodcock by means of "gins"
+and "springes," and one morning on going to
+examine a snare, we discovered a large buzzard
+near one which was "struck." The bird endeavoured
+to escape, but, being evidently held
+fast, could not. A woodcock had been taken
+in one of our snares, which, while fluttering,
+had been seen and attacked by the buzzard.
+Not content, however, with the body of the
+woodcock, it had swallowed a leg also, around
+which the nooze was drawn, and the limb was
+so securely lodged in its stomach that no force
+which the bird could exert could withdraw it.
+The gamekeepers would employ us to take
+hedgehogs, which we did in steel traps baited
+with eggs. These prickly little animals were
+justly blamed for robbing pheasants' nests, and
+many a one paid the penalty for so doing.
+We received so much per head for the capture of
+these, as also for moles which tunnelled the<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>
+banks of the water meadows. Being injurious
+to the stream sides and the young larches, the
+farmers were anxious to rid these; and one
+summer we received a commission to exercise
+our knowledge of field-craft against them. But
+in the early days our greatest successes were
+among the sea ducks and wildfowl which
+haunted the marram-covered flats and ooze
+banks of an inland bay a few miles from our
+home. Mention of our capturing the sea
+birds brings to mind some very early rabbit
+poaching. At dusk the rabbits used to come
+down from the woods, and on to the sandy saline
+tracts to nibble the short sea grass. As
+twilight came we used to lie quiet among the
+rocks and boulders, and, armed with the old
+flint-lock, knock over the rabbits as soon as
+they had settled to feed. But this was only
+tasting the delights of that first experience in
+"fur" which was to become so widely developed
+in future years. Working a duck
+decoy&mdash;when we knew where we had the
+decoyman&mdash;was another profitable night adventure,
+which sometimes produced dozens<a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>
+of delicate teal, mallard and widgeon. Another
+successful method of taking seafowl was by
+the "fly" or "ring" net. When there was
+but little or no moon these were set across
+the banks last covered by the tide. The
+nets were made of fine thread, and hung
+on poles from ten to twenty yards apart. Care
+had to be taken to do this loosely, so as to give
+the nets plenty of "bag." Sometimes we had
+these nets hung for half a mile along the mud
+flats, and curfew, whimbrel, geese, ducks, and
+various shore-haunting birds were taken in
+them. Sometimes a bunch of teal, flying down
+wind, would break right through the net and
+escape. This, however, was not a frequent
+occurrence.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>There is one kind of poaching, which, as a
+lad, I was forbidden, and I have never indulged
+in it from that day to this. This was egg
+poaching. In our own district it was carried
+on to a large extent, though I never heard
+of it until the artificial rearing of game
+came in. The squire's keeper will give sixpence
+each for pheasants' eggs, and fourpence<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>
+for those of partridges. I know for certain
+that he often buys eggs (unknowingly, of
+course) from his master's preserves as well as
+those of his neighbours. In the hedge bottom,
+along the covert side, or among broom and
+gorse, the farm labourer notices a pair of
+partridges roaming morning after morning.
+Soon he finds their oak-leaf nest and olive
+eggs. These the keeper readily buys, winking
+at what he knows to be dishonest. Ploughboys
+and farm labourers have peculiarly favourable
+opportunities for egg poaching. As
+to pheasants' eggs, if the keeper be an honest
+man and refuses to buy, there are always large
+town dealers who will. Once in the coverts
+pheasants' eggs are easily found. The birds
+get up heavily from their nests, and go away
+with a loud whirring of wings. In this species
+of poaching women and children are largely
+employed, and at the time the former are ostensibly
+gathering sticks, the latter wild flowers.
+I have known the owner of the "smithy," who
+was the receiver in our village, send to London
+in the course of a week a thousand eggs, every<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>
+one of them gathered off the neighbouring
+estates.</p>
+
+<p>When I say that I never indulged in egg
+poaching I do not set up for being any better
+than my neighbours. I had been forbidden to
+do it as a lad because my father give it
+the ugly name of thieving, and it had never
+tempted me aside. It was tame work at best,
+and there was none of the exhilarating fascination
+about it that I found in going after the
+game birds themselves.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_3"></a><a name="tn_png_35"></a><!--TN: Period moved from after "Chapter" to after "3"-->
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i011.png" border="0" alt="Chapter 3." title="" width="700" height="297"></div>
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.06em;">
+<h2 class="smcap">Graduating in Woodcraft.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="padding-top:1em;padding-bottom:1em;">
+<span class="i0">We hear the cry<br></span>
+<span class="i1">Of their voices high,<br></span>
+<span class="i0">Falling dreamily through the sky;<br></span>
+<span class="i1">But their forms we cannot see.<br></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:0em;padding-top:0em;"><img src="images/spacer.png" border="0" alt="" title="" width="1" height="1"></div>
+
+
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i011_worda.png" width="157" height="46" alt="Just" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i011_wordb.png" width="73" height="57" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">as the sportsman loves "rough
+shooting," so the poacher invariably
+chooses wild ground for his depredations.
+There is hardly a sea-parish in the
+country which has not its shore shooter, its
+poacher, and its fowler. Fortunately for my
+graduation in woodcraft I fell in with one of the
+latter at the very time I most needed his instructions.
+As the "Snig," as I was generally
+called, was so passionately fond of "live"
+things, old "Kittiwake" was quite prepared to<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>
+be companionable. Although nearly three
+score years and ten divided our lives, there
+was something in common between us. Love
+of being abroad beneath the moon and stars;
+of wild wintry skies; of the weird cries that
+came from out the darkness&mdash;love of everything
+indeed that pertained to the night side
+of nature. What terrible tales of the sands
+and marshes the old man would tell as we sat
+in his turf-covered cottage, listening to the
+lashing storm and driving water without. Occasionally
+we heard sounds of the Demon
+Huntsman and his Wish-hounds as they crossed
+the wintry skies. If Kittiwake knew, he would
+never admit that these were the wild swans
+coming from the north, which chose the
+darkest nights for their migration. When my
+old tutor saw that I was already skilled in the
+use of "gins" and "springes," and sometimes
+brought in a snipe or woodcock, his old
+eyes glistened as he looked upon the marsh-birds.
+It was on one such occasion, pleased
+at my success, that he offered what he had
+never offered to mortal&mdash;to teach me the whole<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>
+art of fowling. I remember the old man as he
+lay on his heather bench when he made this
+magnanimous offer. In appearance he was a
+splendid type of a northern yeoman, his face
+fringed with silvery hair, and cut in the finest
+features. One eye was bright and clear even
+at his great age, though the other was rheumy,
+and almost blotted out. He rarely undressed
+at nights, his outward garb seemed more
+a production of nature than of art, and was
+changed, when, like the outer cuticle of the
+marsh vipers, it sloughed off. It was only in
+winter that the old man lived his lonely life on
+the mosses and marshes, for during the summer
+he turned from fowler to fisher, or assisted in
+the game preserves. The haunts and habits of
+the marsh and shore birds he knew by heart,
+and his great success in taking them lay in the
+fact that he was a close and accurate observer.
+He would watch the fowl, then set his nets and
+noozes by the light of his acquired knowledge.
+These things he had always known, but it was
+in summer, when he was assisting at pheasant
+rearing, that he got to know all about game<a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>
+in fur and feather. He noted that the handsome
+cock pheasants always crowed before
+they flew up to roost; that in the evening the
+partridges called as they came together in the
+grass lands; and he watched the ways of the
+hares as they skipped in the moonlight. These
+things we were wont to discuss when wild
+weather prevented our leaving the hut; and
+all our plans were tested by experiment before
+they were put into practice. It was upon
+these occasions, too, that the garrulous old
+man would tell of his early life. That was the
+time for fowl; but now the plough had invaded
+the sea-birds' haunt. He would tell of
+immense flocks of widgeon, of banks of brent
+geese, and clouds of dunlin. Bitterns used to
+boom and breed in the bog, and once, though
+only once, a great bustard was shot. In his
+young days Kittiwake had worked a decoy, as
+had his father and grandfather before him;
+and when any stray fowler or shore-shooter
+told of the effect of a single shot of their big
+punt-guns, he would cap their stories by
+going back to the days of decoying. Although<a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>
+decoying had almost gone out, this was the
+only subject that the old man was reticent
+upon, and he surrounded the craft with
+all the mystery he was able to conjure up.
+The site of his once famous decoy was now
+drained, and in summer ruddy corn waved
+above it. Besides myself, Kittiwake's sole
+companion on the mosses was an old shaggy
+galloway, and it was almost as eccentric and
+knowing as its master. So great was the number
+of gulls and terns that bred on the mosses,
+that for two months during the breeding
+season the old horse was fed upon their eggs.
+Morning and evening a basketful was collected,
+and so long as these lasted Dobbin's
+coat continued sleek and soft.</p>
+
+<p>In August and September we would capture
+immense numbers of "flappers"&mdash;plump wild
+ducks&mdash;but, as yet, unable to fly. These were
+either caught in the pools, or chased into nets
+which we set to intercept them. As I now
+took more than my share of the work, and
+made all the gins, springes, and noozes which
+we used, a rough kind of partnership sprung<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>
+up between us. The young ducks brought us
+good prices, and there was another source of
+income which paid well, but was not of long
+duration. There is a short period in each year
+when even the matured wild ducks are quite
+unable to fly. The male of the common wild
+duck is called the mallard, and soon after his
+brown duck begins to sit the drake moults the
+whole of its flight feathers. So sudden and
+simultaneous is this process that for six weeks
+in summer the usually handsome drake is quite
+incapable of flight, and it is probably at this
+period of its ground existence that the assumption
+of the duck's plumage is such an aid
+to protection. Quite the handsomest of the
+wildfowl on the marsh were a colony of sheldrakes
+which occupied a number of disused
+rabbit-burrows on a raised plateau overlooking
+the bay. The ducks were bright chestnut,
+white, and purple, and in May laid from nine
+to a dozen creamy eggs. As these birds
+brought high prices for stocking ornamental
+waters, we used to collect the eggs and hatch
+them out under hens in the turf cottage. This<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>
+was a quite successful experiment up to a
+certain point; but the young fowl, immediately
+they were hatched, seemed to be able to smell
+the salt water, and would cover miles to gain
+the creek. With all our combined watchfulness
+the downy ducklings sometimes <a name="tn_png_41"></a><!--TN: "sucseeded" changed to "succeeded"-->succeeded
+in reaching their loved briny element,
+and once in the sea were never seen again.
+The pretty sea swallows used to breed on the
+marsh, and the curious ruffs and reeves. These
+indulged in the strangest flights at breeding
+time, and it was then that we used to capture
+the greatest numbers. We took them alive in
+nets, and then fattened them on soaked wheat.
+The birds were sent all the way to London,
+and brought good prices. By being kept
+closely confined and frequently fed, in a fortnight
+they became so plump as to resemble
+balls of fat, and then brought as much as
+a florin a piece. If care were not taken to kill
+the birds just when they attained to their
+greatest degree of fatness they fell rapidly in
+condition, and were nearly worthless. To kill
+them we were wont to pinch off the head, and<a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>
+when all the blood had exuded the flesh remained
+white and delicate. Greater delicacies
+even than ruffs and reeves were godwits, which
+were fatted in like manner for the table.
+Experiments in fattening were upon one occasion
+<a name="tn_png_42"></a><!--TN: "succesfully" changed to "successfully"-->successfully tried with a brood of greylag
+geese which we discovered on the marshes.
+As this is the species from which the domestic
+stock is descended, we found little difficulty in
+herding, though we were always careful to
+house them at night, and pinioned them as the
+time of the autumnal migration came round.
+We well knew that the skeins of wild geese
+which at this time nightly cross the sky, calling
+as they fly, would soon have robbed us of our
+little flock.</p>
+
+<p>In winter, snipe were always numerous on
+the mosses, and were among the first birds to
+be affected by severe weather. If on elevated
+ground when the frost set in, they immediately
+betake themselves to the lowlands, and at these
+times we used to take them in pantles made of
+twisted horsehair. In preparing these we
+trampled a strip of oozy ground until, in the<a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>
+darkness, it had the appearance of a narrow
+plash of water. The snipe were taken as they
+came to feed on ground presumably containing
+food of which they were fond. As well
+as woodcock and snipe, we took larks by
+thousands. The pantles for these we set somewhat
+differently than those intended for the
+minor game birds. A main line, sometimes as
+much as a hundred yards in length, was set
+along the marsh; and to this at short intervals
+were attached a great number of loops of
+horsehair in which the birds were strangled.
+During the migratory season, or in winter
+when larks are flocked, sometimes a hundred
+bunches of a dozen each would be taken in a
+single day.</p>
+
+<p>During the rigour of winter great flocks of
+migratory ducks and geese came to the bay,
+and prominent among them were immense
+flocks of scoters. Often from behind an ooze
+bank did we watch parties of these playing and
+chasing each other over the crests of the
+waves, seeming indifferent to the roughest seas.
+The coming of the scoter brought flush times,<a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>
+and in hard weather our takes were tremendous.
+Another of the wild ducks which
+visited us was the pochard or dunbird. We
+mostly called it "poker" and "redhead,"
+owing to the bright chestnut of its neck and
+head. It is somewhat heavily made, swims
+low in the water, and from its legs being
+placed far behind for diving it is very awkward
+on land. In winter the pochard was abundant
+on the coast, but as it was one of the shyest of
+fowl it was always difficult to approach. If
+alarmed it paddles rapidly away, turning its
+head, and always keeping an eye to the rear.
+On account of its wariness it is oftener netted
+than shot. The shore-shooters hardly ever
+get a chance at it. We used to take it in the
+creeks on the marsh, and, as the matter is
+difficult to explain, I will let the following
+quotation tell how it was done:</p>
+
+<p>"The water was surrounded with huge nets,
+fastened with poles laid flat on the ground
+when ready for action, each net being, perhaps,
+sixty feet long and twenty feet deep. When
+all was ready the pochards were frightened off<a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>
+the water. Like all diving ducks they were
+obliged to fly low for some distance, and also
+to head the wind before rising. Just as the
+mass of birds reached the side of the pool, one
+of the immense nets, previously regulated by
+weights and springs, rose upright as it was
+freed from its fastenings by the fowler from a
+distance with a long rope. If this were done
+at the right moment the ducks were met full
+in the face by a wall of net, and thrown helpless
+into a deep ditch dug at its foot for their
+reception."</p>
+
+<p>In addition to our nets and snares we had
+a primitive fowling-piece, though we only
+used it when other methods failed. It was an
+ancient flint-lock, with tremendously long
+barrels. Sometimes it went off; oftener it did
+not. I well remember with what desperation
+I, upon one occasion, clung to this murderous
+weapon whilst it meditated, so to speak. It is
+true that it brought down quite a wisp of
+dunlins, but then there was almost a cloud of
+them to fire at. These and golden plover
+were mainly the game for the flint-lock, and<a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>
+with them we were peculiarly successful.
+If we had not been out all night we were
+invariably abroad at dawn, when golden
+plover fly and feed in close bodies. Upon
+these occasions sometimes a dozen birds were
+bagged at a shot, though, after all, the chief
+product of our days were obtained in the
+cymbal nets. We invariably used a decoy,
+and when the wild birds were brought down,
+and came within the workings of the net, it
+was rapidly pulled over and the game secured.
+For the most part, however, only the smaller
+birds were taken in this way. Coots came
+round in their season, and although they
+yielded a good harvest, netting them was not
+very profitable, for as their flesh was dark and
+fishy only the villagers and fisher-folk would
+buy them.</p>
+
+<p>A curious little bird, the grebe or dabchick,
+used to haunt the pools and ditches of the
+marsh, and we not unfrequently caught them
+in the nets whilst drawing for salmon which
+ran up the creek to spawn. They had
+curious feet, lobed like chestnut leaves, and<a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>
+hardly any wing. This last was more like a
+flipper, and upon one occasion, when no less
+than three had caught in the meshes, a dispute
+arose between us as to whether they were able
+to fly. Kittiwake and I argued that whilst
+they were resident and bred in the marshes,
+yet their numbers were greatly augmented in
+autumn by other birds which came to spend
+the winter. Whilst I contended that they
+flew, Kittiwake said that their tiny wings could
+never support them, and certainly neither of us
+had ever seen them on their journeyings. Two
+of the birds we took a mile from the water,
+and then threw them into the air, when they
+darted off straight and swift for the mosses
+which lay stretched at our feet a mile below.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>
+
+<a name="CHAPTER_4" id="CHAPTER_4"></a>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i012.png" border="0" alt="Chapter 4." title="" width="700" height="328"></div>
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.06em;">
+<h2 class="smcap">Partridge Poaching.</h2>
+
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i012_worda.png" width="138" height="43" alt="The" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i012_wordb.png" width="81" height="38" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i012_wordc.png" width="138" height="22" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">bloom on the brambles; the ripening
+of the nuts; and the ruddiness of the
+corn all acted as reminders that the
+"fence" time was rapidly drawing to a close.
+So much did the first frosts quicken us that it
+was <a name="tn_png_48"></a><!--TN: "dfficult" changed to "difficult"-->difficult to resist throwing up our farm work
+before the game season was fairly upon us.
+There was only one way in which we could curb
+the wild impulse within. We stood up to the
+golden corn and smote it from the rising to the
+going down of the sun. The hunters' moon tried<a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>
+hard to win us to the old hard life of sport;
+but still the land must be cleared. There was
+a double pleasure in the ruddy sheaves, for
+they told of golden guineas, and until the
+last load was carried neither nets, gins, nor the
+old duck-gun were of any use. The harvest
+housed the game could begin, and then the
+sweet clover, which the hares loved, first
+pushed their shoots between the stubble stalks.
+But neither the hares on the fallows, the
+grouse on the moor, nor the pheasants on the
+bare branches brought us so much pleasure as
+the partridge. A whole army of shooters love
+the little brown birds, and we are quite of
+their way of thinking.</p>
+
+<p>A long life of poaching has not cooled our
+ardour for this phase of woodcraft. At the outset
+we may state that we have almost invariably
+observed close times, and have rarely killed a
+hare or game-bird out of season. The man
+who excels in poaching must be country bred.
+He must not only know the land, but the
+ways of the game by heart. Every sign of
+wind and weather must be observed, as all<a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>
+help in the silent trade. Then there is the
+rise and wane of the moon, the rain-bringing
+tides, and the shifting of the birds with the
+seasons. These and a hundred other things
+must be kept in an unwritten calendar, and
+only the poacher can keep it. Speaking from
+hard experience, his out-door life will make
+him quick; will endow him with much ready
+animal ingenuity. He will take in an immense
+amount of knowledge of the life of the fields
+and woods; and it is this teaching which will
+ultimately give him accuracy of eye and judgment
+sufficient to interpret what he sees aright.
+To succeed the poacher must be a specialist.
+It is better if he directs his attention to "fur,"
+or to "feather" alone; but it is terribly hard
+to resist going in for both. There is less
+scope for field ingenuity in taking game birds;
+but at the same time there is always the probability
+of more wholesale destruction. This
+arises from the fact of the birds being gregarious.
+Both grouse and partridge go in
+coveys, and pheasants are found in the company
+of their own kind. Partridges roost on<a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>
+the ground, and sleep with tails tucked
+together and heads outwards. Examine the
+fallow after they have left it in a morning, and
+this will be at once apparent. A covey in this
+position represents little more than a mass of
+feathers. It is for protective reasons that
+partridges always spend their nights in the
+open. Birds which do not perch would soon
+become extinct were they to seek the protection
+of woods and hedge-bottoms by night.
+Such ground generally affords cover for
+vermin&mdash;weazels, polecats, and stoats. Although
+partridges roam far by day, they
+invariably come together at night, being partial
+to the same fields and fallows. They run
+much, and rarely fly, except when passing from
+one feeding ground to another. In coming
+together in the evening their calls may be
+heard to some distance. These were the
+sounds we listened for, and marked. We remembered
+the gorse bushes, and knew that
+the coveys would not be far from them.</p>
+
+<p>We always considered partridge good game,
+and sometimes were watching a dozen coveys<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>
+at the same time. September once in, there
+was never a sun-down that did not see one of
+us on our rounds making mental notes. It
+was not often, however, that more than three
+coveys were marked for a night's work. One
+of these, perhaps, would be in turnips, another
+among stubble, and the third on grass. According
+to the nature of the crop, the lay of
+the land, wind, &amp;c., so we varied our tactics.
+Netting partridges always requires two persons,
+though a third to walk after the net is helpful.
+If the birds have been carefully marked down,
+a narrow net is used; if their roosting-place is
+uncertain a wider net is better. When all is
+ready this is slowly dragged along the ground,
+and is thrown down immediately the whirr of
+wings is heard. If neatly and silently done,
+the whole covey is bagged. There is a terrible
+flutter, a cloud of brown feathers, and all is
+over. It is not always, however, that the draw
+is so successful. In view of preventing this
+method of poaching, especially on land where
+many partridges roost, keepers plant low
+scrubby thorns at intervals. These so far<a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>
+interfere with the working of the net as to
+allow the birds time to escape. We were
+never much troubled, however, in this way.
+As opportunity offered the quick-thorns were
+torn up, and a dead black-thorn bough took
+their place. As the thorns were low the difference
+was never noticed, even by the keepers,
+and, of course, they were carefully removed
+before, and replaced after, netting. Even
+when the dodge was detected the fields and
+fallows had been pretty much stripped of the
+birds. This method is impracticable now, as
+the modern method of reaping leaves the
+brittle stubble as bare as the squire's lawn.
+We had always a great objection to use a
+wide net where a narrow one would suit the
+purpose. Among turnips, and where large
+numbers of birds were supposed to lie, a
+number of rows or "riggs" were taken at a
+time, until the whole of the ground had been
+traversed. This last method is one that requires
+time and a knowledge of the keeper's
+beat. On rough ground the catching of the
+net may be obviated by having about eighteen<a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>
+inches of smooth glazed material bordering
+the lowest and trailing part of it. Some of
+the small farmers were as fond of poaching as
+ourselves, and here is a trick which one of
+them successfully employed whenever he heard
+the birds in his land. He scattered a train of grain
+from the field in which the partridge roosted,
+each morning bringing it nearer and nearer to
+the stack-yard. After a time the birds became
+accustomed to this mode of feeding, and as
+they grew bolder the grain-train was continued
+inside the barn. When they saw the golden
+feast invitingly spread, they were not slow to
+enter, and the doors were quickly closed
+upon them. Then the farmer entered with a
+bright light and felled the birds with a stick.</p>
+
+<p>In the dusk of a late autumn afternoon a
+splendid "pot" shot was sometimes had at a
+bunch of partridges just gathered for the night.
+I remember a score such. The call of the
+partridge is less deceptive than any other game
+bird, and the movements of a covey are easily
+watched. This tracking is greatly aided if the
+field in which the birds are is bounded by<a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>
+stone walls. As dusk deepens and draws
+to dark, they run and call less, and soon all is
+still. The closely-packed covey is easy to
+detect against the yellow stubble, and resting
+the gun on the wall, a charge of heavy shot
+fired into their midst usually picks off the lot.
+If in five minutes the shot brings up the keeper
+it matters little, as then you are far over the
+land.</p>
+
+<p>Partridges feed in the early morning&mdash;as
+soon as day breaks, in fact. They resort to one
+spot, and are constant in their coming, especially
+if encouraged. This fact I well knew,
+and laid my plans accordingly. By the aid of the
+moon a train of grain was laid straight as a
+hazel wand. Upon these occasions I never went
+abroad without an old duck-gun, the barrels of
+which had been filed down. This enabled me
+to carry the gun-stock in one pocket, the
+barrels in the other. The shortness of the
+latter in nowise told against the shooting, as
+the gun was only required to use at short
+distances. The weapon was old, thick at
+the muzzle, and into it I crammed a heavy<a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>
+charge of powder and shot. Ensconced in the
+scrub I had only now to wait for the dawn.
+Almost before it was fully light the covey
+would come with a loud whirring of wings, and
+settle to feed immediately. This was the
+critical moment. Firing along the line a single
+shot strewed the ground with dead and dying;
+and in ten minutes, always keeping clear of the
+roads, I was a mile from the spot.</p>
+
+<p>I had yet another and a more successful
+method of taking partridges. When, from the
+watchfulness or cleverness of keepers (they are
+not intelligent men as a rule), both netting and
+shooting proved impracticable, I soaked grain
+until it became swollen, and then steeped it in
+the strongest spirit. This, as before, was
+strewn in the morning paths of the partridge,
+and, soon taking effect, the naturally pugnacious
+birds were presently staggering and fighting
+desperately. Then I bided my time, and as
+opportunity offered, knocked the incapacitated
+birds on the head.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i013.png" border="0" alt="Dog with Lantern Hanging from Neck" title="" width="700" height="461"></div>
+
+
+<p>One of the most ingenious and frequently
+successful methods I employed for bagging<a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>
+partridge was by the aid of an old setter
+bitch having a lantern tied to her neck.
+Being somewhat risky, I only employed it
+when other plans failed, and when I had a
+good notion of the keeper's whereabouts.
+The lantern was made from an old salmon
+canister stripped of its sides, and contained a
+bit of candle. When the bitch was put off
+into seeds or stubble she would range quietly
+until she found the birds, then stand as<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>
+stiffly as though done in marble. This shewed
+me just where the covey lay, and as the light
+either dazzled or frightened the birds, it was not
+difficult to clap the net over them. It sometimes
+happened that others besides myself
+were watching this strange luminous light, and
+it was probably set down as some phenomenon
+of the night-side of nature. Once, however,
+I lost my long silk net, and as there was
+everything to be gained by running, and much<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>
+to be lost by staying, I ran desperately. Only
+an old, slow dog can be used in this species of
+poaching, and it is marvellous to see with
+what spirit and seeming understanding it
+enters into the work.</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i014.png" border="0" alt="Boy Running from Man" title="" width="700" height="607"></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_5" id="CHAPTER_5"></a>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i015.png" border="0" alt="Chapter 5." title="" width="700" height="310"></div>
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.06em;">
+<h2 class="smcap">Hare Poaching.</h2>
+<div class="poem" style="padding-top:1em;padding-bottom:1em;">
+<span class="i0">The merry brown hares came leaping<br></span>
+<span class="i2">Over the crest of the hill,<br></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the clover and corn lay sleeping<br></span>
+<span class="i2">Under the moonlight still.<br></span>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:0em;padding-top:0em;"><img src="images/spacer.png" border="0" alt="" title="" width="1" height="1"></div>
+
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i015_worda.png" width="153" height="47" alt="Our" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i015_wordb.png" width="70" height="56" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">hare season generally began with
+partridge poaching, so that the coming
+of the hunter's moon was always an interesting
+autumnal event. By its aid the first
+big bag of the season was made. When a
+field is sown down, which it is intended to
+bring back to grass, clover is invariably sown<a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>
+with the grain. This springs between the corn
+stalks, and by the time the golden sheaves are
+carried, has swathed the stubble with mantling
+green. This, before all others, is the crop
+which hares love.</p>
+
+<p>Poaching is one of the fine arts, and the
+man who would succeed must be a specialist. If
+he has sufficient strength to refrain from general
+"mouching," he will succeed best by selecting
+one particular kind of game, and directing his
+whole knowledge of woodcraft against it. In
+spring and summer I was wont to closely scan
+the fields, and as embrowned September drew
+near, knew the whereabouts of every hare in
+the parish&mdash;not only the field where it lay,
+but the very clump of rushes in which was its
+form. As puss went away from the gorse, or
+raced down the turnip-rigg, I took in every
+twist and double down to the minutest detail.</p>
+
+<p>Then I scanned the "smoots" and gates
+through which she passed, and was always
+careful to approach these laterally. I left no
+trace of hand nor print of foot, nor disturbed
+the rough herbage. Late afternoon brought<a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>
+me home, and upon the hearth the wires and
+nets were spread for inspection. When all
+was ready, and the dogs whined impatiently to
+be gone, I would strike right into the heart of
+the land, and away from the high-road.</p>
+
+<p>Mention of the dogs brings me to my fastest
+friends. Without them poaching for fur would
+be almost impossible. I invariably used
+bitches, and as success depended almost
+wholly upon them, I was bound to keep only
+the best. Lurchers take long to train, but
+when perfected are invaluable. I have had,
+maybe, a dozen dogs in all, the best being the
+result of a pure cross between greyhound
+and sheepdog. In night work silence is essential
+to success, and such dogs never bark;
+they have the good nose of the one, and the
+speed of the other. In selecting puppies it is
+best to choose rough-coated ones, as they are
+better able to stand the exposure of cold,
+rough nights. Shades of brown and fawn are
+preferable for colour, as these best assimilate
+to the duns and browns of the fields and
+woods. The process of training would take<a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>
+long to describe; but it is wonderful how soon
+the dog takes on the habits of its master. They
+soon learn to slink along by hedge and ditch,
+and but rarely shew in the open. They know<a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>
+every field-cut and by-path for miles, and are
+as much aware as their masters that county
+constables have a nasty habit of loitering about
+unfrequented lanes at daybreak.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i016.png" border="0" alt="Woman Carrying Basket" title="" width="597" height="700"></div>
+
+
+<p>The difficulty lies not so much in obtaining
+game as in getting it home safely; but for all
+that I was but rarely surprised with game
+upon me in this way. Disused buildings,
+stacks, and dry ditches are made to contain
+the "haul" until it can be sent for&mdash;an office
+which I usually got some of the field-women
+to perform for me. Failing these, country
+carriers and early morning milk-carts were
+useful. When I was night poaching, it was
+important that I should have the earliest intimation
+of the approach of a possible enemy,
+and to secure this the dogs were always trained
+to run on a few hundred yards in advance.
+A well-trained lurcher is almost infallible in
+detecting a foe, and upon meeting one he runs
+back to his master under cover of the <i>far side</i>
+of a fence. When the dog came back to me in
+this way I lost not a second in accepting the
+shelter of the nearest hedge or deepest ditch<a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>
+till the danger was past. If suddenly surprised
+and without means of hiding, myself and the
+dog would make off in different directions.
+Then there were times when it was inconvenient
+that we should know each other, and upon
+such occasions the dogs would not recognise
+me even upon the strongest provocation.</p>
+
+<p>My best lurchers knew as much of the habits of
+game as I did. According to the class of land
+to be worked they were aware whether hares,
+partridges, or rabbits were to constitute the
+game for the night. They judged to a nicety
+the speed at which a hare should be driven to
+make a snare effective, and acted accordingly.
+At night the piercing scream of a netted hare
+can be heard to a great distance, and no sound
+sooner puts the keeper on the alert.</p>
+
+<p>Consequently, when "puss" puts her neck
+into a wire, or madly jumps into a gate-net,
+the dog is on her in an instant, and quickly
+stops her piteous squeal. In field-netting rabbits,
+lurchers are equally quick, seeming quite
+to appreciate the danger of noise. Once only
+have I heard a lurcher give mouth. "Rough"<a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>
+was a powerful, deep-chested bitch, but upon
+one occasion she failed to jump a stiff,
+stone fence, with a nine-pound hare in her
+mouth. She did not bark, however, until she
+had several times failed at the fence, and when
+she thought her whereabouts were unknown.
+Hares and partridges invariably squat on the
+fallow or in the stubble when alarmed, and remain
+absolutely still till the danger is passed.
+This act is much more likely to be observed
+by the dog than its master, and in such cases
+the lurchers gently rubbed my shins to apprise
+me of the fact. Then I moved more cautiously.
+Out-lying pheasants, rabbits in the
+clumps, red grouse on the heather&mdash;the old
+dog missed none of them. Every movement
+was noted, and each came to the capacious
+pocket in turn. The only serious fights I ever
+had were when keepers threatened to shoot
+the dogs. This was a serious matter. Lurchers
+take long to train, and a keeper's summary
+proceeding often stops a whole winter's work,
+as the best dogs cannot easily be replaced.
+Many a one of our craft would as soon have<a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>
+been shot himself as seen his dog destroyed;
+and there are few good dogs which have not,
+at one time or other, been riddled with pellets
+during their lawless (save the mark!) career.
+If a hare happens to be seen, the dog sometimes
+works it so cleverly as to "chop" it in
+its "form"; and both hares and rabbits are not
+unfrequently snapped up without being run
+at all. In fact, depredations in fur would be
+exceedingly limited without the aid of dogs;
+and one country squire saved his ground game
+for a season by buying my best brace of lurchers
+at a very fancy price; while upon another
+occasion a bench of magistrates demanded to
+see the dogs of whose doings they had heard
+so much. In short, my lurchers at night embodied
+all my senses.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst preparing my nets and wires, the
+dogs would whine impatiently to be gone.
+Soon their ears were pricked out on the track,
+though until told to leave they stuck doggedly
+to heel. Soon the darkness would blot out
+even the forms of surrounding objects, and our
+movements were made more cautiously. A<a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>
+couple of snares are set in gaps in an old
+thorn fence not more than a yard <a name="tn_png_68"></a><!--TN: Period added after "apart"-->apart. These
+are delicately manipulated, as we know from
+previous knowledge that the hare will take one
+of them. The black dog is sent over, the
+younger fawn bitch staying behind. The
+former slinks slowly down the field, sticking
+close to the cover of a fence running at right
+angles to the one in which the wires are set.
+I have arranged that the wind shall blow from
+the dog and across to the hare's seat when the
+former shall come opposite. The ruse acts;
+"puss" is alarmed, but not terrified; she gets
+up and goes quietly away for the hedge. The
+dog is crouched, anxiously watching; she is
+making right for the snare, though something
+must be added to her speed to make the wire
+effective. As the dog closes in, I wait, bowed,
+with hands on knees, still as death, for her
+coming. I hear the brush of the grass,
+the trip, trip, trip, as the herbage is brushed.
+There is a rustle among the dead leaves,
+a desperate rush, a momentary squeal&mdash;and the
+wire has tightened round her throat.<a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a></p>
+
+<p>Again we trudge silently along the lane, but
+soon stop to listen. Then we disperse, but to
+any on-looker would seem to have dissolved.
+This dry ditch is capacious, and its dead
+herbage tall and tangled. A heavy foot, with
+regular beat, approaches along the road, and
+dies slowly away in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>Hares love green cornstalks, and a field of
+young wheat is at hand; I spread a net, twelve
+feet by six, at the gate, and at a sign the dogs
+depart different ways. Their paths soon converge,
+for the night is torn by a piteous cry;
+the road is enveloped in a cloud of dust; and
+in the midst of the confusion the dogs dash
+over the fence. They must have found their
+game near the middle of the field, and driven
+the hares&mdash;for there are two&mdash;so hard that
+they carried the net right before them; every
+struggle wraps another mesh about them, and,
+in a moment, their screams are quieted. By a
+quick movement I wrap the long net about my
+arm, and, taking the noiseless sward, get
+hastily away from the spot.<a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a></p>
+
+<p>In March, when hares are pairing, four or
+five may frequently be found together in one
+field. Although wild, they seem to lose much
+of their natural timidity, and during this month
+I usually reaped a rich harvest. I was always
+careful to set my wires and snares on the side
+<i>opposite</i> to that from which the game would
+come, for this reason&mdash;that hares approach
+any place through which they are about
+to pass in a zig-zag manner. They come on,
+playing and frisking, stopping now and then to
+nibble the herbage. Then they canter, making
+wide leaps at right angles to their path, and sit
+listening upon their haunches. A freshly impressed
+footmark, the scent of dog or man,
+almost invariably turns them back. Of course
+these traces are certain to be left if the snare
+be set on the <i>near</i> side of the gate or fence,
+and then a hare will refuse to take it, even
+when hard pressed. Now here is a wrinkle to
+any keeper who cares to accept it. Where
+poaching is prevalent and hares abundant,
+<i>every hare on the estate should be netted</i>, for it
+is a fact well known to every poacher versed<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>
+in his craft, that an escaped hare that has
+once been netted can never be retaken.
+The process, however, will effectually frighten
+a small percentage of hares off the land altogether.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i017.png" border="0" alt="Man Driving Sheep through Gate" title="" width="700" height="470"></div>
+
+
+<p>The human scent left at gaps and gateways
+by ploughmen, shepherds, and mouchers, the
+wary poacher will obliterate by driving sheep
+over the spot before he begins operations. On
+the sides of fells and uplands hares are difficult
+to kill. This can only be accomplished by<a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>
+swift dogs, which are taken <i>above</i> the game.
+Puss is made to run down-hill, when, from her
+peculiar formation, she goes at a disadvantage.</p>
+
+<p>Audacity almost invariably stands the poacher
+in good stead. Here is an actual incident.
+I knew of a certain field of young wheat in
+which was several hares&mdash;a fact observed
+during the <a name="tn_png_72"></a><!--TN: Period added after "day"-->day. This was hard by the keeper's
+cottage, and surrounded by a high fence of
+loose stones. It will be seen that the situation
+was somewhat critical, but that night
+my nets were set at the gates through which
+the hares always made. To drive them the
+dog was to range the field, entering it at a
+point furthest away from the gate. I bent
+my back in the road a yard from the wall
+to aid the dog. It retired, took a mighty
+spring, and barely touching my shoulders,
+bounded over the fence. The risk was justified
+by the haul, for that night I bagged nine
+good hares.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the scarcity of game, hare-poaching
+is now hardly worth following, and I
+believe that what is known as the <i>Ground<a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>
+Game Act</i> is mainly responsible for this. A
+country Justice, who has often been my friend
+when I was sadly in need of one, asked me
+why I thought the Hares and Rabbits Act
+had made both kinds of fur scarcer. I told
+him that the hare would become abundant
+again if it were not beset by so many enemies.
+Since 1880 it has had no protection, and
+the numbers have gone down amazingly. A
+shy and timid animal, it is worried through
+every month of the year. It does not
+burrow, and has not the protection of the
+rabbit. Although the colour of its fur resembles
+that of the dead grass and herbage
+among which it lies, yet it starts from its
+"form" at the approach of danger, and from
+its size makes an easy mark. It is not unfrequently
+"chopped" by sheep-dogs, and in
+certain months hundreds of leverets perish in
+this way. Hares are destroyed wholesale
+during the mowing of the grass and the reaping
+of the corn. For a time in summer, leverets
+especially seek this kind of cover, and farmers
+and farm-labourers kill numbers with dog and<a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>
+gun&mdash;and this at a time when they are quite unfit
+for food. In addition to these causes of scarcity
+there are others well known to sportsmen.
+When harriers hunt late in the season&mdash;as they
+invariably do now-a-days&mdash;many leverets are
+"chopped," and for every hare that goes
+away three are killed in the manner indicated.
+At least, that is my experience
+while mouching in the wake of the hounds.
+When hunting continues through March,
+master and huntsman assert that this havoc is
+necessary in order to kill off superabundant
+jack-hares, and so preserve the balance of
+stock. Doubtless there was reason in this
+argument before the present scarcity, but now
+there is none. March, too, is a general
+breeding month, and the hunting of doe-hares
+entails the grossest cruelty. Coursing is
+confined within no fixed limits, and is prolonged
+far too late in the season. What has
+been said of hunting applies to coursing, and
+these things sportsmen can remedy if they
+wish. There is more unwritten law in connection
+with British field-sports than any other<a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>
+pastime; but obviously it might be added to
+with advantage. If something is not done the
+hare will assuredly become extinct. To prevent
+this a "close time" is, in the opinion
+of those best versed in woodcraft, absolutely
+necessary. The dates between which the
+hare would best be protected are the first
+of March and the first of August. Then we
+would gain all round. The recent relaxation
+of the law has done something to encourage
+poaching, and poachers now find pretexts for
+being on or about land which before were of
+no avail, and to the moucher accurate observation
+by day is one of the essentials to
+success.</p>
+
+<p>Naturalists ought to know best; but there has
+been more unnatural history written concerning
+hares than any other British animal. It is said
+to produce two young ones at a birth, but observant
+poachers know that from three to five
+leverets are not unfrequently found: then it is
+stated that hares breed twice, or at most thrice,
+a year. Anyone, however, who has daily observed
+their habits, knows that there are but<a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>
+few months in which leverets are not born.
+In mild winters young ones are found in
+January and February, whilst in March they
+have become common. They may be seen
+right on through summer and autumn, and last
+December I saw a brace of leverets a month old.
+Does shot in October are sometimes found to
+be giving milk, and in November old hares are
+not unfrequently noticed in the same patch of
+cover. These facts would seem to point to
+the conclusion that the hare propagates its
+species almost the whole year round&mdash;a startling
+piece of evidence to the older naturalists. Add
+to this that hares pair when a year old, that
+gestation lasts only thirty days, and it will be
+seen what a possibly prolific animal the hare
+may be. The young are born covered with
+fur, and after a month leave their mother to
+seek their own subsistence.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>
+
+<a name="CHAPTER_6" id="CHAPTER_6"></a>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i018.png" border="0" alt="Chapter 6." title="" width="700" height="360"></div>
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.06em;">
+<h2 class="smcap">Pheasant Poaching.</h2>
+
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i018_worda.png" width="248" height="49" alt="Through" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i018_wordb.png" width="79" height="31" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i018_wordc.png" width="138" height="23" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">late summer and autumn the
+poacher's thoughts go out to the
+early weeks of October. Neither
+the last load of ruddy corn, nor the actual
+netting of the partridge gladden his heart as
+do the first signs of the dying year. There are
+certain sections of the Game Laws which he
+never breaks, and only some rare circumstance
+tempts him to take immature birds. But by the
+third week of October the yellow and sere of<a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>
+the year has come. The duns and browns are
+over the woods, and the leaves come fitfully
+flickering down. Everything out of doors
+testifies that autumn is waning, and that winter
+will soon be upon us. The colours of the few
+remaining flowers are fading, and nature is beginning
+to have a washed-out appearance. The
+feathery plumes of the ash are everywhere
+strewn beneath the trees, for, just as the ash is
+the first to burst into leaf, so it is the first to
+go. The foliage of the oak is already assuming
+a bright chestnut, though the leaves
+will remain throughout the year. In the oak
+avenues the acorns are lying in great quantities,
+though oak mast is not now the important
+product it once was, cheap grain having
+relegated it almost exclusively to the use of
+the birds. And now immense flocks of wood
+pigeons flutter in the trees or pick up the food
+from beneath. The garnering of the grain, the
+flocking of migratory birds, the wild clanging
+of fowl in the night sky&mdash;these are the sights
+and sounds that set the poacher's thoughts off
+in the old grooves.<a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="padding-bottom:.3em;padding-top:.3em;"><img src="images/i019.png" border="0" alt="Two Men Fighting" title="" width="600" height="400"></div>
+
+
+<p>Of all species of poaching, that which ensures
+a good haul of pheasants is most beset
+with difficulty. Nevertheless there are silent
+ways and means which prove as successful in the
+end as the squire's guns, and these without breaking
+the woodland silence with a sound. The
+most successful of these I intend to set down,
+and only such will be mentioned as have stood
+me in good stead in actual night work. Among
+southern woods and coverts the pheasant
+poacher is usually a desperate character; not
+so in the north. Here
+the poachers are
+more skilled in
+woodcraft, and
+are rarely surprised.
+If the
+worst comes
+to the
+worst
+it is a
+fair
+stand-up fight with fists, and is usually bloodless.
+There is little greed of gain in the night<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>
+enterprise, and liberty by flight is the first
+thing resorted to.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="padding-bottom:.3em;padding-top:.3em;"><img src="images/i020.png" border="0" alt="Man Sprinkling Corn on the Ground" title="" width="480" height="700"></div>
+
+<p>It is well for the poacher, and well for his
+methods, that the pheasant is rather a stupid
+bird. There is no gainsaying its beauty, however,
+and a brace of birds, with all the old
+excitement thrown in, are well worth winning,
+even at considerable risk. In a long life of
+poaching I have noticed that the pheasant has
+one great characteristic. It is fond of wandering;
+and this cannot be prevented. Watch
+the birds: even when fed daily, and with the
+daintiest food, they wander off, singly or in
+pairs, far from the home coverts. This fact I
+knew well, and was not slow to use my
+knowledge. When October came round they
+were the very first birds to which I directed
+my attention. Every poacher observes, year
+by year (even leaving his own predaceous paws
+out of the question), that it by no means follows
+that the man who rears the pheasants will
+have the privilege of shooting them. There is
+a very certain time in the life of the bird
+when it disdains the scattered corn of the<a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>
+keeper, and begins to anticipate the fall of
+beech and oak mast. In search of this the
+pheasants make daily journeys, and consume
+great quantities. They feed principally in the
+morning; dust themselves in the roads or
+turnip-fields at mid-day, and ramble through the
+woods in the afternoon. And one thing is
+certain: That when wandered birds find
+themselves in outlying copses in the evening
+they are apt to roost there. As already
+stated, these were the birds to which I paid
+my best attention. When wholesale pheasant
+poaching is prosecuted by gangs, it is in
+winter, when the trees are bare. Guns, with
+the barrels filed down, are taken in sacks,
+and the pheasants are shot where they
+roost. Their bulky forms stand sharply outlined
+against the sky, and they are invariably
+on the lower branches. If the firing does not
+immediately bring up the keepers, the game
+is quickly deposited in bags, and the gang
+makes off. And it is generally arranged that
+a light cart is waiting at some remote lane
+end, so that possible pursuers may be quickly<a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>
+outpaced. The great risk incurred by this
+method will be seen, when it is stated that
+pheasants are generally reared close by the
+keeper's cottage, and that their coverts immediately
+surround it. It is mostly armed mouchers
+who enter these, and not the
+more gifted (save the mark!)
+country poacher. And there
+are reasons for this. Opposition
+must always be anticipated,
+for, speaking
+for the nonce from the
+game-keeper's standpoint,
+the covert never
+should be, and rarely
+is, unwatched. Then
+there are the certain results
+of possible capture to
+be taken into account. This
+affected, and with birds in one's
+possession, the poacher is liable
+to be indicted upon so many concurrent charges,
+each and all having heavy penalties. Than this
+I obtained my game in a different and quieter<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>
+way. My custom was to carefully eschew the
+preserves, and look up all outlying birds. I never
+went abroad without a pocketful of corn, and
+day by day enticed the wandered birds further
+and further away. This accomplished, pheasants
+may be snared with hair nooses, or taken in
+spring traps. One of my commonest and most
+successful methods with wandered birds was to
+light brimstone beneath the trees in which they
+roosted. The powerful fumes soon overpowered
+them, and they came flopping down the trees
+one by one. This method has the advantage
+of silence, and if the night be dead and still,
+is rarely detected. Away from the preserves,
+time was never taken into account in my
+plans, and I could work systematically. I was
+content with a brace of birds at a time, and
+usually got most in the end, with least chance
+of capture.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>I have already spoken at some length of my
+education in field and wood-craft. An important
+(though at the time unconscious)
+part of this was minute observation of the
+haunts and habits of all kinds of game; and<a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>
+this knowledge was put to good use in my
+actual poaching raids. Here is an instance of
+what I mean: I had noticed the great pugnacity
+of the pheasant, and out of this made
+capital. After first finding out the whereabouts
+of the keeper, I fitted a trained
+game-cock with artificial spurs, and then took
+it to the covert side. The artificial spurs were
+fitted to the natural ones, were sharp as
+needles, and the plucky bird already knew
+how to use them. Upon his crowing, one
+or more cock pheasants would immediately
+respond, and advance to meet the adversary.
+A single blow usually sufficed to lay low the
+pride of the pheasant, and in this way half-a-dozen
+birds were bagged, whilst my own
+representative remained unhurt.</p>
+
+<p>I had another ingenious plan (if I may say
+so) in connection with pheasants, and, perhaps,
+the most successful. I may say at once that
+there is nothing sportsmanlike about it; but
+then that is in keeping with most of what I
+have set down. If time and opportunity offer
+there is hardly any limit to the depredation<a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>
+which it allows. Here it is: A number of
+dried peas are taken and steeped in boiling
+water; a hole is then made through the centre,
+and through this again a stiff bristle is threaded.
+The ends are then cut off short, leaving only
+about a quarter of an inch of bristle projecting
+on each side. With these the birds are fed,
+and they are greedily eaten. In passing down
+the gullet, however, a violent irritation is
+set up, and the pheasant is finally choked.
+In a dying condition the birds are picked up
+beneath the hedges, to the shelter of which
+they almost always run. The way is a quiet
+one; it may be adopted in roads and lanes
+where the birds dust themselves, and does
+not require trespass.</p>
+
+<p>In this connection I may say that I only
+used a gun when every other method
+failed. Game-keepers sometimes try to outwit
+poachers by a device which is now of old
+standing. Usually knowing from what quarter
+the latter will enter the covert, wooden
+blocks representing roosting birds are nailed
+to the branches of the open beeches. I was<a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>
+never entrapped into firing at these dummies,
+and it is only with the casual that the ruse
+acts. He fires, brings the keepers from
+their hiding places, and is caught. Still another
+method of bagging "long-tails," though
+one somewhat similar to that already set
+down: It requires two persons, and the exact
+position of the birds must be known. A black
+night is necessary; a stiff bamboo rod, and a
+dark lantern. One man flashes the concentrated
+light upon the bare branches, when
+immediately half a dozen necks are stretched
+out to view the apparition. Just then the
+"angler" slips a wire nooze over the craned
+neck nearest him, and it is jerked down as
+quickly, though as silently as possible. Number
+two is served in like manner, then a third,
+a fourth, and a fifth. This method has the
+advantage of silence, though, if unskilfully
+managed, sometimes only a single bird is
+secured, and the rest flutter wildly off into
+the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Poachers often come to untimely ends.
+Here is an actual incident which befell one<a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>
+of my companions&mdash;as clever a poacher, and
+as decent and quiet a man as need be. I saw
+him on the night previous to the morning of
+his death, though he did not see me. It was
+a night at the end of October. The winds
+had stripped the leaves from the trees, and
+the dripping branches stood starkly against the
+sky. I was on the high road with a vehicle,
+when plashes of rain began to descend, and a
+low muttering came from out the dull leaden
+clouds. As the darkness increased, occasional
+flashes tore zig-zag across the sky, and the rain
+set to a dead pour. The lightning only served
+to increase the darkness. I could just see the
+mare's steaming shoulders butting away in
+front, and her sensitive ears alternately pricked
+out on the track. The pitchy darkness increased,
+I gave the mare her head, and let the
+reins hang loosely on her neck. The lightning
+was terrible, the thunder almost continuous,
+when the mare came to a dead stop. I got
+down from the trap and found her trembling
+violently, with perspiration pouring down
+her flanks. All her gear was white with<a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>
+lather, and I thought it best to lead her on
+to where I knew was a chestnut tree, and
+there wait for a lull in the storm. As I stood
+waiting, a black lurcher slunk along under the
+sodden hedge, and seeing the trap, immediately
+stopped and turned in its tracks. Having warned
+its master, the two reconnoitered and then
+came on together. The "Otter" (for it was
+he), bade a gruff "good-night" to the enshrouded
+vehicle and passed on into the
+darkness. He slouched rapidly under the
+rain, and went in the direction of extensive
+woods and coverts. Hundreds of pheasants
+had taken to the tall trees, and, from beneath,
+were visible against the sky. Hares abounded
+on the fallows, and rabbits swarmed everywhere.
+The storm had driven the keepers to
+their cosy hearths, and the prospect was a
+poacher's paradise. Just what occurred next
+can only be surmised. Doubtless the "Otter"
+worked long and earnestly through that terrible
+night, and at dawn staggered from the ground
+under a heavy load.</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i021.png" border="0" alt="Trap and Driver at Night" title="" width="700" height="567"></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a></p>
+
+<p>Just at dawn the poacher's wife emerged
+from a poor cottage at the junction of the
+roads, and after looking about her as a hunted
+animal might look, made quietly off over the
+land. Creeping closely by the fences she
+covered a couple of miles, and then entered a
+disused, barn-like building. Soon she emerged
+under a heavy load, her basket, as of old,
+covered with crisp, green cresses. These she
+had kept from last evening, when she plucked
+them in readiness, from the spring. After two or
+three journeys she had removed the "plant,"
+and as she eyed the game her eyes glistened,
+and she waited now only for <i>him</i>. As yet she
+knew not that he would never more come&mdash;that
+soon she would be a lone and heart-broken
+creature. For, although his life was one long
+warfare against the Game Laws, he had always
+been good and kind to her. His end had
+come as it almost inevitably must. The sound
+of a heavy unknown footstep on his way home,
+had turned him from his path. He had then
+made back for the lime-kiln to obtain warmth
+and to dry his sodden clothes. Once on the<a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>
+margin he was soon asleep. The fumes dulled
+his senses, and in his restless sleep he had
+rolled on to the stones. In the morning the
+Limestone Burner coming to work found a
+handful of pure white ashes. A few articles
+were scattered about, and he guessed the rest.</p>
+
+<p>And so the "Otter" went to God.... The
+storm cleared, and the heavens were calm. In
+the sky, on the air, in the blades of grass were
+signs of awakening life. Morning came bright
+and fair, birds flew hither and thither, and the
+autumn flowers stood out to the sun. All
+things were glad and free, but one wretched
+stricken thing.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_7" id="CHAPTER_7"></a>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i022.png" border="0" alt="Chapter 7." title="" width="700" height="408"></div>
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.06em;">
+<h2 class="smcap">Salmon and Trout Poaching.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;">
+<span class="i0">Flashes the blood-red gleam<br></span>
+<span class="i1">Over the midnight slaughter;<br></span>
+<span class="i0">Wild shadows haunt the stream;<br></span>
+<span class="i1">Dark forms glance o'er the water.<br></span>
+<span class="i0">It is the leisterers' cry!<br></span>
+<span class="i1">A salmon, ho! oho!<br></span>
+<span class="i0">In scales of light, the creature bright<br></span>
+<span class="i1">Is glimmering below.<br></span>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:0em;padding-top:0em;"><img src="images/spacer.png" border="0" alt="" title="" width="1" height="1"></div>
+
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i022_worda.png" width="205" height="44" alt="Most" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i022_wordb.png" width="138" height="36" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i022_wordc.png" width="179" height="24" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">country poachers begin by loving
+Nature and end by hating the Game
+Laws. Whilst many a man is
+willing to recognize "property" in hares and<a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>
+pheasants, there are few who will do so with
+regard to salmon and trout. And this is why fish
+poachers have always swarmed. A sea-salmon
+is in the domain of the whole world
+one day; in a trickling runner among the hills
+the next. Yesterday it belonged to anybody;
+and the poacher, rightly or wrongly, thinks it
+belongs to him if only he can snatch it. There
+are few fish poachers
+who in their time
+have not been anglers;
+and anglers are of two
+kinds: there are those
+who fish fair, and those
+who fish foul. The
+first set
+are philosophical
+and
+cultivate
+patience:
+the second
+are
+preda<a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>tory
+and catch fish, fairly if they can&mdash;but
+they catch fish.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="padding-bottom:.3em;padding-top:.3em;"><img src="images/i023.png" border="0" alt="Boy Fishing" title="" width="586" height="600"></div>
+
+<p>Just as redwings and field-fares constitute
+the first game of young gunners, so the loach,
+the minnow, and the stickleback, are the prey
+of the young poacher. If these things are
+small, they are by no means to be despised,
+for there is a tide in the affairs of men when
+these "small fry" of the waters afford as
+much sport on their pebbly shallows as do the
+silvery-sided salmon in the pools of Strathspay.
+As yet there is no knowledge of gaff or click
+hook&mdash;only of a willow wand, a bit of string,
+and a <a name="tn_png_95"></a><!--TN: "croocked" changed to "crooked"-->crooked pin. The average country
+urchin has always a considerable dash of the
+savage in his composition, and this first comes
+out in relation to fish rather than fowl. See
+him during summer as he wantons in the stream
+like a dace. Watch where his brown legs
+carry him; observe his stealthy movements as
+he raises the likely stones; and note the primitive
+poaching weapon in his hand. That old
+pronged fork is every whit as formidable to the
+loach and bullhead as is the lister of the man-<a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>poacher
+to salmon and trout&mdash;and the wader
+uses it almost as skillfully. He has a bottle on
+the bank, and into this he pours the fish unhurt
+which he captures with his hands. Examine his
+aquarium, and hidden among the weeds you
+will find three or four species of small fry.
+The loach, the minnow, and the bullhead are
+sure to be there, with perhaps a tiny stickleback,
+and somewhere, outside the bottle&mdash;stuffed
+in cap or breeches pocket&mdash;crayfish of
+every age and size. During a long life I have
+watched the process, and this is the stuff out
+of which fish-poachers are made.</p>
+
+<p>It is part of the wisdom of nature's economy
+that when furred and feathered game is "out,"
+fish are "in." It might be thought that
+poachers would recognize neither times nor
+seasons, but this is a mistake. During fence
+time game is nearly worthless; and then the
+prospective penalties of poaching out of season
+have to be taken into account. Fish poaching
+is practised none the less for the high preservation
+and strict watching which so much prevails
+now-a-days; it seems even to have grown<a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>
+with them. In outlying country towns with
+salmon and trout streams in the vicinity,
+poaching is carried on to an almost incredible
+extent. There are men who live by it and
+women to whom it constitutes a thriving trade.
+The "Otter," more thrifty than the rest of us,
+has purchased a cottage with the proceeds of
+his poaching; and I know four or five families
+who live by it. Whilst our class provide the
+chief business of the country police courts, and
+is a great source of profit to the local fish and
+game dealer, there is quite another and a
+pleasanter side, to the picture. But this later.
+The wary poacher never starts for the fishing
+ground without having first his customer; and
+it is surprising with what lax code of morals
+the provincial public will deal, when the silent
+night worker is one to the bargain. Of course
+the public always gets cheap fish and fresh fish,
+so fresh indeed that sometimes the life has
+hardly gone out of it. It is a perfectly easy
+matter to provide fish and the only difficulty lies
+in conveying it into the towns and villages. I
+never knew but what I might be met by some<a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>
+county constable, and consequently never
+carried game upon me. This I secreted in
+stack, rick, or disused farm building, until
+such time as it could be safely fetched. Country
+carriers, early morning milk-carts, and women
+are all employed in getting the hauls into town.
+In this women are by far the most successful.
+Sometimes they are seen labouring under a
+heavy load carried in a sack, with faggots and
+rotten sticks protruding from the mouth; or
+again, with a large basket innocently covered
+with crisp, green cresses which effectually hide
+the bright silvery fish beneath. Our methods
+of fish poaching are many. As we work
+silently and in the night, the chances of success
+are all in our favour. We walk much by the
+stream side during the day, and take mental
+notes of men and fish. We know the beats
+of the watchers, and have the water-side by
+heart. Long use has accustomed us to work
+as well in the dark as in the light, and
+this is essential. During summer, when the
+water is low, the fish congregate in deep
+"dubs." This they do for protection, and<a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>
+here, if overhung by trees, there is always
+abundance of food. Whenever it was our
+intention to net a dub, we carefully examined
+every inch of its bottom beforehand. If it had
+been "thorned," every thorn was carefully
+removed&mdash;small thorn bushes with stones
+attached, and thrown in by the watchers to
+entangle nets. Of course fish-poaching can
+never be tackled single-handed. In "long-netting"
+the net is dragged by a man on each
+side, a third wading after to lift it over the
+stakes, and to prevent the fish from escaping.
+When the end of the pool is reached the
+salmon and trout are simply drawn out upon
+the pebbles. This is repeated through the
+night until half-a-dozen pools are netted&mdash;probably
+depopulated of their fish. Netting
+of this description is a wholesale method of
+capture, always supposing that we are allowed
+our own time. It requires to be done slowly,
+however, as if alarmed we can do nothing but
+abandon the net. This is necessarily large,
+and when thoroughly wet is cumbersome
+and exceedingly heavy. The loss of one of<a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>
+our large nets was a serious matter, not only in
+time but money. For narrow streams, a narrow
+net is used, this being attached to two poles.
+It is better to cut the poles (of ash) only when
+required, as they are awkward objects to carry.
+The method of working the "pod-net" is the
+same in principle as the last. The older fish
+poachers rarely go in for poisoning. This is a
+cowardly method, and kills everything, both
+great and small, for miles down stream.
+Chloride of lime is the agent mostly used, as
+it does not injure the edible parts. The lime
+is thrown into the river where fish are known
+to lie, and its deadly influence is soon seen.
+The fish, weakened and poisoned, float belly
+uppermost. This at once renders them conspicuous,
+and they are simply lifted out of the
+water in a landing-net. Salmon and trout
+which come by their death in this way have the
+usually pink parts of a dull white, with the
+eyes and gill-covers of the same colour, and
+covered with a fine white film. This substance
+is much used in mills on the banks of trout-streams,
+and probably more fish are "poached"<a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>
+by this kind of pollution in a month than the
+most inveterate moucher will kill in a year.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i024.png" border="0" alt="Longnetting" title="" width="700" height="459"></div>
+
+<p>It is only poachers of the old school that
+are careful to observe close times, and they do
+their work mostly in summer. Many of the
+younger and more desperate hands, however,
+do really serious business when the fish are out
+of season. When salmon and trout are spawning
+their senses seem to become dulled, and then
+they are not difficult to approach in the water.
+They seek the highest reaches to spawn and stay
+for a considerable time on the spawning beds.
+A salmon offers a fair mark, and these are obtained
+by spearing. The pronged salmon spear
+is driven into the fleshy shoulders of the fish,
+when it is hauled out on to the bank. In this
+way I have often killed more fish in a single day
+than I could possibly carry home&mdash;even when
+there was little or no chance of detection.
+There is only one practicable way of carrying
+a big salmon across country on a dark night,
+and that is by hanging it round one's neck and
+steadying it in front. I have left tons of fish
+behind when chased by the watchers, as of all<a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>
+things they are the most difficult to carry. The
+best water bailiffs are those who are least seen,
+or who watch from a distance. So as to save
+sudden surprise, and to give timely warning
+of the approach of watchers, one of the
+poaching party should always command the
+land from a tree top.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i025.png" border="0" alt="Man Spearing a Salmon" title="" width="700" height="514"></div>
+
+
+<p>The flesh of spawning fish is loose and watery,
+insipid and tasteless, and rarely brings more
+than a few pence per pound. In an out-lying
+hamlet known to me, poached salmon, during
+last close time, was so common that the cottagers
+fed their poultry upon it through the winter.
+Several fish were killed each over 20 lbs. in
+weight. Than netting, another way of securing
+salmon and trout from the spawning redds is by
+"click" hooks. These are simply large salmon
+hooks bound shaft to shaft and attached to a
+long cord; a bit of lead balances them and
+adds weight. These are used in the "dubs"
+when spearing by wading is impracticable.
+When a salmon is seen the hooks are simply
+thrown beyond it, then gently dragged until
+they come immediately beneath; when a<a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>
+sharp click sends them into the soft under
+parts of the fish, which is then dragged out.
+As the pike, which is one of nature's poachers,
+is injurious to our interests as well as those of
+the angler, we never miss an opportunity of
+treating him in the same summary manner.
+Of course, poaching with click-hooks requires
+to be done during the day, or by the aid of an
+artificial light. Light attracts salmon just as it
+attracts birds, and tar brands are frequently
+used by poachers. A good, rough bulls-eye
+lantern, to aid in spearing, can be made
+from a disused salmon canister. A circular
+hole should be made in the side, and a bit of
+material tied over to hide the light when not in
+use. Shooting is sometimes resorted to, but
+for this class of poaching the habits and beats
+of the water bailiffs require to be accurately
+known. The method has the advantage of
+quickness, and a gun in skilful hands and at
+short distance may be used without injuring
+the fleshy parts of the fish. That deadly bait,
+salmon row, is now rarely used, the method of
+preparing it being unknown to the younger<a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>
+generation. It can, however, be used with
+deadly effect. Although both ourselves and
+our nets were occasionally captured, the
+watchers generally found this a difficult matter.
+In approaching our fishing grounds we did
+not mind going sinuously and snake-like
+through the wet meadows, and as I have said,
+our nets were rarely kept at home. These
+were secreted in stone heaps, and among bushes
+in close proximity to where we intended to use
+them. Were they kept at home the obtaining
+of a search warrant by the police or local<a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>
+Angling Association would always render their
+custody a critical business. When, upon any
+rare occasion, the nets were kept at home, it was
+only for a short period, and when about to be
+used. Sometimes, though rarely, the police
+have discovered them secreted in the chimney,
+between bed and mattrass, or, in one case,
+wound about the portly person of a poacher's
+wife. As I have already said, the women are
+not always simply aiders and abettors, but
+in the actual poaching sometimes play an
+important part. They have frequently been
+taken red-handed by the watchers. Mention of
+the water-bailiffs reminds me that I must say a
+word of them too. Their profession is a hard
+one&mdash;harder by far than the poacher's. They
+work at night, and require to be most on the
+alert during rough and wet weather; especially
+in winter when fish are spawning. Sometimes
+they must remain still for hours in
+freezing clothes; and even in summer not
+unfrequently lie all night in dank and wet
+herbage. They see the night side of nature,
+and many of them are as good naturalists as<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>
+the poachers. If a lapwing gets up and
+screams in the darkness the cleverer of them
+know how to interpret the sound, as also a
+hare rushing wildly past. I must add, however,
+that it is in the nature of things that at all points
+the fish poacher is cleverer and of readier wit
+than the river watcher.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i026.png" border="0" alt="&quot;Going sinuously and snake-like
+through the wet meadows&quot;" title="" width="700" height="393"></div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="padding-bottom:.3em;padding-top:.3em;"><img src="images/i027.png" border="0" alt="Poacher Presenting Salmon to Constable" title="" width="615" height="700"></div>
+<p>Looking back it does
+not seem long
+since county
+constables first
+became an institution
+in this part
+of the country.
+I remember an
+amusing incident
+connected with
+one of them who
+was evidently a
+stranger to many
+of the phases of
+woodcraft. We
+had been netting a deep dub just below a stone
+bridge, and were about to land a splendid haul.<a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>
+Looking up, a constable was watching our
+operations in an interested sort of way, and for
+a moment we thought we were fairly caught.
+Just as we were about to abandon the net and
+make off through the wood, the man spoke.
+In an instant I saw how matters stood. He
+failed to grasp the situation&mdash;even came down
+and helped us to draw the net on to the bank.
+In thanking us for a silvery five-pound salmon
+we gave him he spoke with a southern
+accent, and I suppose that poachers and
+poaching were subjects that had never entered
+into his philosophy.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>
+
+<a name="CHAPTER_8" id="CHAPTER_8"></a>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i028.png" border="0" alt="Chapter 8." title="" width="700" height="318"></div>
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.06em;">
+<h2 class="smcap">Grouse Poaching.</h2>
+
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i028_worda.png" width="153" height="58" alt="For" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i028_wordb.png" width="84" height="45" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">pleasurable excitement, to say nothing
+of profit, the pick of all poaching
+is for grouse. However fascinating
+partridge poaching may be; however pleasurable
+picking off pheasants from bare boughs;
+or the night-piercing screams of a netted hare&mdash;none
+of these can compare with the wild
+work of the moors. I am abroad on the heather
+just before the coming of the day. My way lies
+now along the rugged course of a fell "beck,"<a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>
+now along the lower shoulder of the mountain.
+The grey dissolves into dawn, the dawn into
+light, and the first blackcock crows to his grey
+hen in the hollow. As my head appears above
+the burn side, the ever-watchful curlews whistle
+and the plovers scream. A dotterel goes
+plaintively piping over the stones, and the
+"cheep, cheep," of the awakening ling-birds
+rises from every brae. A silent tarn lies shimmering
+in a green hollow beneath, and over its
+marge constantly flit a pair of summer snipe.
+The bellowing of red deer comes from a
+neighbouring corrie, and a herd of roe are
+browsing on the confines of the scrub. The
+sun mounts the Eastern air, drives the mists
+away and beyond the lichen patches loved by
+the ptarmigan&mdash;and it is day.</p>
+
+<p>A glorious bird is the red grouse! Listen
+to his warning "kok, kok, kok," as he eyes the
+invader of his moorland haunts. Now that it
+is day his mate joins him on the "knowe."
+The sun warms up his rufus plumage, and the
+crescent-shaped patch of vermilion over the
+eye glows in the strong light. It is these<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>
+sights and sounds that warm me to my work,
+and dearly I love the moor-game. Years ago
+I had sown grain along the fell-side so as to
+entice the grouse within range of an old flint-lock
+which I used with deadly effect from
+behind a stone wall. Then snares were set on
+the barley sheaves and corn stooks, by which a
+brace of birds were occasionally bagged. In
+after years an unforseen grouse harvest came
+in quite an unexpected manner. With the
+enclosure of the Commons hundreds of miles of
+wire fencing was erected, and in this way,
+before the birds had become accustomed to it,
+numbers were killed by flying against the<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>
+fences. The casualties mostly occurred during
+"thick" weather, or when the mists had
+clung to the hills for days. At such times
+grouse fly low, and strike before seeing the
+obstacle. I never failed to note the mist-caps
+hanging to the fell-tops, and then, bag in
+hand, walked parallel to miles and miles of
+flimsy fence. Sometimes a dozen brace of
+birds were picked up in a morning; and, on the
+lower grounds, an occasional partridge, woodcock,
+or snipe.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i029.png" border="0" alt="Poacher with Grouse by Wire Fence" title="" width="700" height="403"></div>
+
+
+<p>Grouse are the only game that ever tempted
+me to poach during close time, and then I only
+erred by a few days. Birds sold in London on
+the morning of the "Twelfth" bring the biggest
+prices of the season, and to supply the
+demand was a temptation I could never resist.
+Many a "Squire," many a Country Justice
+has been tempted as I was, and fell as I fell.
+It is not too much to say that every one of the
+three thousand birds sold in London on the
+opening day has been poached during the
+"fence" time. In the north, country station-masters
+find hampers dropped on their plat<a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>forms
+addressed to London dealers, but, as to
+who brought them, or how they came there,
+none ever knows.</p>
+
+<p>The only true prophet of the grouse-moors
+is the poacher. Months before the "squire"
+and keeper he knows whether disease will
+assert itself or no. By reason of his out-door
+life he has accuracy of eye and judgment sufficient
+to interpret what he sees aright. He is
+abroad in all weathers, and through every
+hour of the day and night. His clothes have
+taken on them the duns and browns of
+the moorlands; and he owns the subtle influence
+which attracts wild creatures to
+him. He has watched grouse "at home"
+since the beginning of the year. On the first
+spring day the sun shines brightly at noon.
+The birds bask on the brae, and spread their
+wings to the warmth. As the sun gains in
+power, and spring comes slowly up the way,
+the red grouse give out gurgling notes, and
+indulge in much strutting. The fell "becks"
+sparkles in the sun; the merlin screams over
+the heather, and the grouse packs break up.<a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>
+The birds are now seen singly or in pairs, and
+brae answers brae from dawn till dark. The
+cock grouse takes his stand on some grey rock,
+and erects or depresses at pleasure his vermilion
+eye-streak. Pairing is not long continued,
+and the two find out a depression in
+the heather which they line with bents and
+mountain grasses. About eight eggs are laid,
+and the cock grouse takes his stand upon the
+"knowe" to guard the nest from predaceous
+carrion and hooded crows. If hatching is
+successful the young birds are quickly on their
+legs, and through spring and summer follow
+the brooding birds. They grow larger and
+plumper each day, until it is <a name="tn_png_117"></a><!--TN: "difficut" changed to "difficult"-->difficult to detect
+them from the adult. Meanwhile August has
+come, and soon devastating death is dealt out
+to them. The sport, so far as the poacher is
+concerned, begins at the first rolling away of
+the morning mists; and then he often makes
+the best bag of the year. It was rarely that I
+was abroad later than two in the morning, and
+my first business was to wade out thigh-deep
+into the purple heather. From such a position<a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>
+it is not difficult to locate the crowing of the
+moorbirds as they answer each other across the
+heather. When this was done I would gain
+a rough stone wall, and then, by imitating the
+gurgling call-notes of cock or hen I could
+bring up every grouse within hearing. Sometimes
+a dozen would be about me at one time.
+Then the birds were picked off as they flew
+over the knolls and braes, or as they boldly
+stood on any eminence near. If this method
+is deadly in early August, it is infinitely more
+so during pairing time. Then, if time and
+leisure be allowed, and the poacher is a
+good "caller," almost every bird on a moor
+may be bagged.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest number of grouse, and consequently
+the best poaching, is to be had on
+moors on which the heather is regularly burned.
+Grouse love the shoots of ling which spring up
+after burning, and the birds which feed upon this
+invariably have the brightest plumage. On a
+well-burnt moor the best poaching method is
+by using a silk net. By watching for traces
+during the day it is not difficult to detect<a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>
+where the birds roost, and once this is discovered
+the rest is easy. The net is trailed
+along the ground by two men, and dropped instantly
+on the whirr of wings. The springing
+of the birds is the only guide in the darkness,
+though the method skilfully carried out is most
+destructive, and sometimes a whole covey <a name="tn_png_119"></a><!--TN: "is is" changed to "is"-->is
+bagged at one sweep. Silk nets have three
+good qualities for night work, those made of
+any other material being cumbersome and
+nearly useless. They are light, strong, and
+are easily carried. It is well to have about
+eighteen inches of glazed material along the
+bottom of the net, or it is apt to catch in
+dragging. Where poaching is practised, keepers
+often place in the likeliest places a number of
+strong stakes armed with protruding nails.
+These, however, may be removed and replanted
+after the night's work; or, just at dusk
+a bunch of white feathers may be tied to point
+the position of each.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i030.png" border="0" alt="Bagging a Covey with a Silk Net" title="" width="700" height="415"></div>
+
+
+<p>The planting of grain patches along the
+moor-side has been mentioned, and on these in
+late autumn great numbers of birds are bagged.<a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>
+Grouse are exceedingly fond of oats, and in
+the early morning the stooks are sometimes
+almost black with them. A pot shot here
+from behind a wall or fence is generally a
+profitable one, as the heavy charge of shot is
+sent straight at the "brown." Black-game
+are as keen as red grouse on oats, and a few
+sheaves thrown about always attracts them.
+Although the blackcock is a noble bird in
+appearance, he is dull and heavy, and is easily
+bagged. Early in the season the birds lie
+until almost trod upon, and of all game are the
+easiest to net. They roost on the ground, and
+usually seek out some sheltered brae-side
+on which to sleep. If closely watched at
+evening, it is not difficult to clap a silk net
+over them upon the first favourable night,
+when both mother and grown young are
+bagged together. That there are gentlemen
+poachers as well as casuals and amateurs, the
+following incident relating to black-game
+shows: "On a dull misty day they are easily
+got at: they will sit on the thorn bushes
+and alders, and let the shooter pick them off<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>
+one by one. I remember once, on such a day,
+taking a noble sportsman who was very keen
+to shoot a blackcock, up to some black game
+sitting on a thorn hedge. When he got within
+about twenty-five yards he fired his first barrel
+(after taking a very deliberate aim) at an old
+grey hen. She took no notice, only shaking
+her feathers a little, and hopping a short distance
+further on. The same result with the
+second barrel. He loaded again and fired.
+This time the old hen turned round, and
+looked to see where the noise and unpleasant
+tickling sensation came from, and grew uneasy;
+the next attempt made her fly on to where
+her companions were sitting, and our friend
+then gave up his weapon to me in despair.
+Black game grow very stupid also when on
+stubbles; they will let a man fire at them, and
+if they do not see him, will fly round the field
+and settle again, or pitch on a wall quite near
+to him. Grouse will do the same thing.
+There is not much 'sport' in such shooting
+as this, but when out alone, and wanting to
+make a bag, it is a sure and quick way to do<a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>
+so. It may be called 'poaching'&mdash;all I can
+say is, there would be many more gentlemen
+poachers if they could obtain such chances,
+and could not get game in any other way."</p>
+
+<p>Both grouse and black game may frequently
+be brought within range by placing a dead or
+stuffed bird on a rock or a stone wall. A
+small forked stick is made to support the head
+and neck of the decoy "dummy," which, if
+there are birds in the vicinity, soon attracts
+them. As a rule the lure is not long successful,
+but sufficiently so as to enable the
+poacher to make a big bag. Upon one occasion
+I made a remarkable addition to our
+fur and feather. In the darkness a movement
+was heard among the dense branches of a
+Scotch fir, when, looking up, a large bird which
+seemed as big as a turkey commenced to
+flutter off. It was stopped before it had flown
+many yards, and proved to be a handsome
+cock Capercailzie in splendid plumage. Had I
+been certain as to what it was I certainly
+should not have fired.<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a></p>
+
+<p>Grouse stalking is fascinating sport, and by
+this method I usually made my greatest
+achievements. The stalking was mainly done
+from behind an old moorland horse, with
+which I had struck up an acquaintance; and it
+learned to stand fire like a war veteran. I
+used to think it enjoyed the sport, and I
+believe it did. With the aid of my shaggy
+friend I have successfully stalked hundreds
+of grouse, as its presence seemed to allay both
+fear and suspicion. Firing over its back, its
+neck, or beneath its belly&mdash;all were taken
+alike, patiently and sedately. An occasional
+handful of oats, or half a loaf, cemented the
+friendship of the old horse&mdash;my best and most
+constant poaching companion for years.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>
+
+<a name="CHAPTER_9" id="CHAPTER_9"></a>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i031.png" border="0" alt="Chapter 9." title="" width="700" height="325"></div>
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.06em;">
+<h2 class="smcap">Rabbit Poaching.</h2>
+
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i031_worda.png" width="96" height="45" alt="If" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i031_wordb.png" width="70" height="58" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">well trained lurchers are absolutely
+necessary to hare poaching, ferrets are
+just as important to successful rabbit
+poaching. Nearly nothing in fur can be done
+without them. However lucky the moucher
+may be among pheasants, partridge, or grouse,
+rabbits are and must be the chief product of
+his nights. Of the methods of obtaining
+them&mdash;field netting, well-traps, shooting&mdash;all
+are as nothing compared with silent ferreting.</p>
+
+<p>In the north we have two well-defined
+varieties of ferret&mdash;one a brown colour and<a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>
+known as the polecat-ferret; the other, the
+common white variety. The first is the hardier,
+and it is to secure this quality that poachers
+cross their ferrets with the wild polecat. Unlike
+lurchers, ferrets require but little training, and
+seem to work instinctively. There are various
+reasons why poachers prefer white ferrets
+to the polecat variety. At night a brown
+ferret is apt to be nipped up in mistake for a
+rabbit; while a white one is always apparent,
+even when moving among the densest herbage.
+Hence mouchers invariably use white ones.
+Gamekeepers who know their business prefer
+ferrets taken from poachers to any other. I
+was always particularly careful in selecting
+my stock, as from the nature of my trade I
+could ill afford to use bad ones. Certain
+strains of ferrets cause rabbits to bolt rapidly,
+while others are slow and sluggish. It need
+hardly be said that I always used the former.
+Even the best, however, will sometimes drive
+a rabbit to the end of a "blind" burrow; <a name="tn_png_127"></a><!--TN: "an" changed to "and"-->and
+after killing it will not return until it <a name="tn_png_127a"></a><!--TN: "ha" changed to "has"-->has
+gorged itself with blood. And more <a name="tn_png_127b"></a><!--TN: "troub" changed to "trouble"-->trouble<a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>
+is added if the ferret curls itself up for an after-dinner
+sleep. Then it has either to be left or
+dug out. The latter process is long, the burrows
+ramify far into the mound, and it is not just
+known in which the ferret remains. If it
+be left it is well to bar every hole with
+stones, and then return with a dead rabbit when
+hunger succeeds the gorged sleep. It is to
+guard against such occasions as these that
+working ferrets are generally muzzled. A
+cruel practise used to obtain among poachers
+of stitching together the lips of ferrets to prevent
+their worrying rabbits and then "laying
+up." For myself I made a muzzle of soft string
+which was effective, and at the same time comfortable
+to wear. When there was a chance
+of being surprised at night work I occasionally
+worked ferrets with a line attached; but this is
+an objectionable practice and does not always
+answer. There may be a root or stick in which
+the line gets entangled, when there will be
+digging and no end of trouble to get the ferret
+out. From these facts, and the great uncertainty
+of ferreting, it will be understood why poachers<a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>
+can afford to use only the best animals. A
+tangled hedgebank with coarse herbage was
+<a name="tn_png_129"></a><!--TN: "alwasy" changed to "always"-->always a favourite spot for my depredations.
+There are invariably two, often half a dozen
+holes, to the same burrow. Small purse nets
+are spread over these, and I always preferred
+these loose to being pegged or fixed in any
+way. When all the nets are set the ferrets are
+turned in. They do not proceed immediately,
+but sniff the mouth of the hole; their indecision
+is only momentary, however, for soon
+the tip of the tail disappears in the darkness.
+And now silence is essential to success, as
+rabbits refuse to bolt if there is the slightest
+noise outside. A dull thud, a rush, and a
+rabbit goes rolling over and over entangled in
+the purse. Reserve nets are quickly clapped on
+the holes as the rabbits bolt, the latter invariably
+being taken except where a couple come
+together. Standing on the mound a shot would
+stop these as they go bounding through the
+dead leaves, but the sound would bring up the
+keeper, and so one has to practise self-denial.
+Unlike hares, rabbits rarely squeal when they<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>
+become entangled; and this allows one to
+ferret long and silently. Rabbits bolt best on
+a windy day and before noon; after that they
+are sluggish and often refuse to come out at all.
+This is day ferreting, but of course mine was
+done mainly at night. In this case the dogs
+always ranged the land, and drove everything off
+it before we commenced operations. On good
+ground a mound or brae sometimes seemed to
+explode with rabbits, so wildly did they fly
+before their deadly foe. I have seen a score
+driven from one set of holes, while five
+or six couples is not at all uncommon. When
+ferrets are running the burrows, stoats and
+weasels are occasionally driven out; and among
+other strange things unearthed I remember a
+brown owl, a stock-dove, and a shell-drake&mdash;each
+of which happened to be breeding in the
+mounds.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="padding-bottom:.3em;padding-top:.3em;"><img src="images/i032.png" border="0" alt="Man with Lurcher" title="" width="600" height="394"></div>
+
+
+<p>The confines of a large estate constitute a
+poacher's paradise, for although partridge and
+grouse require land suited to their taste, rabbits
+and pheasants are common to all preserved
+ground. And then the former may be taken<a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>
+at any time, and in so many different ways.
+They are abundant, too, and always find a
+ready market. The penalties attached to rabbit
+poaching are less than those of game, and the
+conies need not be followed into closely
+preserved coverts. The extermination of the
+rabbit will be contemporaneous with that of
+the lurcher and poacher&mdash;two institutions of
+village life which date back to the time of the
+New Forest. Of the many mouching modes
+for taking conies, ferretting, as already stated,
+and field netting are the most common. Traps
+with steel jaws are sometimes set in runs,
+inserted in the turf so as to bring them
+flush with the sward. But destruction by this
+method is not sufficiently wholesale, and the
+upturned white under-parts of the rabbit's fur
+show too plainly against the green. The
+poacher's methods must be quick, and he cannot
+afford to visit by day traps set in the dark.
+The night must cover all his doings. When
+the unscrupulous keeper finds a snare he sometimes
+puts a leveret into it, and secretes himself.
+Then he waits, and captures the poacher "in<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>
+the act." As with some other methods already
+mentioned, the trap poacher is only a casual.
+Ferretting is silent and almost invariably
+successful. In warrens, both inequalities of
+the ground,
+mounds, and
+ditches afford
+good
+cover.
+My best
+and most
+wholesale
+method of field-poaching for rabbits was by
+means of two long nets. These are from a hundred
+to a hundred and fifty yards in length, and
+about four feet high. They are usually made of
+silk, and are light and strong, and easily
+portable. These are set parallel to each other
+along the edge of a wood, about thirty<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>
+yards out into the pasture. Only about four
+inches divides the nets. A dark windy night
+is best for the work, as in such weather
+rabbits feed far out in the fields. On a night
+of this character, too, the game neither hears
+nor sees the poacher. The nets are long&mdash;the
+first small in mesh, that immediately behind
+large. When a rabbit or hare strikes, the
+impetus takes a part of the first net and its
+contents through the larger mesh of the second,
+and there, hanging, the creature struggles until
+it is knocked on the head with a stick. Immediately
+the nets are set, two men and a
+brace of lurchers range the ground in front,
+slowly and patiently, and gradually drive
+every feeding thing woodwards. A third man
+quietly paces the sward behind the nets, killing
+whatever strikes them. In this way I have
+taken many scores of rabbits in a single
+night. On the confines of a large estate a rather
+clever trick was once played upon us. Each
+year about half-a-dozen black or white rabbits
+were turned down into certain woods. Whilst
+feeding, these stood out conspicuously from the<a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>
+rest, and were religiously preserved. Upon
+these the keepers kept a close watch, and when
+any were missing it was suspected what was
+going on, when the watching strength was
+increased. As soon as we detected the trick,
+we were careful to let the coloured rabbits go
+free. We found that it was altogether to our
+interest to preserve them.</p>
+
+<p>During night poaching for rabbits and hares
+the ground game is driven from its feeding
+ground to the woods or copses. Precisely the
+reverse method is employed during the day
+when the game is in cover. The practice
+is to find a spinny in which both rabbits and
+hares are known to lie; and then to set purse
+nets on the outside of every opening which
+may possibly be used by the frightened animals.
+The smaller the wood or patch of cover the
+easier it is to work. A man, with or without
+a dog, enters the covert, and his presence soon
+induces the furry denizens to bolt. As these
+rush through their customary runs they find
+themselves in the meshes of a net, and every
+struggle only makes them faster. This method<a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>
+has the disadvantage of being done in the light,
+but where there is much game is very deadly.</p>
+
+<p>Snares for hares and rabbits are not used
+nearly so much now as formerly. For all that,
+they are useful in outlying districts, or on land
+that is not closely watched. For hares the
+snare is a wire noose tied to a stick with string,
+and placed edgeways in the trod. To have the
+snare the right height is an important matter;
+and it will be found that two fists high for a
+hare, and one for a rabbit, is the most deadly.
+Casuals set their snares in hedge-bottoms,
+but these are no good. Two or three feet
+away from the hedge is the most killing position&mdash;for
+this reason: when a hare canters up
+to a fence it never immediately bounds
+through; it pauses about a yard away, then
+leaps into the hedge-bottom. It is during
+this last leap that it puts its neck into the
+noose and is taken. If a keeper merely
+watches a snare until it is "lifted," good and
+well; but to put a hare or rabbit into it and
+then pounce on the moucher&mdash;well, that is a
+different matter. It is not difficult to see where<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>
+a hare has been taken, especially if the run in
+which the snare was set was damp. There
+will be the hole where the peg has been, and
+the ground will be beaten flat by the struggles
+of the animal in endeavouring to free itself.</p>
+
+<p>Field-netting for rabbits may be prevented
+in the same way as for partridges&mdash;by thorning
+the ground where the game feeds. It is quite
+a mistake to plant thorns, or even to stake out
+large branches. The only ones that at all
+trouble the poacher are small thorns which are
+left absolutely free on the ground. These get
+into the net, roll it up hopelessly in a
+short time, and if this once occurs everything
+escapes. Large thorns are easily seen and
+easily removed, but the abominable ones are
+the small ones left loose on the surface of the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>The most certain and wholesale method of
+rabbit poaching I ever practised was also the
+most daring. The engine employed was the
+"well-trap." This is a square, deep box, built
+into the ground, and immediately opposite to
+a smoot-hole in the fence through which the<a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>
+rabbits run from wood or covert to field or
+pasture. Through a hole in the wall or fence
+a wooden trough or box is inserted. As
+the rabbits run through, the floor opens beneath
+their weight, and they drop into the
+"well." Immediately the pressure is removed
+the floor springs back to its original position, and
+thus a score or more rabbits are often taken
+in a single night. In the construction of these
+"well-traps," rough and unbarked wood is
+used, though, even after this precaution, the
+rabbits will not take them for weeks. Then,
+they become familiar; the weather washes
+away all scent, and the "well" is a wholesale
+engine of destruction. All surface traces
+of the existence of the trap must be
+covered over with dead leaves and woodland
+debris. The rabbits, of course, are taken alive,
+and the best way of killing them is by
+stretching them across the knee, and so dislocating
+the spine. If the keeper once finds out
+the trap the game is up. Whilst it lasts, however,
+it kills more rabbits than every other
+stroke of woodcraft the poacher knows.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>
+
+<a name="CHAPTER_10" id="CHAPTER_10"></a>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i033.png" border="0" alt="Chapter 10." title="" width="700" height="389"></div>
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.06em;">
+<h2 class="smcap">Tricks.</h2>
+
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i007_worda.png" width="236" height="60" alt="When" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i007_wordb.png" width="118" height="43" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">it is known that a man's life is
+one long protest against the Game
+Laws he has to be exceedingly careful
+of his comings and goings. Every constable,
+every gamekeeper, and most workers in woodcraft
+are aware of the motives which bring him
+abroad at night. More eyes are upon him<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>
+than he sees, and no one knows better than
+he that the enemies most to be feared
+are those who are least seen; and the man
+who has tasted the bitterness of poaching
+penalties will do everything in his power to
+escape detection. Probably the greatest aid
+to this end is knowing the country by heart;
+the field-paths and disused bye-ways, the
+fordable parts of the river, and a hundred
+things beside. The poacher is and must be
+suspicious of everyone he meets.</p>
+
+<p>In planning and carrying out forays I was
+always careful to observe two conditions. No
+poaching secret was ever confided to another;
+and I invariably endeavoured to get to the
+ground unseen. If my out-going was observed
+it often entailed a circuit of a dozen miles in
+coming home, and even then the entry into
+town was not without considerable risk. The
+hand of everyone was against me in my
+unlawful calling, and many were the shifts I
+had to make to escape detection or capture.
+To show with what success this may be carried
+out, the following incident will show.<a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i034.png" border="0" alt="Donkey with Panniers" title="" width="700" height="524"></div>
+
+
+<p>I conceived the idea of openly shooting
+certain well-stocked coverts during the temporary
+absence of the owner. These were so
+well watched that all the ordinary measures at
+night seemed likely to be baffled. To openly
+shoot during broad day, and under the very
+eye of the keeper, was now the essential part
+of the programme; and to this end I must
+explain as follows: The keeper on the estate
+was but lately come to the district. Upon
+two occasions when I had been placed in the
+dock, I had been described as "a poacher of
+gentlemanly appearance," and "the gentleman
+poacher again." (My forefathers had been
+small estatesmen for generations, and I suppose
+that some last lingering air of gentility attached
+to me). Well, I had arranged with a
+confederate to act as bag carrier; he was to
+be very servile, and not to forget to touch
+his cap at pretty frequent intervals. After
+"making up" as a country squire&mdash;(I had
+closely studied the species on the <a name="tn_png_140"></a><!--TN: Comma removed after "Bench"-->"Bench")&mdash;and
+providing a luncheon in keeping with my
+temporary "squiredom," we started for the<a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>
+woods. It was a bright morning in the last
+week of October, and game&mdash;hares, pheasants,
+and woodcock&mdash;was exceedingly plentiful.
+The first firing brought up the keeper, who
+touched his hat in the most respectful fashion.
+He behaved, in short, precisely as I would
+have had him behave. I lost no time on
+quietly congratulating him on the number and
+quality of his birds; told him that his master
+would return from town to-morrow (which
+I had learned incidentally), and ended by
+handing him my cartridge bag to carry. A
+splendid bag of birds had been made by luncheon
+time, and the viands which constituted
+the meal were very much in keeping with my
+assumed position. Dusk came at the close of
+the short October afternoon, and with it the
+end of our day's sport. The bag was spread
+out in one of the rides of the wood, and in
+imagination I can see it now&mdash;thirty-seven
+pheasants, nine hares, five woodcock, a few
+rabbits, some cushats, and the usual "miscellaneous."
+The man of gaiters was despatched
+a couple of miles for a cart to carry the spoil,<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>
+and a substantial "tip" gave speed to his not
+unwilling legs. The game, however, was not
+to occupy the cart. A donkey with panniers
+was waiting in a clump of brush by the covert
+side, and as soon as the panniers were packed,
+its head was turned homeward over a wild bit
+of moorland. With the start obtained, chase
+would have been fruitless had it ever been
+contemplated&mdash;which it never was. I need
+not detail the sequel to the incident here, and<a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>
+may say that it was somewhat painful to myself
+as well as my bag carrier. And I am sorry to
+say that the keeper was summarily dismissed
+by the enraged squire as a reward for his innocence.
+As to the coverts, they were so well
+stocked, that after a few days' rest there
+appeared as much game as ever, and the
+contents of our little bag were hardly
+missed.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="padding-bottom:.3em;padding-top:.3em;"><img src="images/i035.png" border="0" alt="Attired like a Quaker" title="" width="390" height="700"></div>
+
+<p>Another trick to which my co-worker
+used to resort was to
+attire himself in broad-brimmed
+hat and black coat similar
+to those worn a century
+ago by the people called
+Quakers. In the former he
+carried his nets, and in the capacious
+pockets of the latter the game
+he took. These outward guarantees of
+good faith, away from his own parish,
+precluded him from ever once being
+searched. I have already remarked,
+and every practical poacher knows
+it to be the fact, that the difficulty is<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>
+not so much to obtain game as to transport it
+safely home. Although our dogs were trained
+to run on a hundred yards in advance so as to
+give warning of the approach of a possible
+enemy&mdash;even this did not always save us. A
+big bag of game handicaps one severely in a
+cross-country run, and it is doubly galling to
+have to sacrifice it. Well, upon the particular
+occasion to which I refer there was to be a
+country funeral with a hearse from the neighbouring
+market town, and of this I was
+determined to take advantage. By arranging
+with the driver I was enabled to stow myself
+and a large haul in the body of the vehicle, and,
+although the journey was a cramped and stuffy
+one, we in time reached our destination. As
+we came behind the nearest game shop the
+driver undid the door, and the questionable
+corpse was safely landed.</p>
+
+<p>I need hardly say that in a long life of
+poaching there were many occasions when I
+was brought to book. These, however, would
+form but a small percentage of the times I was
+"out." My success in this way was probably<a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>
+owing to the fact that I was chary as to those
+I took into confidence, and knew that above
+all things keeping my own council was the
+best wisdom. Another moucher I knew,
+but with whom I would have nothing to
+do, was an instance of one who told poaching
+secrets to village gossips. The "Mole" spent
+most of <i>his</i> time in the county gaol, and just
+lately he completed his sixty-fifth incarceration&mdash;only
+a few of which were for offences outside
+the game laws. Well, there came a time
+when all the keepers round the country side
+had their revenge on me, and they made the
+most of it. I and my companion were fairly
+caught by being driven into an ambuscade by
+a combination of keepers. Exultant in my capture,
+the keepers from almost every estate in
+the neighbourhood flocked to witness my conviction.
+Some of them who had at times only
+seen a vanishing form in the darkness, now
+attended to see the man, as they put it. As I
+had always been followed at nights by an old
+black bitch, she, too, was produced in court,
+and proved an object of much curiosity. Well,<a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>
+our case was called, and, as we had no good
+defence to set up, it was agreed that my companion
+should do the talking. Without letting
+it appear so, we had a very definite object in
+prolonging the hearing of the case. There was
+never any great inclination to hurry such
+matters, as the magistrates always seemed to
+enjoy them. "We had been taken in the act,"
+my co-worker told the bench. "We deserved
+no quarter, and asked none. Poaching was
+right by the Bible, but wrong by the law,"&mdash;and
+so he was rushing on. One of the Justices
+deigned to remark that it was a question of
+"property" not morality. "Oh!" rejoined
+the "Otter," "because blue blood doesn't run<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>
+in my veins that's no reason why I shouldn't
+have my share. But <a name="tn_png_147"></a><!--TN: "its" changed to "it's"-->it's a queer kind of
+property that's yours in that field, mine on the
+turnpike, and a third man's over the next
+fence." The end of it was, however, a fine of
+£5, with an alternative. And so the case
+ended. But that day the keepers and their
+assistants had forgotten the first principles of
+watching. The best keeper is the one that is
+the least seen. Only let the poacher know his
+whereabouts, and the latter's work is easy. It
+was afterwards remarked that during our trial
+not a poacher was in court. To any keeper
+skilled in his craft this fact must have appeared
+unusual&mdash;and significant. It became even more
+so when both of us were released by reason of
+our heavy fine having been paid the same
+evening. Most of the keepers had had their
+day out, and were making the most of it.
+Had their heads not been muddled they might
+have seen more than one woman labouring
+under loaded baskets near the local game
+dealers; these innocently covered with mantling
+cresses, and so, at the time, escaping<a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>
+suspicion. Upon the memorable day the
+pheasants had been fed by unseen hands&mdash;and
+had vanished. The only traces left by the
+covert side were fluffy feathers everywhere.
+Few hares remained on the land; the rest had
+either been snared or netted at the gates. The
+rabbits' burrows had been ferreted, the ferrets
+having been slyly borrowed at the keeper's
+cottage during his absence for the occasion. I
+may say that, in connection with this incident,
+we always claimed to poach square, and drew
+the line at home-reared pheasants&mdash;allowing
+them "property." Those found wild in the
+woods were on a different footing, and we directed
+our whole knowledge of woodcraft
+against them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i036.png" border="0" alt="Two Men in Court" title="" width="700" height="330"></div>
+
+
+<p>Here is another "court" incident, in which
+I and my companion played a part. We came
+in contact with the law just sufficient to make
+us know something of its bearings. When
+charged with being in possession of "game"
+we reiterated the old argument that rabbits
+were vermin&mdash;but it rarely stood us in good
+stead. On one occasion, however, we scored.<a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>
+Being committed for two months for "night
+poaching," we respectfully informed the presiding
+Justice that, at the time of our capture,
+the sun had risen an hour; and further, that
+the law did not allow more than half the sentence
+just passed upon us. Our magistrate
+friend&mdash;to whom I have more than once referred&mdash;was
+on the bench, and he told his
+brother Justices that he thought there was
+something in the contention. The old Clerk
+looked crabbed as he fumbled for his horn
+spectacles, and, after turning over a book
+called "Stone's Justices' Manual," he solemnly
+informed the bench that defendants in their
+interpretation were right. We naturally remember
+this little incident, and as the law has
+had the whip hand of us upon so many occasions,
+chuckle over it.</p>
+
+<p>We invariably made friends with the stone-breakers
+by the road-sides, and just as invariably
+carried about us stone-breakers'
+hammers, and "preserves" for the eyes.
+When hard pressed, and if unknown to the
+pursuing keeper, nothing is easier than to dis<a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>miss
+the dog, throw off one's coat, plump
+down upon the first stone heap on the road,
+and go to work. If the thing is neatly done,
+and the "preserves" cover the face, it is
+wonderful how often this ruse is successful.
+The keeper may put a hasty question, but he
+oftener rushes after his man. Mention of
+stone-heaps reminds me of the fact that they
+are better "hides" for nets than almost anything
+else, especially the larger unbroken
+heaps. We invariably hid our big cumbrous
+fishing nets beneath them, and the stones
+were just as invariably true to their trust.</p>
+
+<p>Going back to my earliest poaching days I
+remember a cruel incident which had a very
+different ending to what its author intended.
+A young keeper had made a wager that he
+would effect my capture within a certain number
+of days, and my first intimation of this
+fact was a sickening sight which I discovered
+in passing down a woodland glade just at dawn
+on a bright December morning. I heard a
+groan, and a few yards in front saw a man
+stretched across the ride. His clothes were<a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>
+covered with hoar frost, he was drenched in
+blood, and the poor fellow's pale face showed
+me that of the keeper. He was held fast in a
+man-trap which had terribly lacerated his
+lower limbs. He was conscious, but quite
+exhausted. Although in great agony he suffered
+me to carry him to a neighbouring hay-rick,
+from whence we removed him to his
+cottage. He recovered slowly, and the man-trap
+which he had set the night before was, I
+believe, the last ever used in that district.</p>
+
+<a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i037.png" border="0" alt="Injured Man being Carried" title="" width="448" height="700"></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>
+
+<a name="CHAPTER_11" id="CHAPTER_11"></a>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i038.png" border="0" alt="Chapter 11." title="" width="700" height="322"></div>
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 20%;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.06em;">
+<h2 class="smcap">Personal Encounters.</h2>
+
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i007_worda.png" width="236" height="60" alt="When" title="">
+</div>
+<div class="figparts1">
+<img class="parts" src="images/i007_wordb.png" width="118" height="43" alt="" title="">
+</div>
+<p style="text-indent: 0em;">I had finished the last chapter
+I thought I had completed my work,
+but the gentleman who is to edit
+these "Confessions" now tells me that I am
+to confess more. He reminds me that I
+cannot have been an active poacher nearly all
+my life without having had numerous personal<a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>
+encounters with keepers and others. And in
+this he is right. But there is some difficulty in
+my additional task for the following reasons:
+I have never cared to take much credit to
+myself for having broken the head of a keeper,
+and there is but little pleasure to me in recounting
+the occasions when keepers have
+broken mine. However, speaking of broken
+heads reminds me of an incident which was
+amusing, though, at the time, somewhat painful
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>One night in November when the trees were
+bare, and the pheasants had taken to the
+branches, we were in a mixed wood of pine
+and beech. A good many birds roosted on
+its confines, and, to a practised eye, were not
+difficult to see against the moon as they
+sat on the lower limbs of the trees, near the
+trunks. I and my companion had old, strong
+guns with barrels filed down, and, as we
+got very near to the birds, we were using
+small charges of powder. As the night was
+windy the shots would not be heard very far,
+and we felt fairly safe. When we had obtained<a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>
+about three brace of birds, however, I
+heard a sudden crash among the underwood,
+when I immediately jumped behind the bole of
+a tree, and kept closely against it.</p>
+
+<p>The head-keeper had my companion down
+before he could resist, and I only remained
+undiscovered for a few seconds. One of the
+under-keepers seized me, but, being a good
+wrestler, I soon threw him into a dense brake
+of brambles and blackthorn. Then I bolted
+with the third man close behind. I could
+easily have outrun him over the rough country
+that lay outside the wood, but&mdash;ah! these
+"buts"&mdash;there was a stiff stone fence fully
+five feet high betwixt me and the open. Unless
+I could "fly" the fence he would have
+me. I clutched my pockets, steadied myself
+for the leap&mdash;and then sprang. I heard my
+pursuer stop for a second to await the issue.
+Weighted as I was I caught the coping, and
+fell back heavily into the wood. As soon as
+the keeper saw I was down he rushed forward
+and hit me heavily on the head with a stave.
+The sharp corner cut right through the skin,<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>
+and blood spurted out in little jets. Then I
+turned about, determined to close with my
+opponent if he was inclined for further roughness.
+But he was not. When he saw that
+the blood was almost blinding me he dropped
+his hedge-stake, and ran, apparently terrified
+at what he had done. I leaned for a few
+moments against the wall, then dragged myself
+over, and started for a stream which ran down
+the field. But I felt weaker at every step, and
+soon crept into a bed of tall brackens, and
+plugged the wound in my head with a handful
+of wet moss, keeping it in position with my
+neckerchief. After this I munched some
+bread and hard cheese, sucked the dew from
+the fern fronds, and then fell into a broken
+sleep. I must have slept for four or five
+hours, when I woke thirsty and feverish, and
+very weak. I tried to walk, but again and
+again fell down. Then I crawled for about a
+hundred yards, but this caused my wound to
+bleed afresh, and I fainted. Just as day was
+coming a farm labourer came across, and
+kindly helped me to his cottage. He and his<a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>
+wife bathed my head and eyes, and then assisted
+me to the bed from which they had just
+risen. At noon I was able to take some bread
+and milk, and at night, an hour after darkness
+had fallen, I was able to start for home.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the sequel came in due time. We
+each received a summons (my companion had
+been released after identification), we were
+tried in about a fortnight from the date of our
+capture. There was a full bench of Magistrates;
+my companion pleaded guilty (with a view to a
+lenient sentence); myself&mdash;not guilty. In the
+first instance the case was clear, but not one of
+the three keepers (to their credit) would swear
+to me. They looked me carefully over, particularly
+my assailant. He was reminded that
+it was a fine, moonlight night. Yes, but his
+man, he thought, was taller, was more strongly
+built, and looked pale and haggard&mdash;no, he
+would not say that I was the man&mdash;in short, he
+thought I was not. Then came my innings.
+The keeper had sworn that, after running a
+mile, the poacher he chased had turned on him,
+and threatened to "do for him," if he advanced;<a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>
+that he had hit him on the head with
+his stick, and must have wounded him
+severely. He was also careful to explain that
+he had done this in "self defence." I then
+pointed out to the "bench" that it was no
+longer a matter of opinion; that I claimed to
+have my head examined, and asked that the
+Police Superintendent, who was conducting
+the case, should settle the point.</p>
+
+<p>But my assumption of an air of injured innocence
+had already done its work, and the
+presiding Magistrate said there was no evidence
+against me; that the case as against me
+was dismissed.</p>
+
+<p>I had hard work to get out of the box
+without smiling, for even then the pain in my
+head was acute, and I was not right for weeks
+after. I knew, however, that my wound was a
+dangerous possession, and close attention to
+my thick, soft hair, enabled me to hide it, always
+providing that it was not too closely
+examined. My companion was less fortunate,
+and his share of the proceedings, poor fellow,
+was "two months."<a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i039.png" border="0" alt="Two Men by a Burning Hut" title="" width="700" height="533"></div>
+
+
+<p>Here is the record of another encounter.
+There was a certain wood, the timber in which
+had been felled and carted. It had previously
+contained a good deal of "coppice," and after
+the wood-cutters had done their work, this
+had been utilized by the charcoal burners.
+The ashes from the charcoal had promoted
+quite an unseasonable growth, and everywhere
+about the stoles of the ash roots and hazel
+snags, fresh green grass and clover were
+springing. The hares on the neighbouring
+estate had found out this, and came nightly
+to the clearing to feed. As there were neither
+gaps nor gates we found it impossible to
+net them, and so had to resort to another
+device. Before the wood had been cleared
+rabbits had swarmed in it, and these had found
+ingress and egress through "smoots" in the
+stone fences. Upon examination we found that
+the larger of these were regularly used by our
+quarry, and, as we could not net them, we
+determined to plant a purse net at every smoot,
+drive the wood with fast dogs, and so bag our
+game. When everything was ready the lurchers<a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>
+commenced their work, and, thoroughly
+grasping the programme, worked up to it
+admirably. Each dog that "found" drove its
+hare fast and furiously (this was necessary),
+and, in an hour, a dozen were bagged. There
+was only this disadvantage. The wood was so
+large, the smoots so far apart, that many
+of the hares screamed for some seconds before
+they could be dispatched. The continuance
+of this screaming brought up the keepers, and
+our game was up, and with it what we had
+bagged. The watchers numbered four or five,
+and, leaving everything, we ran. In our line
+of retreat was an abandoned hut built by the
+charcoal burners, consisting of poles, with
+heather and fern for roof and sides. We made
+for this, hoping, in the darkness, to elude
+our pursuers, then double in our tracks
+as soon as they had passed. But they were
+not so easily deceived. As soon as the
+crackling of the dead sticks caused by our
+tread had ceased, they evidently suspected
+some trick, and knew that we were still in the
+wood. And the hut was the first object of<a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>
+search. As they were quite unaware of our
+number they declined to enter, but invited us
+into the open. We replied by barricading the
+narrow doorway with poles and planks which
+we found within. Of course this was only
+completing our imprisonment, but we felt that
+one or more of their number would be sent for
+<a name="tn_png_162"></a><!--TN: "fnrther" changed to "further"-->further help, and that then we would make a
+dash to escape. We agreed to take off in
+different directions, to divide the attacking
+force, and then lead them across the roughest
+country we could find. A deep stream was
+not far off, and here we would probably
+escape. But our scheme went wrong&mdash;or,
+rather, we had no opportunity to put it into
+practice. After waiting and listening awhile
+we saw lights glisten in the chinks of the
+heather walls, and then fumes of smoke began
+to creep up them. They were burning us out.
+Quietly as we could we undid the barricading,
+and, as the air rushed in, tiny tongues of flame
+shot up the heather. Now we lay low with
+our faces on the damp floor. Then a pole was
+thrust through. Another current of air and<a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>
+the flames shot everywhere. The thick smoke
+nearly stifled us, and the heat became intense.
+The fire ran up the poles, and burning bits of
+the heather roof began to fall. Then came the
+crisis. A fir pole had been raised without,
+and then was to crash through the hut. This
+was the first outside proceeding we had
+seen&mdash;we saw it through the riddled walls.
+As soon as the men loosed their hold of the
+tree for its fall we sprang from the doorway;
+and then for a few seconds the sight was magnificent.
+As the roof crashed in the whole
+hut was one bright mass of flame, and a sheet
+of fire shot upwards into the night. The
+burning brackens and ling sent out myriads of
+sparks, and these falling around gave us a few
+seconds' start. As agreed, we each hurled
+a burning brand among the keepers, then disappeared
+in the darkness. Certainly no one
+followed us out of the wood. We had simply
+scored by lying low with the fire about us,
+taking advantage of the confusion and dazzling
+light, and then knowing our way out of the
+difficulty. The squire's son, we saw, was one<a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>
+of the attacking party. We were a bit burnt,
+we lost the game and nets, but were quite
+content to have escaped so easily.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i040.png" border="0" alt="Two Men in a Tree" title="" width="700" height="466"></div>
+
+
+<p>There is another incident which I have
+good cause to remember all my life. It is of
+a somewhat different nature to the foregoing,
+and occurred on the estuary of the river which
+I used frequently to net with good results.
+Someone who was certainly not very friendly
+disposed had seen me and my companion start
+for our fishing ground, and had made the most of
+their knowledge. After getting to the near
+vicinity of our work, we lay down beneath a
+hay-rick to wait for a degree of darkness.
+Then we crawled on hands and knees by the
+side of a fence until it brought us to a familiar
+pool which we knew to be well stocked with
+salmon and trout. As we surveyed the water
+we heard voices, and knew that the pool was
+watched. These sounds seemed to come from
+the lower limbs of a big tree, and soon one of
+the watchers hidden in the branches stupidly
+struck a match to light his pipe. This not
+only frescoed two forms against the night, but<a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>
+lit up their faces with a red glow. The discovery
+was a stroke of luck. We knew where
+we had the water bailiffs, and the rest was easy.
+We got quietly away from the spot, and soon
+were at work in a pool further up stream.
+No one but a gaunt heron objected to our
+fishing, and we made a splendid haul. The
+salmon and sea-trout had begun to run,
+and swarmed everywhere along the reaches.
+We hid our net in the "otter" holes, and,
+under heavy loads, made for home across the
+meadows. We were well aware that the local
+police changed duty at six in the morning, and
+timed our entry into town precisely at that
+hour. But our absence of the previous night
+had gone further abroad, and the local Angling
+Association, the Conservancy Board, and the
+police had each interested themselves in our
+doings. It was quite unsafe to hide the spoil,
+as was usual, and home it must be carried. I
+was now alone. In the open I felt comparatively
+safe, but as I neared my destination
+I knew not whom I should meet round the
+next turn. Presently, however, it seemed as<a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>
+though I was in luck. Every wall, every
+hedgerow, every mound aided my going.
+Now a dash across an open field would land
+me almost at my own door. Then I should
+be safe. I had hardly had time to congratulate
+myself on my getting in unobserved when a
+constable, then a second, and a third were all
+tearing down upon me from watch points, where
+they had been in hiding. The odds were against
+me, but I grasped my load desperately, drew
+it tightly upon my shoulders, and ran. The
+police had thrown down their capes, and were
+rapidly gaining upon me. I got into a long
+slouching trot, however, determined to make
+a desperate effort to get in, where I should
+have been safe. This they knew. Strong
+and fleet as I was I was too heavily handicapped,
+but I felt that even though I fell
+exhausted on the other side of the door-way, I
+would gain it. My pursuers&mdash;all heavy men&mdash;were
+blown, and in trouble, and I knew there
+was now no obstacle before me. Now it was
+only a distance of twenty yards&mdash;now a dozen.
+The great thuds of the men's feet were close<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>
+upon me, and they breathed like beaten
+horses. My legs trembled beneath me, and
+I was blinded by perspiration. "Seize him,"
+"seize him," gasped the sergeant&mdash;but I was
+only a yard from the door. With a desperate
+feeling that I had won, I grasped the handle
+and threw my whole weight and that of my
+load against the door, only to find it&mdash;locked.
+I fell back on to the stones, and the stern
+chase was ended.</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding-bottom:1em;padding-top:1em;"><img src="images/i041.png" border="0" alt="Constables Looking at Large Pile of Fish" title="" width="700" height="574"></div>
+
+<p>For a minute nobody spoke&mdash;nobody was
+able to. I lay where I fell, and the men
+leaned against what was nearest them. Then
+the sergeant condescended to say "poor beggar"&mdash;and
+we all moved off. The fish were
+turned out on the grass in the police station
+yard, and were a sight to see. There were
+ninety trout, thirty-seven salmon-morts, and
+two salmon. I was not detained. One
+of the men handed me a mort, telling
+me I would be ready for a substantial breakfast.
+I knew what it all meant, and first
+thought of bolting, then settled that I
+would do as I had always done&mdash;face it out.<a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>
+But I little knew what this meant, as will
+presently be seen. I knew sufficient of the law
+to forsee that I should be charged with trespassing;
+with night poaching; with being in
+illegal possession of fish; with illegally killing
+and taking salmon; perhaps other counts
+besides. But what I did <i>not</i> know was that I
+should be charged, in addition, with being in
+illegal possession of one hundred and twenty-nine
+salmon and trout <i>during the close season</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>And this is how it came about. There had
+been an agitation throughout the whole of the
+Conservancy district. It was contended that
+the fishing season extended too far into Autumn
+by a fortnight&mdash;that by that time the fish
+had begun to spawn. The old condition of
+things had held for years, and the new Conservancy
+bye-laws had only just come into
+operation. And so I was trapped. The case
+came on, and a great shoal of magistrates with it.
+Two of them were personally interested, and
+were charitable enough to retire from the Bench&mdash;they
+pushed their chairs back about an inch
+from the table. I pleaded guilty to all the<a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>
+charges except the last, and explained the case as
+clearly as I could. The Conservancy solicitor,
+who prosecuted, did then what he had never
+done before. It was a bad case he said, but
+added that I had never before been charged
+with netting during "close-time," and had never
+used lime or other wholesale methods of poisoning.
+He pointed out, too, to the presiding
+Justice that I always claimed to "poach
+square"&mdash;at which all the young ones laughed.
+He did not press for the heaviest penalty.
+But this was quite unnecessary, as I got it
+without. I never quite understood how they
+made it up, but I was fined ninety-seven
+pounds. I told the Chairman that I should
+pay it "in kind," and went to "hard" for nine
+months.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>
+<div style="margin-left:10%;margin-right:10%;line-height:1em;">
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1em;padding-top:1em;padding-bottom:.1em;margin-right:10%;margin-left:10%;">
+WORKS BY JOHN WATSON.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:.06em;">
+<hr style="width: 30%;margin-bottom:.05em;margin-top:.06em;">
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1.2em;margin-top:.8em;margin-bottom:.3em;">NATURE AND WOODCRAFT.</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="line-height:1.5em;font-weight: normal;font-size: 1em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:.6em;">Crown 8vo, 5/.<br>
+With Illustrations by G.&nbsp;E.&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Lodge</span>.</p>
+<hr style="width: 10%;margin-bottom:.8em;margin-top:.5em;">
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-size: 1em;margin-top:.2em;margin-bottom:.05em;">LONDON: SMITH &amp; INNES.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 80%;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;">
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1.2em;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;">SYLVAN FOLK:</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="line-height:1.5em;font-weight: normal;font-size: 1em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:.6em;"><span class="smcap">SKETCHES OF BIRD AND ANIMAL LIFE IN BRITAIN.</span><br>
+Crown 8vo, 3/6.</p>
+<hr style="width: 10%;margin-bottom:.8em;margin-top:.5em;">
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-size: 1em;margin-top:.2em;margin-bottom:.05em;">LONDON: T.&nbsp;FISHER UNWIN.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 80%;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;">
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1.2em;margin-top:.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;">BRITISH SPORTING FISHES.</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-size: 1em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:.8em;">Crown 8vo, with Frontispiece, 3/6.</p>
+<hr style="width: 10%;margin-bottom:.8em;margin-top:.5em;">
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-size: 1em;margin-top:.2em;margin-bottom:.05em;">LONDON: CHAPMAN &amp; HALL.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 80%;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;">
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-style:italic;font-size: 1em;margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:.8em;">IN THE PRESS.</p>
+<hr style="width: 10%;margin-bottom:.8em;margin-top:.5em;">
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1.2em;margin-top:.1em;margin-bottom:0em;">THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY.</p>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-style:italic;font-size: 1em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:.5em;">Crown 8vo, 286 pp., cloth, 3s. 6d.</p>
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 2em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:0em;">SYLVAN FOLK:</p>
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1.2em;margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:.5em;padding-bottom:0em;">Sketches of Bird and Animal Life in Britain,</p>
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-size: .75em;margin-top:.1em;margin-bottom:0em;">BY</p>
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-size: 1.5em;margin-top:.3em;margin-bottom:0em;">JOHN WATSON, F.L.S.,</p>
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-style:italic;font-size: 1em;margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:.5em;">Author of "Nature and Woodcraft," etc.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;margin-top:1.25em;margin-bottom:1.25em;">
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1em;margin-top:0.1em;margin-bottom:.5em;">NOTICES OF THE PRESS.</p>
+
+
+<p class="blockquot">"Written by a born naturalist.... Characterised by that indefinable
+something which distinguishes the observer of the fields and woods from the
+mere book student."&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"It is this freshness, this out-door atmosphere, that gives its charm to these
+sketches of bird and animal life, and that leads the reader along in fascinated
+interest from the first to the last page."&mdash;<i>Literary World.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"May be placed on the same shelf with that of the greatest of all writers
+on English rural life without any quarrel being incurred.... At once a
+morally bracing and most instructive book."&mdash;<i>Christian Leader.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"He fully deserves the high compliment of being compared with Jefferies....
+This beautiful book, in which a zoologist might find new facts, a
+poet light, and any thoughtful reader an inspiration."&mdash;<i>Fishing Gazette.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"There is the same enthusiasm and sincerity that marked Jefferies' work.
+Mr. Watson always writes like a man who has his eye on his subject. 'Nature
+by Night' is a thoroughly charming prose idyl, every detail in which is obviously
+taken at first hand from <a name="tn_png_177"></a><!--TN: Single quote changed to double quote after "Nature."-->Nature."&mdash;<i>Observer.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"Full of delicate description as enchanting as a fairy tale. Dull indeed
+must be the reader who is insensible to its delightful charm.... Does the
+increase of such books mean that we are tired of the civilisation of the streets,
+and are ready to turn back for a while to the relics of a freer and wilder state?"&mdash;<i>Manchester
+Examiner.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"After the laboured imitations of Jefferies, Mr. Watson's 'Sylvan Folk'
+comes like a breath of sweet country air into the atmosphere of an emporium
+of stuffed birds and calico flowers. A sympathetic, keen-eyed, worshipful observer
+of Nature, Mr. Watson writes with the simplicity and directness
+of a man who knows what he is about. There is not an uninteresting page in
+'Sylvan Folk' from first to last."&mdash;<i>Echo.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"He knows how to interpret many of the innumerable signs and symbols
+which are readily misunderstood, or altogether overlooked, by less careful
+inquirers.... His descriptions are so fresh&mdash;they suggest so vividly the
+idea of happy hours spent among attractive scenes in the open air&mdash;that they
+will give genuine pleasure to everyone who reads them."&mdash;<i>Nature.</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 40%;margin-top:.8em;margin-bottom:.8em;">
+<p class="center blockquot"><span class="smcap">London</span>: T. FISHER UNWIN, <span class="smcap">Paternoster Square</span>, E.C.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" class="newpg"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-style:italic;font-size: 1em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:.5em;">Crown 8vo, 302 pp., cloth, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 2em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:0em;">NATURE AND WOODCRAFT</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-size: .75em;margin-top:.1em;margin-bottom:0em;">BY</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-size: 1.5em;margin-top:.3em;margin-bottom:0em;">JOHN WATSON, F.L.S.,</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: normal;font-style:italic;font-size: 1em;margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:.5em;">Author of "Sylvan Folk," &amp;c.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;margin-top:1.25em;margin-bottom:1.25em;">
+
+<p class="center" style="font-weight: bold;font-size: 1em;margin-top:0.1em;margin-bottom:.5em;">NOTICES OF THE PRESS.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"A delightfully fresh and enjoyable book. Those who know the open air
+and the life of animated nature will enjoy the skill with which Mr. Watson
+translates its aspects and its actions into literary expression. Those who dwell
+in cities will enjoy it because the papers induce the illusion that one is in the
+country."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"Written with real ability as well as adequate knowledge. On every page
+there is evidence of genuine though never paraded enthusiasm for the calm
+delights of the country. Mr. Watson writes in a clear and attractive manner,
+and one, moreover, around which an imaginative glamour rests."&mdash;<i>Leeds Mercury.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"Mr. Watson writes effectively, from the accumulations of years of close
+observation of nature. Since the death of Mr. Jefferies few living writers can
+compete with him in this particular path of literature."&mdash;<i>Bookseller.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"This is the best <a name="tn_png_178"></a><!--TN: "witten" changed to "written"-->written and most valuable of Mr. Watson's books. Best of
+all are his chapters on the old Statesman theory of life in the North."&mdash;<i>Academy.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"Nothing can be better than all those chapters which describe life among
+the Cumbrian mountains; this is Mr. Watson's real theme, and he deserves
+all the thanks we can give him for executing it with such true feeling."&mdash;<i>Manchester
+Guardian.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"Mr. Watson's volume 'Nature and Woodcraft' deserves a hearty welcome,
+and will doubtless get it. He writes with a grace and fluency that make his
+book hard to leave."&mdash;<i>Yorkshire Post.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"Many admirers of Richard Jefferies will be glad to see that one still lives
+who can write so charmingly of nature and woodcraft."&mdash;<i>Perthshire Advertiser.</i></p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"As an observer pure and simple, and as a bright and pleasing recorder,
+Mr. Watson can hold his own with anybody; and his range is sufficiently
+extensive to secure, in addition to all other charms, the charm of variety."&mdash;<i>Manchester
+Examiner.</i></p>
+
+
+<div style="border: dashed 1px;margin-left:10%;margin-right:10%;margin-top:2em;">
+<div style="margin-left:10%;margin-right:10%;">
+<h2 style="padding-top:.75em;">Transcriber's Note</h2>
+
+<p>Illustrations have been moved near the relevant section of the text.</p>
+<p>Page numbers are documented as links within the source code.</p>
+
+<p>Inconsistencies have been retained in hyphenation and grammar, except
+where indicated in the list below.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a list of the minor typographical corrections made:</p>
+<div style="margin-left:15%;margin-right:15%;">
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_18">"curiouly" changed to "curiously"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_22">Period added after "2"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_25">"the the" changed to "the"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_25a">"avourable" changed to "favourable"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_35">Period moved from after "Chapter" to after "3"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_41">"sucseeded" changed to "succeeded"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_42">"succesfully" changed to "successfully"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_48">"dfficult" changed to "difficult"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_68">Period added after "apart"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_72">Period added after "day"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_95">"croocked" changed to "crooked"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_117">"difficut" changed to "difficult"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_119">"is is" changed to "is"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_127">"an" changed to "and"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_127a">"ha" changed to "has"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_127b">"troub" changed to "trouble"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_129">"alwasy" changed to "always"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_140">Comma removed after "Bench"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_147">"its" changed to "it's"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_162">"fnrther" changed to "further"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_177">Single quote changed to double quote after "Nature."</a></li>
+<li><a href="#tn_png_178">"witten" changed to "written"</a></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Confessions of a Poacher, by Anonymous
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Confessions of a Poacher, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Confessions of a Poacher
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Editor: John Watson
+
+Illustrator: James West
+
+Release Date: August 4, 2011 [EBook #36970]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONFESSIONS OF A POACHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Linda Hamilton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+"Poaching is one of the fine arts--how 'fine' only the initiated
+know."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE SQUIRE'S KEEPER.]
+
+
+
+
+  The
+  Confessions
+  of a
+  Poacher
+
+  EDITED BY
+  JOHN WATSON, F.L.S.,
+  Author of "Nature and Woodcraft," "Sylvan Folk," &c., &c.
+
+  ILLUSTRATED BY
+  JAMES WEST.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  LONDON:
+  The Leadenhall Press, 50, Leadenhall Street, E.C.
+  _Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd:
+  New York: Scribner & Welford, 743 & 745, Broadway._
+  1890.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+  THE LEADENHALL PRESS,
+  50, LEADENHALL STREET, LONDON, E.C.
+  T 4,463.
+
+
+
+
+EDITORIAL NOTE.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+The poacher of these "Confessions" is no imaginary being. In the
+following pages I have set down nothing but what has come within his own
+personal experience; and, although the little book is full of strange
+inconsistencies, I cannot, knowing the man, call them by a harder name.
+Nature made old "Phil" a Poacher, but she made him a Sportsman and a
+Naturalist at the same time. I never met any man who was in closer
+sympathy with the wild creatures about him; and never dog or child came
+within his influence but what was permanently attracted by his
+personality. Although eighty years of age there is still some of the old
+erectness in his carriage; some of the old fire in his eyes. As a young
+man he was handsome, though now his features are battered out of all
+original conception. His silvery hair still covers a lion-like head, and
+his tanned cheeks are hard and firm. If his life has been a lawless one
+he has paid heavily for his wrong doings. Great as a poacher, he must
+have been great whatever he had been. In my boyhood he was the hero whom
+I worshipped, and I hardly know that I have gone back on my loyalty.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+  CHAPTER.                         PAGE.
+
+  1. THE EMBRYO POACHER            7
+
+  2. UNDER THE NIGHT               19
+
+  3. GRADUATING IN WOODCRAFT       32
+
+  4. PARTRIDGE POACHING            45
+
+  5. HARE POACHING                 57
+
+  6. PHEASANT POACHING             74
+
+  7. SALMON AND TROUT POACHING     90
+
+  8. GROUSE POACHING               109
+
+  9. RABBIT POACHING               123
+
+  10. TRICKS                       135
+
+  11. PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS          151
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF A POACHER.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 1.
+
+THE EMBRYO POACHER.
+
+
+I do not remember the time when I was not a poacher; and if I may say
+so, I believe our family has always had a genius for woodcraft.
+
+I was bred on the outskirts of a sleepy town in a good game country, and
+my depredations were mostly when the Game Laws were less rigorously
+enforced than now. Our home was roughly adorned in fur and feather, and
+a number of gaunt lurchers always constituted part of the family. An
+almost passionate love of nature, summers of birds' nesting, and a life
+spent almost wholly out of doors constituted an admirable training for
+an embryo poacher. If it is true that poets are born, not made, it is
+equally so of poachers. The successful "moucher" must be an inborn
+naturalist--must have much in common with the creatures of the fields
+and woods around him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There is a miniature bird and animal fauna which constitutes as
+important game to the young poacher as any he is likely to come across
+in after life. There are mice, shrews, voles, for all of which he sets
+some primitive snare and captures. The silky-coated moles in their runs
+offer more serious work, and being most successfully practised at night,
+offers an additional charm. Then there are the red-furred squirrels
+which hide among the delicate leaves of the beeches and run up their
+grey boles--fairy things that offer an endless subject of delight to any
+young savage, and their capturing draws largely upon his inventive
+genius. A happy hunting ground is furnished by farmers who require a lad
+to keep the birds from their young wheat or corn, as when their services
+are required the country is all like a garden. At this time the birds
+seem creatures born of the sun, and not only are they seen in their
+brightest plumage, but when indulging in all their love frolics. By
+being employed by the farmers the erstwhile poacher is brought right
+into the heart of the land, and the knowledge of woodcraft and rural
+life he there acquires is never forgotten. As likely as not a ditch runs
+by the side of the wheat fields, and here the water-hen leads out her
+brood. To the same spot the birds come at noon to indulge their mid-day
+_siesta_, and in the deep hole at the end of the cut a shoal of silvery
+roach fall and rise towards the warm sunlight. Or a brook, which is a
+tiny trout stream, babbles on through the meadows and pastures, and has
+its attractions too. A stream is always the chief artery of the land,
+as in it are found the life-giving elements. All the birds, all the
+plants, flock to its banks, and its wooded sides are hushed by the
+subdued hum of insects. There are tall green brackens--brackens
+unfurling their fronds to the light, and full of the atoms of beautiful
+summer. At the bend of the stream is a lime, and you may almost see its
+glutinous leaves unfolding to the light. Its winged flowers are infested
+with bees. It has a dead bough almost at the bottom of its bole, and
+upon it there sits a grey-brown bird. Ever and anon it darts for a
+moment, hovers over the stream, and then returns to its perch. A hundred
+times it flutters, secures its insect prey, and takes up its old
+position on the stump. Bronze fly, bluebottle, and droning bee are
+secured alike, for all serve as food to the loveable pied fly-catcher.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is the time of the bloom of the first June rose; and here, by the
+margin of the wood, all the ground by fast falling blossom is littered.
+Every blade teems with life, and the air is instinct with the very
+breath of being. Birds' sounds are coming from over and under--from
+bough and brake, and a harmonious discord is flooded from the
+neighbouring copse. The oak above my head is a murmurous haunt of summer
+wings, and wood pigeons coo from the beeches. The air is still, and
+summer is on my cheek; arum, wood-sorrel, and celandine mingle at my
+feet. The starlings are half buried in the fresh green grass, their
+metallic plumage flashing in the sun. Cattle are lazily lying dotted
+over the meadows, and the stream is done in a setting of green and gold.
+Swallows, skimming the pools, dip in the cool water, and are
+gone--leaving a sweet commotion in ever widening circles long after they
+have flown. A mouse-like creeper alights at the foot of a thorn, and
+runs nimbly up the bark; midway it enters a hole in which is its nest.
+A garrulous blue-winged jay chatters from the tall oak, and purple rooks
+are picking among the corn. Butterflies dally through the warm air, and
+insects swarm among the leaves and flowers of the hedge bottoms. A crake
+calls, now here, now far out yonder. Bluebells carpet the wood-margin,
+and the bog is bright with marsh plants.
+
+This, then, is the workshop of the young poacher, and here he receives
+his first impressions. Is it strange that a mighty yearning springs up
+within him to know more of nature's secrets? He finds himself in a fairy
+place, and all unconsciously drinks in its sweets. See him now deeply
+buried in a golden flood of marsh marigolds! See how he stands
+spellbound before saxifrages which cling to a dripping rock. Water
+avens, wild parsley, and campions crowd around him, and flags of the
+yellow and purple iris tower over all. He watches the doings of the
+reed-sparrows deep down in the flags, and sees a water-ouzel as it
+rummages among the pebbles at the bottom of the brook. The larvae of
+caddis flies, which cover the edge of the stream, are a curious mystery
+to him, and he sees the kingfisher dart away as a bit of green light.
+Small silvery trout, which rise in the pool, tempt him to try for them
+with a crooked pin, and even now with success. He hears the cuckoos
+crying and calling as they fly from tree to tree, and quite unexpectedly
+finds the nest of a yellow-hammer, between a willow and the bank,
+containing its curiously speckled eggs.
+
+Still the life, and the "hush," and the breath go on. Everything
+breathes, and moves, and has its being; the things of the day are the
+essence thereof. On the margin of the wood are a few young pines, their
+delicate plumes just touched with the loveliest green. An odour of
+resinous gum is wafted from them, and upon one of the slender sprays a
+pair of diminutive goldcrests have hung their procreant cradle. These
+things are enough to win any young Bohemian to their ways, and although
+as yet they only comprise "the country," soon their wondrous detail
+lures their lover on, and he seeks to satisfy the thirst within him by
+night as well as by day.
+
+Endless acquaintances are to be made in the fields, and those of the
+most pleasurable description. Nests containing young squirrels can be
+found in the larch tree tops, and any domestic tabby will suckle these
+delightful playthings. Young cushats and cushats' eggs can be obtained
+from their wicker-like nests, and sold in the villages. A prickly pet
+may be captured in a hedgehog trotting off through the long grass, and
+colonies of young wild rabbits may be dug from the mounds and braes. The
+skin of every velvety mole is one patch nearer the accomplishment of a
+warm, furry vest for winter, and this, if the pests of which it is
+comprised are the owner's taking, is worn with pardonable pride. A
+moleskin vest constitutes a graduation in woodcraft so to speak.
+Sometimes a brace of leverets are found in a tussocky grass clump, but
+these are more often allowed to remain than taken. And there are almost
+innumerable captures to be made among the feathered as well as furred
+things of the fields and woods. Chaffinches are taken in nooses among
+the corn, as are larks and buntings. Crisp cresses from the springs
+constitute an important source of income, and the embrowned nuts of
+autumn a harvest in themselves. It is during his early days of working
+upon the land that the erstwhile poacher learns of the rain-bringing
+tides; of the time of migration of birds; of the evening gamboling of
+hares; of the coming together of the partridge to roost; of the spawning
+of salmon and trout; and a hundred other scraps of knowledge which will
+serve him in good stead in his subsequent protest against the Game Laws.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Almost every young rustic who develops into a poacher has some such
+outdoor education as that sketched above. He has about him much ready
+animal ingenuity, and is capable of almost infinite resource. His snares
+and lines are constructed with his pocket knife, out of material he
+finds ready to hand in the woods. He early learns to imitate the call of
+the game birds, so accurately as to deceive even the birds themselves;
+and his weather-stained clothes seem to take on themselves the duns and
+browns and olives of the woods. A child brought up in the lap of Nature
+is invariably deeply marked with her impress, and we shall see to what
+end she has taught him.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 2.
+
+UNDER THE NIGHT.
+
+    Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
+    Had in her sober liv'ry all things clad.
+
+
+When the embryo poacher has once tasted the forbidden fruits of the
+land--and it matters not if his game be but field-mice and
+squirrels--there is only one thing wanting to win him completely to
+Nature's ways. This is that he shall see her sights and hear her sounds
+under the night. There is a charm about the night side of nature that
+the town dweller can never know. I have been once in London, and well
+remember what, as a country lad, impressed me most. It was the fact that
+I had, during the small hours of the morning, stood alone on London
+Bridge. The great artery of life was still; the pulse of the city had
+ceased to beat. Not a moving object was visible. Although bred among the
+lonely hills, I felt for the first time that this was to be alone; that
+this was solitude. I felt such a sense as Macaulay's New Zealander may
+experience when he sits upon the ruins of the same stupendous structure;
+and it was then for the first time I knew whence the inspiration, and
+felt the full force and realism of a line I had heard, "O God! the very
+houses seemed to sleep." I could detect no definite sound, only that
+vague and distant hum that for ever haunts and hangs over a great city.
+Then my thoughts flew homeward (to the fells and upland fields, to the
+cold mists by the river, to the deep and sombre woods). I had never
+observed such a time of quiet there; no absolute and general period of
+repose. There was always something abroad, some creature of the fields
+or woods, which by its voice or movements was betrayed. Just as in an
+old rambling house there are always strange noises that cannot be
+accounted for, so in the night-paths of nature there are innumerable
+sounds which can never be localised. To those, however, who pursue night
+avocations in the country, there are always calls and cries which
+bespeak life as animate under the night as that of the day. This is
+attributable to various animals and birds, to beetles, to night-flying
+insects, even to fish; and part of the education of the young poacher is
+to track these sounds to their source.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I have said that our family was a family of poachers. The old instinct
+was in us all, though I believe that the same wild spirit which drove
+us to the moor and covert at night was only the same as was strongly
+implanted in the breast of Lord ----, our neighbour, who was a
+legitimate sportsman and a Justice of the Peace. If we were not allowed
+to see much real poaching when we were young we saw a good deal of the
+preparations for it. As the leaves began to turn in autumn there was
+great activity in our old home among nets and snares. When wind and
+feather were favourable, late afternoon brought home my father, and his
+wires and nets were already spread on the clean sanded floor. There was
+a peg to sharpen, or a broken mesh to mend. Every now and then he would
+look out on the darkening night, always directing his glance upward. The
+two dogs would whine impatiently to be gone, and in an hour, with bulky
+pockets, he would start, striking right across the land and away from
+the high road. The dogs would prick out their ears on the track, but
+stuck doggedly to his heels; and then, as we watched, the darkness would
+blot him out of the landscape, and we turned with our mother to the
+fireside. In summer we saw little but the "breaking" of the lurchers.
+These dogs take long to train, but, when perfected, are invaluable. All
+the best lurchers are the produce of a cross between the sheep-dog and
+greyhound, a combination which secures the speed and silence of the one,
+and the "nose" of the other. From the batches of puppies we always saved
+such as were rough-coated, as these were better able to stand the
+exposure of long, cold nights. In colour the best are fawn or
+brown--some shade which assimilates well to the duns and browns and
+yellows of the fields and woods; but our extended knowledge of the dogs
+came in after years.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The oak gun-rack in our old home contained a motley collection of
+fowling pieces, mostly with the barrels filed down. This was that the
+pieces might be more conveniently stowed away in the pocket until it was
+policy to have them out. The guns showed every graduation in age, size,
+and make, and among them was an old flint-lock which had been in the
+family for generations. This heirloom was often surreptitiously stolen
+away, and then we were able to bring down larger game. Wood pigeons were
+waited for in the larches, and shot as they came to roost. The crakes
+were called by the aid of a small "crank," and shot as they emerged from
+the lush summer grass. Large numbers of green plover were bagged from
+time to time, and often in winter we had a chance at their grey cousins,
+the whistling species. Both these fed in the water-meadows through
+winter, and the former were always abundant. In spring, "trips" of rare
+dotterel often led us about the higher hills for days, and sometimes we
+had to stay all night on the mountain. Then we were up with the first
+gray light in the morning, and generally managed to bring down a few
+birds. The feathers of these are extremely valuable for fishing, and my
+father invariably supplied them to the county justices who lived near
+us. He trained a dog to hunt dotterel, and so find their nests, and in
+this was most successful--more so than an eminent naturalist who spent
+five consecutive summers about the summits of our highest mountains,
+though without ever coming across a nest or seeing the birds. Sometimes
+we bagged a gaunt heron as it flapped heavily from a ditch--a greater
+fish poacher than any in the country side. One of our great resorts on
+winter evenings was to an island which bordered a disused mill-dam. This
+was thickly covered with aquatic vegetation, and to it came teal,
+mallard, and poachard. All through the summer we had worked assiduously
+at a small "dug-out," and in this we waited, snugly stowed away behind a
+willow root. When the ducks appeared on the sky-line the old flint-lock
+was out, a sharp report tore the darkness, and a brace of teal or
+mallard floated down stream, and on to the mill island. In this way half
+a dozen ducks would be bagged, and, dead or dying, they were left where
+they fell, and retrieved next morning. Sometimes big game was obtained
+in the shape of a brace of geese, which proved themselves the least wary
+of a flock; but these only came in the severest weather.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Cutting the coppice, assisting the charcoal burners, or helping the old
+woodman--all gave facilities for observing the habits of game, and none
+of these opportunities were missed. In this way we were brought right
+into the heart of the land, and our evil genius was hardly suspected. An
+early incident in the woods is worth recording. I have already said that
+we took snipe and woodcock by means of "gins" and "springes," and one
+morning on going to examine a snare, we discovered a large buzzard near
+one which was "struck." The bird endeavoured to escape, but, being
+evidently held fast, could not. A woodcock had been taken in one of our
+snares, which, while fluttering, had been seen and attacked by the
+buzzard. Not content, however, with the body of the woodcock, it had
+swallowed a leg also, around which the nooze was drawn, and the limb was
+so securely lodged in its stomach that no force which the bird could
+exert could withdraw it. The gamekeepers would employ us to take
+hedgehogs, which we did in steel traps baited with eggs. These prickly
+little animals were justly blamed for robbing pheasants' nests, and many
+a one paid the penalty for so doing. We received so much per head for
+the capture of these, as also for moles which tunnelled the banks of
+the water meadows. Being injurious to the stream sides and the young
+larches, the farmers were anxious to rid these; and one summer we
+received a commission to exercise our knowledge of field-craft against
+them. But in the early days our greatest successes were among the sea
+ducks and wildfowl which haunted the marram-covered flats and ooze banks
+of an inland bay a few miles from our home. Mention of our capturing the
+sea birds brings to mind some very early rabbit poaching. At dusk the
+rabbits used to come down from the woods, and on to the sandy saline
+tracts to nibble the short sea grass. As twilight came we used to lie
+quiet among the rocks and boulders, and, armed with the old flint-lock,
+knock over the rabbits as soon as they had settled to feed. But this was
+only tasting the delights of that first experience in "fur" which was to
+become so widely developed in future years. Working a duck decoy--when
+we knew where we had the decoyman--was another profitable night
+adventure, which sometimes produced dozens of delicate teal, mallard
+and widgeon. Another successful method of taking seafowl was by the
+"fly" or "ring" net. When there was but little or no moon these were set
+across the banks last covered by the tide. The nets were made of fine
+thread, and hung on poles from ten to twenty yards apart. Care had to be
+taken to do this loosely, so as to give the nets plenty of "bag."
+Sometimes we had these nets hung for half a mile along the mud flats,
+and curfew, whimbrel, geese, ducks, and various shore-haunting birds
+were taken in them. Sometimes a bunch of teal, flying down wind, would
+break right through the net and escape. This, however, was not a
+frequent occurrence.
+
+There is one kind of poaching, which, as a lad, I was forbidden, and I
+have never indulged in it from that day to this. This was egg poaching.
+In our own district it was carried on to a large extent, though I never
+heard of it until the artificial rearing of game came in. The squire's
+keeper will give sixpence each for pheasants' eggs, and fourpence for
+those of partridges. I know for certain that he often buys eggs
+(unknowingly, of course) from his master's preserves as well as those of
+his neighbours. In the hedge bottom, along the covert side, or among
+broom and gorse, the farm labourer notices a pair of partridges roaming
+morning after morning. Soon he finds their oak-leaf nest and olive eggs.
+These the keeper readily buys, winking at what he knows to be dishonest.
+Ploughboys and farm labourers have peculiarly favourable opportunities
+for egg poaching. As to pheasants' eggs, if the keeper be an honest man
+and refuses to buy, there are always large town dealers who will. Once
+in the coverts pheasants' eggs are easily found. The birds get up
+heavily from their nests, and go away with a loud whirring of wings. In
+this species of poaching women and children are largely employed, and at
+the time the former are ostensibly gathering sticks, the latter wild
+flowers. I have known the owner of the "smithy," who was the receiver in
+our village, send to London in the course of a week a thousand eggs,
+every one of them gathered off the neighbouring estates.
+
+When I say that I never indulged in egg poaching I do not set up for
+being any better than my neighbours. I had been forbidden to do it as a
+lad because my father give it the ugly name of thieving, and it had
+never tempted me aside. It was tame work at best, and there was none of
+the exhilarating fascination about it that I found in going after the
+game birds themselves.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 3.
+
+GRADUATING IN WOODCRAFT.
+
+    We hear the cry
+      Of their voices high,
+    Falling dreamily through the sky;
+      But their forms we cannot see.
+
+
+Just as the sportsman loves "rough shooting," so the poacher invariably
+chooses wild ground for his depredations. There is hardly a sea-parish
+in the country which has not its shore shooter, its poacher, and its
+fowler. Fortunately for my graduation in woodcraft I fell in with one of
+the latter at the very time I most needed his instructions. As the
+"Snig," as I was generally called, was so passionately fond of "live"
+things, old "Kittiwake" was quite prepared to be companionable.
+Although nearly three score years and ten divided our lives, there was
+something in common between us. Love of being abroad beneath the moon
+and stars; of wild wintry skies; of the weird cries that came from out
+the darkness--love of everything indeed that pertained to the night side
+of nature. What terrible tales of the sands and marshes the old man
+would tell as we sat in his turf-covered cottage, listening to the
+lashing storm and driving water without. Occasionally we heard sounds of
+the Demon Huntsman and his Wish-hounds as they crossed the wintry skies.
+If Kittiwake knew, he would never admit that these were the wild swans
+coming from the north, which chose the darkest nights for their
+migration. When my old tutor saw that I was already skilled in the use
+of "gins" and "springes," and sometimes brought in a snipe or woodcock,
+his old eyes glistened as he looked upon the marsh-birds. It was on one
+such occasion, pleased at my success, that he offered what he had never
+offered to mortal--to teach me the whole art of fowling. I remember the
+old man as he lay on his heather bench when he made this magnanimous
+offer. In appearance he was a splendid type of a northern yeoman, his
+face fringed with silvery hair, and cut in the finest features. One eye
+was bright and clear even at his great age, though the other was rheumy,
+and almost blotted out. He rarely undressed at nights, his outward garb
+seemed more a production of nature than of art, and was changed, when,
+like the outer cuticle of the marsh vipers, it sloughed off. It was only
+in winter that the old man lived his lonely life on the mosses and
+marshes, for during the summer he turned from fowler to fisher, or
+assisted in the game preserves. The haunts and habits of the marsh and
+shore birds he knew by heart, and his great success in taking them lay
+in the fact that he was a close and accurate observer. He would watch
+the fowl, then set his nets and noozes by the light of his acquired
+knowledge. These things he had always known, but it was in summer, when
+he was assisting at pheasant rearing, that he got to know all about
+game in fur and feather. He noted that the handsome cock pheasants
+always crowed before they flew up to roost; that in the evening the
+partridges called as they came together in the grass lands; and he
+watched the ways of the hares as they skipped in the moonlight. These
+things we were wont to discuss when wild weather prevented our leaving
+the hut; and all our plans were tested by experiment before they were
+put into practice. It was upon these occasions, too, that the garrulous
+old man would tell of his early life. That was the time for fowl; but
+now the plough had invaded the sea-birds' haunt. He would tell of
+immense flocks of widgeon, of banks of brent geese, and clouds of
+dunlin. Bitterns used to boom and breed in the bog, and once, though
+only once, a great bustard was shot. In his young days Kittiwake had
+worked a decoy, as had his father and grandfather before him; and when
+any stray fowler or shore-shooter told of the effect of a single shot of
+their big punt-guns, he would cap their stories by going back to the
+days of decoying. Although decoying had almost gone out, this was the
+only subject that the old man was reticent upon, and he surrounded the
+craft with all the mystery he was able to conjure up. The site of his
+once famous decoy was now drained, and in summer ruddy corn waved above
+it. Besides myself, Kittiwake's sole companion on the mosses was an old
+shaggy galloway, and it was almost as eccentric and knowing as its
+master. So great was the number of gulls and terns that bred on the
+mosses, that for two months during the breeding season the old horse was
+fed upon their eggs. Morning and evening a basketful was collected, and
+so long as these lasted Dobbin's coat continued sleek and soft.
+
+In August and September we would capture immense numbers of
+"flappers"--plump wild ducks--but, as yet, unable to fly. These were
+either caught in the pools, or chased into nets which we set to
+intercept them. As I now took more than my share of the work, and made
+all the gins, springes, and noozes which we used, a rough kind of
+partnership sprung up between us. The young ducks brought us good
+prices, and there was another source of income which paid well, but was
+not of long duration. There is a short period in each year when even the
+matured wild ducks are quite unable to fly. The male of the common wild
+duck is called the mallard, and soon after his brown duck begins to sit
+the drake moults the whole of its flight feathers. So sudden and
+simultaneous is this process that for six weeks in summer the usually
+handsome drake is quite incapable of flight, and it is probably at this
+period of its ground existence that the assumption of the duck's plumage
+is such an aid to protection. Quite the handsomest of the wildfowl on
+the marsh were a colony of sheldrakes which occupied a number of disused
+rabbit-burrows on a raised plateau overlooking the bay. The ducks were
+bright chestnut, white, and purple, and in May laid from nine to a dozen
+creamy eggs. As these birds brought high prices for stocking ornamental
+waters, we used to collect the eggs and hatch them out under hens in the
+turf cottage. This was a quite successful experiment up to a certain
+point; but the young fowl, immediately they were hatched, seemed to be
+able to smell the salt water, and would cover miles to gain the creek.
+With all our combined watchfulness the downy ducklings sometimes
+succeeded in reaching their loved briny element, and once in the sea
+were never seen again. The pretty sea swallows used to breed on the
+marsh, and the curious ruffs and reeves. These indulged in the strangest
+flights at breeding time, and it was then that we used to capture the
+greatest numbers. We took them alive in nets, and then fattened them on
+soaked wheat. The birds were sent all the way to London, and brought
+good prices. By being kept closely confined and frequently fed, in a
+fortnight they became so plump as to resemble balls of fat, and then
+brought as much as a florin a piece. If care were not taken to kill the
+birds just when they attained to their greatest degree of fatness they
+fell rapidly in condition, and were nearly worthless. To kill them we
+were wont to pinch off the head, and when all the blood had exuded the
+flesh remained white and delicate. Greater delicacies even than ruffs
+and reeves were godwits, which were fatted in like manner for the table.
+Experiments in fattening were upon one occasion successfully tried with
+a brood of greylag geese which we discovered on the marshes. As this is
+the species from which the domestic stock is descended, we found little
+difficulty in herding, though we were always careful to house them at
+night, and pinioned them as the time of the autumnal migration came
+round. We well knew that the skeins of wild geese which at this time
+nightly cross the sky, calling as they fly, would soon have robbed us of
+our little flock.
+
+In winter, snipe were always numerous on the mosses, and were among the
+first birds to be affected by severe weather. If on elevated ground when
+the frost set in, they immediately betake themselves to the lowlands,
+and at these times we used to take them in pantles made of twisted
+horsehair. In preparing these we trampled a strip of oozy ground until,
+in the darkness, it had the appearance of a narrow plash of water. The
+snipe were taken as they came to feed on ground presumably containing
+food of which they were fond. As well as woodcock and snipe, we took
+larks by thousands. The pantles for these we set somewhat differently
+than those intended for the minor game birds. A main line, sometimes as
+much as a hundred yards in length, was set along the marsh; and to this
+at short intervals were attached a great number of loops of horsehair in
+which the birds were strangled. During the migratory season, or in
+winter when larks are flocked, sometimes a hundred bunches of a dozen
+each would be taken in a single day.
+
+During the rigour of winter great flocks of migratory ducks and geese
+came to the bay, and prominent among them were immense flocks of
+scoters. Often from behind an ooze bank did we watch parties of these
+playing and chasing each other over the crests of the waves, seeming
+indifferent to the roughest seas. The coming of the scoter brought flush
+times, and in hard weather our takes were tremendous. Another of the
+wild ducks which visited us was the pochard or dunbird. We mostly called
+it "poker" and "redhead," owing to the bright chestnut of its neck and
+head. It is somewhat heavily made, swims low in the water, and from its
+legs being placed far behind for diving it is very awkward on land. In
+winter the pochard was abundant on the coast, but as it was one of the
+shyest of fowl it was always difficult to approach. If alarmed it
+paddles rapidly away, turning its head, and always keeping an eye to the
+rear. On account of its wariness it is oftener netted than shot. The
+shore-shooters hardly ever get a chance at it. We used to take it in the
+creeks on the marsh, and, as the matter is difficult to explain, I will
+let the following quotation tell how it was done:
+
+"The water was surrounded with huge nets, fastened with poles laid flat
+on the ground when ready for action, each net being, perhaps, sixty feet
+long and twenty feet deep. When all was ready the pochards were
+frightened off the water. Like all diving ducks they were obliged to
+fly low for some distance, and also to head the wind before rising. Just
+as the mass of birds reached the side of the pool, one of the immense
+nets, previously regulated by weights and springs, rose upright as it
+was freed from its fastenings by the fowler from a distance with a long
+rope. If this were done at the right moment the ducks were met full in
+the face by a wall of net, and thrown helpless into a deep ditch dug at
+its foot for their reception."
+
+In addition to our nets and snares we had a primitive fowling-piece,
+though we only used it when other methods failed. It was an ancient
+flint-lock, with tremendously long barrels. Sometimes it went off;
+oftener it did not. I well remember with what desperation I, upon one
+occasion, clung to this murderous weapon whilst it meditated, so to
+speak. It is true that it brought down quite a wisp of dunlins, but then
+there was almost a cloud of them to fire at. These and golden plover
+were mainly the game for the flint-lock, and with them we were
+peculiarly successful. If we had not been out all night we were
+invariably abroad at dawn, when golden plover fly and feed in close
+bodies. Upon these occasions sometimes a dozen birds were bagged at a
+shot, though, after all, the chief product of our days were obtained in
+the cymbal nets. We invariably used a decoy, and when the wild birds
+were brought down, and came within the workings of the net, it was
+rapidly pulled over and the game secured. For the most part, however,
+only the smaller birds were taken in this way. Coots came round in their
+season, and although they yielded a good harvest, netting them was not
+very profitable, for as their flesh was dark and fishy only the
+villagers and fisher-folk would buy them.
+
+A curious little bird, the grebe or dabchick, used to haunt the pools
+and ditches of the marsh, and we not unfrequently caught them in the
+nets whilst drawing for salmon which ran up the creek to spawn. They had
+curious feet, lobed like chestnut leaves, and hardly any wing. This
+last was more like a flipper, and upon one occasion, when no less than
+three had caught in the meshes, a dispute arose between us as to whether
+they were able to fly. Kittiwake and I argued that whilst they were
+resident and bred in the marshes, yet their numbers were greatly
+augmented in autumn by other birds which came to spend the winter.
+Whilst I contended that they flew, Kittiwake said that their tiny wings
+could never support them, and certainly neither of us had ever seen them
+on their journeyings. Two of the birds we took a mile from the water,
+and then threw them into the air, when they darted off straight and
+swift for the mosses which lay stretched at our feet a mile below.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 4.
+
+PARTRIDGE POACHING.
+
+
+The bloom on the brambles; the ripening of the nuts; and the ruddiness
+of the corn all acted as reminders that the "fence" time was rapidly
+drawing to a close. So much did the first frosts quicken us that it was
+difficult to resist throwing up our farm work before the game season was
+fairly upon us. There was only one way in which we could curb the wild
+impulse within. We stood up to the golden corn and smote it from the
+rising to the going down of the sun. The hunters' moon tried hard to
+win us to the old hard life of sport; but still the land must be
+cleared. There was a double pleasure in the ruddy sheaves, for they told
+of golden guineas, and until the last load was carried neither nets,
+gins, nor the old duck-gun were of any use. The harvest housed the game
+could begin, and then the sweet clover, which the hares loved, first
+pushed their shoots between the stubble stalks. But neither the hares on
+the fallows, the grouse on the moor, nor the pheasants on the bare
+branches brought us so much pleasure as the partridge. A whole army of
+shooters love the little brown birds, and we are quite of their way of
+thinking.
+
+A long life of poaching has not cooled our ardour for this phase of
+woodcraft. At the outset we may state that we have almost invariably
+observed close times, and have rarely killed a hare or game-bird out of
+season. The man who excels in poaching must be country bred. He must not
+only know the land, but the ways of the game by heart. Every sign of
+wind and weather must be observed, as all help in the silent trade.
+Then there is the rise and wane of the moon, the rain-bringing tides,
+and the shifting of the birds with the seasons. These and a hundred
+other things must be kept in an unwritten calendar, and only the poacher
+can keep it. Speaking from hard experience, his out-door life will make
+him quick; will endow him with much ready animal ingenuity. He will take
+in an immense amount of knowledge of the life of the fields and woods;
+and it is this teaching which will ultimately give him accuracy of eye
+and judgment sufficient to interpret what he sees aright. To succeed the
+poacher must be a specialist. It is better if he directs his attention
+to "fur," or to "feather" alone; but it is terribly hard to resist going
+in for both. There is less scope for field ingenuity in taking game
+birds; but at the same time there is always the probability of more
+wholesale destruction. This arises from the fact of the birds being
+gregarious. Both grouse and partridge go in coveys, and pheasants are
+found in the company of their own kind. Partridges roost on the ground,
+and sleep with tails tucked together and heads outwards. Examine the
+fallow after they have left it in a morning, and this will be at once
+apparent. A covey in this position represents little more than a mass of
+feathers. It is for protective reasons that partridges always spend
+their nights in the open. Birds which do not perch would soon become
+extinct were they to seek the protection of woods and hedge-bottoms by
+night. Such ground generally affords cover for vermin--weazels,
+polecats, and stoats. Although partridges roam far by day, they
+invariably come together at night, being partial to the same fields and
+fallows. They run much, and rarely fly, except when passing from one
+feeding ground to another. In coming together in the evening their calls
+may be heard to some distance. These were the sounds we listened for,
+and marked. We remembered the gorse bushes, and knew that the coveys
+would not be far from them.
+
+We always considered partridge good game, and sometimes were watching a
+dozen coveys at the same time. September once in, there was never a
+sun-down that did not see one of us on our rounds making mental notes.
+It was not often, however, that more than three coveys were marked for a
+night's work. One of these, perhaps, would be in turnips, another among
+stubble, and the third on grass. According to the nature of the crop,
+the lay of the land, wind, &c., so we varied our tactics. Netting
+partridges always requires two persons, though a third to walk after the
+net is helpful. If the birds have been carefully marked down, a narrow
+net is used; if their roosting-place is uncertain a wider net is better.
+When all is ready this is slowly dragged along the ground, and is thrown
+down immediately the whirr of wings is heard. If neatly and silently
+done, the whole covey is bagged. There is a terrible flutter, a cloud of
+brown feathers, and all is over. It is not always, however, that the
+draw is so successful. In view of preventing this method of poaching,
+especially on land where many partridges roost, keepers plant low
+scrubby thorns at intervals. These so far interfere with the working of
+the net as to allow the birds time to escape. We were never much
+troubled, however, in this way. As opportunity offered the quick-thorns
+were torn up, and a dead black-thorn bough took their place. As the
+thorns were low the difference was never noticed, even by the keepers,
+and, of course, they were carefully removed before, and replaced after,
+netting. Even when the dodge was detected the fields and fallows had
+been pretty much stripped of the birds. This method is impracticable
+now, as the modern method of reaping leaves the brittle stubble as bare
+as the squire's lawn. We had always a great objection to use a wide net
+where a narrow one would suit the purpose. Among turnips, and where
+large numbers of birds were supposed to lie, a number of rows or "riggs"
+were taken at a time, until the whole of the ground had been traversed.
+This last method is one that requires time and a knowledge of the
+keeper's beat. On rough ground the catching of the net may be obviated
+by having about eighteen inches of smooth glazed material bordering the
+lowest and trailing part of it. Some of the small farmers were as fond
+of poaching as ourselves, and here is a trick which one of them
+successfully employed whenever he heard the birds in his land. He
+scattered a train of grain from the field in which the partridge
+roosted, each morning bringing it nearer and nearer to the stack-yard.
+After a time the birds became accustomed to this mode of feeding, and as
+they grew bolder the grain-train was continued inside the barn. When
+they saw the golden feast invitingly spread, they were not slow to
+enter, and the doors were quickly closed upon them. Then the farmer
+entered with a bright light and felled the birds with a stick.
+
+In the dusk of a late autumn afternoon a splendid "pot" shot was
+sometimes had at a bunch of partridges just gathered for the night. I
+remember a score such. The call of the partridge is less deceptive than
+any other game bird, and the movements of a covey are easily watched.
+This tracking is greatly aided if the field in which the birds are is
+bounded by stone walls. As dusk deepens and draws to dark, they run and
+call less, and soon all is still. The closely-packed covey is easy to
+detect against the yellow stubble, and resting the gun on the wall, a
+charge of heavy shot fired into their midst usually picks off the lot.
+If in five minutes the shot brings up the keeper it matters little, as
+then you are far over the land.
+
+Partridges feed in the early morning--as soon as day breaks, in fact.
+They resort to one spot, and are constant in their coming, especially if
+encouraged. This fact I well knew, and laid my plans accordingly. By the
+aid of the moon a train of grain was laid straight as a hazel wand. Upon
+these occasions I never went abroad without an old duck-gun, the barrels
+of which had been filed down. This enabled me to carry the gun-stock in
+one pocket, the barrels in the other. The shortness of the latter in
+nowise told against the shooting, as the gun was only required to use at
+short distances. The weapon was old, thick at the muzzle, and into it I
+crammed a heavy charge of powder and shot. Ensconced in the scrub I had
+only now to wait for the dawn. Almost before it was fully light the
+covey would come with a loud whirring of wings, and settle to feed
+immediately. This was the critical moment. Firing along the line a
+single shot strewed the ground with dead and dying; and in ten minutes,
+always keeping clear of the roads, I was a mile from the spot.
+
+I had yet another and a more successful method of taking partridges.
+When, from the watchfulness or cleverness of keepers (they are not
+intelligent men as a rule), both netting and shooting proved
+impracticable, I soaked grain until it became swollen, and then steeped
+it in the strongest spirit. This, as before, was strewn in the morning
+paths of the partridge, and, soon taking effect, the naturally
+pugnacious birds were presently staggering and fighting desperately.
+Then I bided my time, and as opportunity offered, knocked the
+incapacitated birds on the head.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+One of the most ingenious and frequently successful methods I employed
+for bagging partridge was by the aid of an old setter bitch having a
+lantern tied to her neck. Being somewhat risky, I only employed it when
+other plans failed, and when I had a good notion of the keeper's
+whereabouts. The lantern was made from an old salmon canister stripped
+of its sides, and contained a bit of candle. When the bitch was put off
+into seeds or stubble she would range quietly until she found the birds,
+then stand as stiffly as though done in marble. This shewed me just
+where the covey lay, and as the light either dazzled or frightened the
+birds, it was not difficult to clap the net over them. It sometimes
+happened that others besides myself were watching this strange luminous
+light, and it was probably set down as some phenomenon of the night-side
+of nature. Once, however, I lost my long silk net, and as there was
+everything to be gained by running, and much to be lost by staying, I
+ran desperately. Only an old, slow dog can be used in this species of
+poaching, and it is marvellous to see with what spirit and seeming
+understanding it enters into the work.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 5.
+
+HARE POACHING.
+
+    The merry brown hares came leaping
+      Over the crest of the hill,
+    Where the clover and corn lay sleeping
+      Under the moonlight still.
+
+
+Our hare season generally began with partridge poaching, so that the
+coming of the hunter's moon was always an interesting autumnal event. By
+its aid the first big bag of the season was made. When a field is sown
+down, which it is intended to bring back to grass, clover is invariably
+sown with the grain. This springs between the corn stalks, and by the
+time the golden sheaves are carried, has swathed the stubble with
+mantling green. This, before all others, is the crop which hares love.
+
+Poaching is one of the fine arts, and the man who would succeed must be
+a specialist. If he has sufficient strength to refrain from general
+"mouching," he will succeed best by selecting one particular kind of
+game, and directing his whole knowledge of woodcraft against it. In
+spring and summer I was wont to closely scan the fields, and as
+embrowned September drew near, knew the whereabouts of every hare in the
+parish--not only the field where it lay, but the very clump of rushes in
+which was its form. As puss went away from the gorse, or raced down the
+turnip-rigg, I took in every twist and double down to the minutest
+detail.
+
+Then I scanned the "smoots" and gates through which she passed, and was
+always careful to approach these laterally. I left no trace of hand nor
+print of foot, nor disturbed the rough herbage. Late afternoon brought
+me home, and upon the hearth the wires and nets were spread for
+inspection. When all was ready, and the dogs whined impatiently to be
+gone, I would strike right into the heart of the land, and away from the
+high-road.
+
+Mention of the dogs brings me to my fastest friends. Without them
+poaching for fur would be almost impossible. I invariably used bitches,
+and as success depended almost wholly upon them, I was bound to keep
+only the best. Lurchers take long to train, but when perfected are
+invaluable. I have had, maybe, a dozen dogs in all, the best being the
+result of a pure cross between greyhound and sheepdog. In night work
+silence is essential to success, and such dogs never bark; they have the
+good nose of the one, and the speed of the other. In selecting puppies
+it is best to choose rough-coated ones, as they are better able to stand
+the exposure of cold, rough nights. Shades of brown and fawn are
+preferable for colour, as these best assimilate to the duns and browns
+of the fields and woods. The process of training would take long to
+describe; but it is wonderful how soon the dog takes on the habits of
+its master. They soon learn to slink along by hedge and ditch, and but
+rarely shew in the open. They know every field-cut and by-path for
+miles, and are as much aware as their masters that county constables
+have a nasty habit of loitering about unfrequented lanes at daybreak.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The difficulty lies not so much in obtaining game as in getting it home
+safely; but for all that I was but rarely surprised with game upon me in
+this way. Disused buildings, stacks, and dry ditches are made to contain
+the "haul" until it can be sent for--an office which I usually got some
+of the field-women to perform for me. Failing these, country carriers
+and early morning milk-carts were useful. When I was night poaching, it
+was important that I should have the earliest intimation of the approach
+of a possible enemy, and to secure this the dogs were always trained to
+run on a few hundred yards in advance. A well-trained lurcher is almost
+infallible in detecting a foe, and upon meeting one he runs back to his
+master under cover of the _far side_ of a fence. When the dog came back
+to me in this way I lost not a second in accepting the shelter of the
+nearest hedge or deepest ditch till the danger was past. If suddenly
+surprised and without means of hiding, myself and the dog would make off
+in different directions. Then there were times when it was inconvenient
+that we should know each other, and upon such occasions the dogs would
+not recognise me even upon the strongest provocation.
+
+My best lurchers knew as much of the habits of game as I did. According
+to the class of land to be worked they were aware whether hares,
+partridges, or rabbits were to constitute the game for the night. They
+judged to a nicety the speed at which a hare should be driven to make a
+snare effective, and acted accordingly. At night the piercing scream of
+a netted hare can be heard to a great distance, and no sound sooner puts
+the keeper on the alert.
+
+Consequently, when "puss" puts her neck into a wire, or madly jumps into
+a gate-net, the dog is on her in an instant, and quickly stops her
+piteous squeal. In field-netting rabbits, lurchers are equally quick,
+seeming quite to appreciate the danger of noise. Once only have I heard
+a lurcher give mouth. "Rough" was a powerful, deep-chested bitch, but
+upon one occasion she failed to jump a stiff, stone fence, with a
+nine-pound hare in her mouth. She did not bark, however, until she had
+several times failed at the fence, and when she thought her whereabouts
+were unknown. Hares and partridges invariably squat on the fallow or in
+the stubble when alarmed, and remain absolutely still till the danger is
+passed. This act is much more likely to be observed by the dog than its
+master, and in such cases the lurchers gently rubbed my shins to apprise
+me of the fact. Then I moved more cautiously. Out-lying pheasants,
+rabbits in the clumps, red grouse on the heather--the old dog missed
+none of them. Every movement was noted, and each came to the capacious
+pocket in turn. The only serious fights I ever had were when keepers
+threatened to shoot the dogs. This was a serious matter. Lurchers take
+long to train, and a keeper's summary proceeding often stops a whole
+winter's work, as the best dogs cannot easily be replaced. Many a one of
+our craft would as soon have been shot himself as seen his dog
+destroyed; and there are few good dogs which have not, at one time or
+other, been riddled with pellets during their lawless (save the mark!)
+career. If a hare happens to be seen, the dog sometimes works it so
+cleverly as to "chop" it in its "form"; and both hares and rabbits are
+not unfrequently snapped up without being run at all. In fact,
+depredations in fur would be exceedingly limited without the aid of
+dogs; and one country squire saved his ground game for a season by
+buying my best brace of lurchers at a very fancy price; while upon
+another occasion a bench of magistrates demanded to see the dogs of
+whose doings they had heard so much. In short, my lurchers at night
+embodied all my senses.
+
+Whilst preparing my nets and wires, the dogs would whine impatiently to
+be gone. Soon their ears were pricked out on the track, though until
+told to leave they stuck doggedly to heel. Soon the darkness would blot
+out even the forms of surrounding objects, and our movements were made
+more cautiously. A couple of snares are set in gaps in an old thorn
+fence not more than a yard apart. These are delicately manipulated, as
+we know from previous knowledge that the hare will take one of them. The
+black dog is sent over, the younger fawn bitch staying behind. The
+former slinks slowly down the field, sticking close to the cover of a
+fence running at right angles to the one in which the wires are set. I
+have arranged that the wind shall blow from the dog and across to the
+hare's seat when the former shall come opposite. The ruse acts; "puss"
+is alarmed, but not terrified; she gets up and goes quietly away for the
+hedge. The dog is crouched, anxiously watching; she is making right for
+the snare, though something must be added to her speed to make the wire
+effective. As the dog closes in, I wait, bowed, with hands on knees,
+still as death, for her coming. I hear the brush of the grass, the trip,
+trip, trip, as the herbage is brushed. There is a rustle among the dead
+leaves, a desperate rush, a momentary squeal--and the wire has tightened
+round her throat.
+
+Again we trudge silently along the lane, but soon stop to listen. Then
+we disperse, but to any on-looker would seem to have dissolved. This dry
+ditch is capacious, and its dead herbage tall and tangled. A heavy foot,
+with regular beat, approaches along the road, and dies slowly away in
+the distance.
+
+Hares love green cornstalks, and a field of young wheat is at hand; I
+spread a net, twelve feet by six, at the gate, and at a sign the dogs
+depart different ways. Their paths soon converge, for the night is torn
+by a piteous cry; the road is enveloped in a cloud of dust; and in the
+midst of the confusion the dogs dash over the fence. They must have
+found their game near the middle of the field, and driven the hares--for
+there are two--so hard that they carried the net right before them;
+every struggle wraps another mesh about them, and, in a moment, their
+screams are quieted. By a quick movement I wrap the long net about my
+arm, and, taking the noiseless sward, get hastily away from the spot.
+
+In March, when hares are pairing, four or five may frequently be found
+together in one field. Although wild, they seem to lose much of their
+natural timidity, and during this month I usually reaped a rich harvest.
+I was always careful to set my wires and snares on the side _opposite_
+to that from which the game would come, for this reason--that hares
+approach any place through which they are about to pass in a zig-zag
+manner. They come on, playing and frisking, stopping now and then to
+nibble the herbage. Then they canter, making wide leaps at right angles
+to their path, and sit listening upon their haunches. A freshly
+impressed footmark, the scent of dog or man, almost invariably turns
+them back. Of course these traces are certain to be left if the snare be
+set on the _near_ side of the gate or fence, and then a hare will refuse
+to take it, even when hard pressed. Now here is a wrinkle to any keeper
+who cares to accept it. Where poaching is prevalent and hares abundant,
+_every hare on the estate should be netted_, for it is a fact well known
+to every poacher versed in his craft, that an escaped hare that has
+once been netted can never be retaken. The process, however, will
+effectually frighten a small percentage of hares off the land
+altogether.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The human scent left at gaps and gateways by ploughmen, shepherds, and
+mouchers, the wary poacher will obliterate by driving sheep over the
+spot before he begins operations. On the sides of fells and uplands
+hares are difficult to kill. This can only be accomplished by swift
+dogs, which are taken _above_ the game. Puss is made to run down-hill,
+when, from her peculiar formation, she goes at a disadvantage.
+
+Audacity almost invariably stands the poacher in good stead. Here is an
+actual incident. I knew of a certain field of young wheat in which was
+several hares--a fact observed during the day. This was hard by the
+keeper's cottage, and surrounded by a high fence of loose stones. It
+will be seen that the situation was somewhat critical, but that night my
+nets were set at the gates through which the hares always made. To drive
+them the dog was to range the field, entering it at a point furthest
+away from the gate. I bent my back in the road a yard from the wall to
+aid the dog. It retired, took a mighty spring, and barely touching my
+shoulders, bounded over the fence. The risk was justified by the haul,
+for that night I bagged nine good hares.
+
+Owing to the scarcity of game, hare-poaching is now hardly worth
+following, and I believe that what is known as the _Ground Game Act_ is
+mainly responsible for this. A country Justice, who has often been my
+friend when I was sadly in need of one, asked me why I thought the Hares
+and Rabbits Act had made both kinds of fur scarcer. I told him that the
+hare would become abundant again if it were not beset by so many
+enemies. Since 1880 it has had no protection, and the numbers have gone
+down amazingly. A shy and timid animal, it is worried through every
+month of the year. It does not burrow, and has not the protection of the
+rabbit. Although the colour of its fur resembles that of the dead grass
+and herbage among which it lies, yet it starts from its "form" at the
+approach of danger, and from its size makes an easy mark. It is not
+unfrequently "chopped" by sheep-dogs, and in certain months hundreds of
+leverets perish in this way. Hares are destroyed wholesale during the
+mowing of the grass and the reaping of the corn. For a time in summer,
+leverets especially seek this kind of cover, and farmers and
+farm-labourers kill numbers with dog and gun--and this at a time when
+they are quite unfit for food. In addition to these causes of scarcity
+there are others well known to sportsmen. When harriers hunt late in the
+season--as they invariably do now-a-days--many leverets are "chopped,"
+and for every hare that goes away three are killed in the manner
+indicated. At least, that is my experience while mouching in the wake of
+the hounds. When hunting continues through March, master and huntsman
+assert that this havoc is necessary in order to kill off superabundant
+jack-hares, and so preserve the balance of stock. Doubtless there was
+reason in this argument before the present scarcity, but now there is
+none. March, too, is a general breeding month, and the hunting of
+doe-hares entails the grossest cruelty. Coursing is confined within no
+fixed limits, and is prolonged far too late in the season. What has been
+said of hunting applies to coursing, and these things sportsmen can
+remedy if they wish. There is more unwritten law in connection with
+British field-sports than any other pastime; but obviously it might be
+added to with advantage. If something is not done the hare will
+assuredly become extinct. To prevent this a "close time" is, in the
+opinion of those best versed in woodcraft, absolutely necessary. The
+dates between which the hare would best be protected are the first of
+March and the first of August. Then we would gain all round. The recent
+relaxation of the law has done something to encourage poaching, and
+poachers now find pretexts for being on or about land which before were
+of no avail, and to the moucher accurate observation by day is one of
+the essentials to success.
+
+Naturalists ought to know best; but there has been more unnatural
+history written concerning hares than any other British animal. It is
+said to produce two young ones at a birth, but observant poachers know
+that from three to five leverets are not unfrequently found: then it is
+stated that hares breed twice, or at most thrice, a year. Anyone,
+however, who has daily observed their habits, knows that there are but
+few months in which leverets are not born. In mild winters young ones
+are found in January and February, whilst in March they have become
+common. They may be seen right on through summer and autumn, and last
+December I saw a brace of leverets a month old. Does shot in October are
+sometimes found to be giving milk, and in November old hares are not
+unfrequently noticed in the same patch of cover. These facts would seem
+to point to the conclusion that the hare propagates its species almost
+the whole year round--a startling piece of evidence to the older
+naturalists. Add to this that hares pair when a year old, that gestation
+lasts only thirty days, and it will be seen what a possibly prolific
+animal the hare may be. The young are born covered with fur, and after a
+month leave their mother to seek their own subsistence.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 6.
+
+PHEASANT POACHING.
+
+
+Through late summer and autumn the poacher's thoughts go out to the
+early weeks of October. Neither the last load of ruddy corn, nor the
+actual netting of the partridge gladden his heart as do the first signs
+of the dying year. There are certain sections of the Game Laws which he
+never breaks, and only some rare circumstance tempts him to take
+immature birds. But by the third week of October the yellow and sere of
+the year has come. The duns and browns are over the woods, and the
+leaves come fitfully flickering down. Everything out of doors testifies
+that autumn is waning, and that winter will soon be upon us. The colours
+of the few remaining flowers are fading, and nature is beginning to have
+a washed-out appearance. The feathery plumes of the ash are everywhere
+strewn beneath the trees, for, just as the ash is the first to burst
+into leaf, so it is the first to go. The foliage of the oak is already
+assuming a bright chestnut, though the leaves will remain throughout the
+year. In the oak avenues the acorns are lying in great quantities,
+though oak mast is not now the important product it once was, cheap
+grain having relegated it almost exclusively to the use of the birds.
+And now immense flocks of wood pigeons flutter in the trees or pick up
+the food from beneath. The garnering of the grain, the flocking of
+migratory birds, the wild clanging of fowl in the night sky--these are
+the sights and sounds that set the poacher's thoughts off in the old
+grooves.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Of all species of poaching, that which ensures a good haul of pheasants
+is most beset with difficulty. Nevertheless there are silent ways and
+means which prove as successful in the end as the squire's guns, and
+these without breaking the woodland silence with a sound. The most
+successful of these I intend to set down, and only such will be
+mentioned as have stood me in good stead in actual night work. Among
+southern woods and coverts the pheasant poacher is usually a desperate
+character; not so in the north. Here the poachers are more skilled in
+woodcraft, and are rarely surprised. If the worst comes to the worst it
+is a fair stand-up fight with fists, and is usually bloodless. There is
+little greed of gain in the night enterprise, and liberty by flight is
+the first thing resorted to.
+
+It is well for the poacher, and well for his methods, that the pheasant
+is rather a stupid bird. There is no gainsaying its beauty, however, and
+a brace of birds, with all the old excitement thrown in, are well worth
+winning, even at considerable risk. In a long life of poaching I have
+noticed that the pheasant has one great characteristic. It is fond of
+wandering; and this cannot be prevented. Watch the birds: even when fed
+daily, and with the daintiest food, they wander off, singly or in pairs,
+far from the home coverts. This fact I knew well, and was not slow to
+use my knowledge. When October came round they were the very first birds
+to which I directed my attention. Every poacher observes, year by year
+(even leaving his own predaceous paws out of the question), that it by
+no means follows that the man who rears the pheasants will have the
+privilege of shooting them. There is a very certain time in the life of
+the bird when it disdains the scattered corn of the keeper, and begins
+to anticipate the fall of beech and oak mast. In search of this the
+pheasants make daily journeys, and consume great quantities. They feed
+principally in the morning; dust themselves in the roads or
+turnip-fields at mid-day, and ramble through the woods in the afternoon.
+And one thing is certain: That when wandered birds find themselves in
+outlying copses in the evening they are apt to roost there. As already
+stated, these were the birds to which I paid my best attention. When
+wholesale pheasant poaching is prosecuted by gangs, it is in winter,
+when the trees are bare. Guns, with the barrels filed down, are taken in
+sacks, and the pheasants are shot where they roost. Their bulky forms
+stand sharply outlined against the sky, and they are invariably on the
+lower branches. If the firing does not immediately bring up the keepers,
+the game is quickly deposited in bags, and the gang makes off. And it is
+generally arranged that a light cart is waiting at some remote lane end,
+so that possible pursuers may be quickly outpaced. The great risk
+incurred by this method will be seen, when it is stated that pheasants
+are generally reared close by the keeper's cottage, and that their
+coverts immediately surround it. It is mostly armed mouchers who enter
+these, and not the more gifted (save the mark!) country poacher. And
+there are reasons for this. Opposition must always be anticipated, for,
+speaking for the nonce from the game-keeper's standpoint, the covert
+never should be, and rarely is, unwatched. Then there are the certain
+results of possible capture to be taken into account. This affected, and
+with birds in one's possession, the poacher is liable to be indicted
+upon so many concurrent charges, each and all having heavy penalties.
+Than this I obtained my game in a different and quieter way. My custom
+was to carefully eschew the preserves, and look up all outlying birds. I
+never went abroad without a pocketful of corn, and day by day enticed
+the wandered birds further and further away. This accomplished,
+pheasants may be snared with hair nooses, or taken in spring traps. One
+of my commonest and most successful methods with wandered birds was to
+light brimstone beneath the trees in which they roosted. The powerful
+fumes soon overpowered them, and they came flopping down the trees one
+by one. This method has the advantage of silence, and if the night be
+dead and still, is rarely detected. Away from the preserves, time was
+never taken into account in my plans, and I could work systematically. I
+was content with a brace of birds at a time, and usually got most in the
+end, with least chance of capture.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I have already spoken at some length of my education in field and
+wood-craft. An important (though at the time unconscious) part of this
+was minute observation of the haunts and habits of all kinds of game;
+and this knowledge was put to good use in my actual poaching raids.
+Here is an instance of what I mean: I had noticed the great pugnacity of
+the pheasant, and out of this made capital. After first finding out the
+whereabouts of the keeper, I fitted a trained game-cock with artificial
+spurs, and then took it to the covert side. The artificial spurs were
+fitted to the natural ones, were sharp as needles, and the plucky bird
+already knew how to use them. Upon his crowing, one or more cock
+pheasants would immediately respond, and advance to meet the adversary.
+A single blow usually sufficed to lay low the pride of the pheasant, and
+in this way half-a-dozen birds were bagged, whilst my own representative
+remained unhurt.
+
+I had another ingenious plan (if I may say so) in connection with
+pheasants, and, perhaps, the most successful. I may say at once that
+there is nothing sportsmanlike about it; but then that is in keeping
+with most of what I have set down. If time and opportunity offer there
+is hardly any limit to the depredation which it allows. Here it is: A
+number of dried peas are taken and steeped in boiling water; a hole is
+then made through the centre, and through this again a stiff bristle is
+threaded. The ends are then cut off short, leaving only about a quarter
+of an inch of bristle projecting on each side. With these the birds are
+fed, and they are greedily eaten. In passing down the gullet, however, a
+violent irritation is set up, and the pheasant is finally choked. In a
+dying condition the birds are picked up beneath the hedges, to the
+shelter of which they almost always run. The way is a quiet one; it may
+be adopted in roads and lanes where the birds dust themselves, and does
+not require trespass.
+
+In this connection I may say that I only used a gun when every other
+method failed. Game-keepers sometimes try to outwit poachers by a device
+which is now of old standing. Usually knowing from what quarter the
+latter will enter the covert, wooden blocks representing roosting birds
+are nailed to the branches of the open beeches. I was never entrapped
+into firing at these dummies, and it is only with the casual that the
+ruse acts. He fires, brings the keepers from their hiding places, and is
+caught. Still another method of bagging "long-tails," though one
+somewhat similar to that already set down: It requires two persons, and
+the exact position of the birds must be known. A black night is
+necessary; a stiff bamboo rod, and a dark lantern. One man flashes the
+concentrated light upon the bare branches, when immediately half a dozen
+necks are stretched out to view the apparition. Just then the "angler"
+slips a wire nooze over the craned neck nearest him, and it is jerked
+down as quickly, though as silently as possible. Number two is served in
+like manner, then a third, a fourth, and a fifth. This method has the
+advantage of silence, though, if unskilfully managed, sometimes only a
+single bird is secured, and the rest flutter wildly off into the
+darkness.
+
+Poachers often come to untimely ends. Here is an actual incident which
+befell one of my companions--as clever a poacher, and as decent and
+quiet a man as need be. I saw him on the night previous to the morning
+of his death, though he did not see me. It was a night at the end of
+October. The winds had stripped the leaves from the trees, and the
+dripping branches stood starkly against the sky. I was on the high road
+with a vehicle, when plashes of rain began to descend, and a low
+muttering came from out the dull leaden clouds. As the darkness
+increased, occasional flashes tore zig-zag across the sky, and the rain
+set to a dead pour. The lightning only served to increase the darkness.
+I could just see the mare's steaming shoulders butting away in front,
+and her sensitive ears alternately pricked out on the track. The pitchy
+darkness increased, I gave the mare her head, and let the reins hang
+loosely on her neck. The lightning was terrible, the thunder almost
+continuous, when the mare came to a dead stop. I got down from the trap
+and found her trembling violently, with perspiration pouring down her
+flanks. All her gear was white with lather, and I thought it best to
+lead her on to where I knew was a chestnut tree, and there wait for a
+lull in the storm. As I stood waiting, a black lurcher slunk along under
+the sodden hedge, and seeing the trap, immediately stopped and turned in
+its tracks. Having warned its master, the two reconnoitered and then
+came on together. The "Otter" (for it was he), bade a gruff "good-night"
+to the enshrouded vehicle and passed on into the darkness. He slouched
+rapidly under the rain, and went in the direction of extensive woods and
+coverts. Hundreds of pheasants had taken to the tall trees, and, from
+beneath, were visible against the sky. Hares abounded on the fallows,
+and rabbits swarmed everywhere. The storm had driven the keepers to
+their cosy hearths, and the prospect was a poacher's paradise. Just what
+occurred next can only be surmised. Doubtless the "Otter" worked long
+and earnestly through that terrible night, and at dawn staggered from
+the ground under a heavy load.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Just at dawn the poacher's wife emerged from a poor cottage at the
+junction of the roads, and after looking about her as a hunted animal
+might look, made quietly off over the land. Creeping closely by the
+fences she covered a couple of miles, and then entered a disused,
+barn-like building. Soon she emerged under a heavy load, her basket, as
+of old, covered with crisp, green cresses. These she had kept from last
+evening, when she plucked them in readiness, from the spring. After two
+or three journeys she had removed the "plant," and as she eyed the game
+her eyes glistened, and she waited now only for _him_. As yet she knew
+not that he would never more come--that soon she would be a lone and
+heart-broken creature. For, although his life was one long warfare
+against the Game Laws, he had always been good and kind to her. His end
+had come as it almost inevitably must. The sound of a heavy unknown
+footstep on his way home, had turned him from his path. He had then made
+back for the lime-kiln to obtain warmth and to dry his sodden clothes.
+Once on the margin he was soon asleep. The fumes dulled his senses, and
+in his restless sleep he had rolled on to the stones. In the morning the
+Limestone Burner coming to work found a handful of pure white ashes. A
+few articles were scattered about, and he guessed the rest.
+
+And so the "Otter" went to God.... The storm cleared, and the heavens
+were calm. In the sky, on the air, in the blades of grass were signs of
+awakening life. Morning came bright and fair, birds flew hither and
+thither, and the autumn flowers stood out to the sun. All things were
+glad and free, but one wretched stricken thing.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 7.
+
+SALMON AND TROUT POACHING.
+
+    Flashes the blood-red gleam
+      Over the midnight slaughter;
+    Wild shadows haunt the stream;
+      Dark forms glance o'er the water.
+    It is the leisterers' cry!
+      A salmon, ho! oho!
+    In scales of light, the creature bright
+      Is glimmering below.
+
+
+Most country poachers begin by loving Nature and end by hating the Game
+Laws. Whilst many a man is willing to recognize "property" in hares and
+pheasants, there are few who will do so with regard to salmon and trout.
+And this is why fish poachers have always swarmed. A sea-salmon is in
+the domain of the whole world one day; in a trickling runner among the
+hills the next. Yesterday it belonged to anybody; and the poacher,
+rightly or wrongly, thinks it belongs to him if only he can snatch it.
+There are few fish poachers who in their time have not been anglers; and
+anglers are of two kinds: there are those who fish fair, and those who
+fish foul. The first set are philosophical and cultivate patience: the
+second are predatory and catch fish, fairly if they can--but they catch
+fish.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Just as redwings and field-fares constitute the first game of young
+gunners, so the loach, the minnow, and the stickleback, are the prey of
+the young poacher. If these things are small, they are by no means to be
+despised, for there is a tide in the affairs of men when these "small
+fry" of the waters afford as much sport on their pebbly shallows as do
+the silvery-sided salmon in the pools of Strathspay. As yet there is no
+knowledge of gaff or click hook--only of a willow wand, a bit of string,
+and a crooked pin. The average country urchin has always a considerable
+dash of the savage in his composition, and this first comes out in
+relation to fish rather than fowl. See him during summer as he wantons
+in the stream like a dace. Watch where his brown legs carry him; observe
+his stealthy movements as he raises the likely stones; and note the
+primitive poaching weapon in his hand. That old pronged fork is every
+whit as formidable to the loach and bullhead as is the lister of the
+man-poacher to salmon and trout--and the wader uses it almost as
+skillfully. He has a bottle on the bank, and into this he pours the fish
+unhurt which he captures with his hands. Examine his aquarium, and
+hidden among the weeds you will find three or four species of small fry.
+The loach, the minnow, and the bullhead are sure to be there, with
+perhaps a tiny stickleback, and somewhere, outside the bottle--stuffed
+in cap or breeches pocket--crayfish of every age and size. During a long
+life I have watched the process, and this is the stuff out of which
+fish-poachers are made.
+
+It is part of the wisdom of nature's economy that when furred and
+feathered game is "out," fish are "in." It might be thought that
+poachers would recognize neither times nor seasons, but this is a
+mistake. During fence time game is nearly worthless; and then the
+prospective penalties of poaching out of season have to be taken into
+account. Fish poaching is practised none the less for the high
+preservation and strict watching which so much prevails now-a-days; it
+seems even to have grown with them. In outlying country towns with
+salmon and trout streams in the vicinity, poaching is carried on to an
+almost incredible extent. There are men who live by it and women to whom
+it constitutes a thriving trade. The "Otter," more thrifty than the rest
+of us, has purchased a cottage with the proceeds of his poaching; and I
+know four or five families who live by it. Whilst our class provide the
+chief business of the country police courts, and is a great source of
+profit to the local fish and game dealer, there is quite another and a
+pleasanter side, to the picture. But this later. The wary poacher never
+starts for the fishing ground without having first his customer; and it
+is surprising with what lax code of morals the provincial public will
+deal, when the silent night worker is one to the bargain. Of course the
+public always gets cheap fish and fresh fish, so fresh indeed that
+sometimes the life has hardly gone out of it. It is a perfectly easy
+matter to provide fish and the only difficulty lies in conveying it into
+the towns and villages. I never knew but what I might be met by some
+county constable, and consequently never carried game upon me. This I
+secreted in stack, rick, or disused farm building, until such time as it
+could be safely fetched. Country carriers, early morning milk-carts, and
+women are all employed in getting the hauls into town. In this women are
+by far the most successful. Sometimes they are seen labouring under a
+heavy load carried in a sack, with faggots and rotten sticks protruding
+from the mouth; or again, with a large basket innocently covered with
+crisp, green cresses which effectually hide the bright silvery fish
+beneath. Our methods of fish poaching are many. As we work silently and
+in the night, the chances of success are all in our favour. We walk much
+by the stream side during the day, and take mental notes of men and
+fish. We know the beats of the watchers, and have the water-side by
+heart. Long use has accustomed us to work as well in the dark as in the
+light, and this is essential. During summer, when the water is low, the
+fish congregate in deep "dubs." This they do for protection, and here,
+if overhung by trees, there is always abundance of food. Whenever it was
+our intention to net a dub, we carefully examined every inch of its
+bottom beforehand. If it had been "thorned," every thorn was carefully
+removed--small thorn bushes with stones attached, and thrown in by the
+watchers to entangle nets. Of course fish-poaching can never be tackled
+single-handed. In "long-netting" the net is dragged by a man on each
+side, a third wading after to lift it over the stakes, and to prevent
+the fish from escaping. When the end of the pool is reached the salmon
+and trout are simply drawn out upon the pebbles. This is repeated
+through the night until half-a-dozen pools are netted--probably
+depopulated of their fish. Netting of this description is a wholesale
+method of capture, always supposing that we are allowed our own time. It
+requires to be done slowly, however, as if alarmed we can do nothing but
+abandon the net. This is necessarily large, and when thoroughly wet is
+cumbersome and exceedingly heavy. The loss of one of our large nets
+was a serious matter, not only in time but money. For narrow streams, a
+narrow net is used, this being attached to two poles. It is better to
+cut the poles (of ash) only when required, as they are awkward objects
+to carry. The method of working the "pod-net" is the same in principle
+as the last. The older fish poachers rarely go in for poisoning. This is
+a cowardly method, and kills everything, both great and small, for miles
+down stream. Chloride of lime is the agent mostly used, as it does not
+injure the edible parts. The lime is thrown into the river where fish
+are known to lie, and its deadly influence is soon seen. The fish,
+weakened and poisoned, float belly uppermost. This at once renders them
+conspicuous, and they are simply lifted out of the water in a
+landing-net. Salmon and trout which come by their death in this way have
+the usually pink parts of a dull white, with the eyes and gill-covers of
+the same colour, and covered with a fine white film. This substance is
+much used in mills on the banks of trout-streams, and probably more fish
+are "poached" by this kind of pollution in a month than the most
+inveterate moucher will kill in a year.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is only poachers of the old school that are careful to observe close
+times, and they do their work mostly in summer. Many of the younger and
+more desperate hands, however, do really serious business when the fish
+are out of season. When salmon and trout are spawning their senses seem
+to become dulled, and then they are not difficult to approach in the
+water. They seek the highest reaches to spawn and stay for a
+considerable time on the spawning beds. A salmon offers a fair mark, and
+these are obtained by spearing. The pronged salmon spear is driven into
+the fleshy shoulders of the fish, when it is hauled out on to the bank.
+In this way I have often killed more fish in a single day than I could
+possibly carry home--even when there was little or no chance of
+detection. There is only one practicable way of carrying a big salmon
+across country on a dark night, and that is by hanging it round one's
+neck and steadying it in front. I have left tons of fish behind when
+chased by the watchers, as of all things they are the most difficult
+to carry. The best water bailiffs are those who are least seen, or who
+watch from a distance. So as to save sudden surprise, and to give timely
+warning of the approach of watchers, one of the poaching party should
+always command the land from a tree top.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The flesh of spawning fish is loose and watery, insipid and tasteless,
+and rarely brings more than a few pence per pound. In an out-lying
+hamlet known to me, poached salmon, during last close time, was so
+common that the cottagers fed their poultry upon it through the winter.
+Several fish were killed each over 20 lbs. in weight. Than netting,
+another way of securing salmon and trout from the spawning redds is by
+"click" hooks. These are simply large salmon hooks bound shaft to shaft
+and attached to a long cord; a bit of lead balances them and adds
+weight. These are used in the "dubs" when spearing by wading is
+impracticable. When a salmon is seen the hooks are simply thrown beyond
+it, then gently dragged until they come immediately beneath; when a
+sharp click sends them into the soft under parts of the fish, which is
+then dragged out. As the pike, which is one of nature's poachers, is
+injurious to our interests as well as those of the angler, we never miss
+an opportunity of treating him in the same summary manner. Of course,
+poaching with click-hooks requires to be done during the day, or by the
+aid of an artificial light. Light attracts salmon just as it attracts
+birds, and tar brands are frequently used by poachers. A good, rough
+bulls-eye lantern, to aid in spearing, can be made from a disused salmon
+canister. A circular hole should be made in the side, and a bit of
+material tied over to hide the light when not in use. Shooting is
+sometimes resorted to, but for this class of poaching the habits and
+beats of the water bailiffs require to be accurately known. The method
+has the advantage of quickness, and a gun in skilful hands and at short
+distance may be used without injuring the fleshy parts of the fish. That
+deadly bait, salmon row, is now rarely used, the method of preparing it
+being unknown to the younger generation. It can, however, be used with
+deadly effect. Although both ourselves and our nets were occasionally
+captured, the watchers generally found this a difficult matter. In
+approaching our fishing grounds we did not mind going sinuously and
+snake-like through the wet meadows, and as I have said, our nets were
+rarely kept at home. These were secreted in stone heaps, and among
+bushes in close proximity to where we intended to use them. Were they
+kept at home the obtaining of a search warrant by the police or local
+Angling Association would always render their custody a critical
+business. When, upon any rare occasion, the nets were kept at home, it
+was only for a short period, and when about to be used. Sometimes,
+though rarely, the police have discovered them secreted in the chimney,
+between bed and mattrass, or, in one case, wound about the portly person
+of a poacher's wife. As I have already said, the women are not always
+simply aiders and abettors, but in the actual poaching sometimes play an
+important part. They have frequently been taken red-handed by the
+watchers. Mention of the water-bailiffs reminds me that I must say a
+word of them too. Their profession is a hard one--harder by far than the
+poacher's. They work at night, and require to be most on the alert
+during rough and wet weather; especially in winter when fish are
+spawning. Sometimes they must remain still for hours in freezing
+clothes; and even in summer not unfrequently lie all night in dank and
+wet herbage. They see the night side of nature, and many of them are as
+good naturalists as the poachers. If a lapwing gets up and screams in
+the darkness the cleverer of them know how to interpret the sound, as
+also a hare rushing wildly past. I must add, however, that it is in the
+nature of things that at all points the fish poacher is cleverer and of
+readier wit than the river watcher.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Looking back it does not seem long since county constables first became
+an institution in this part of the country. I remember an amusing
+incident connected with one of them who was evidently a stranger to many
+of the phases of woodcraft. We had been netting a deep dub just below a
+stone bridge, and were about to land a splendid haul. Looking up, a
+constable was watching our operations in an interested sort of way, and
+for a moment we thought we were fairly caught. Just as we were about to
+abandon the net and make off through the wood, the man spoke. In an
+instant I saw how matters stood. He failed to grasp the situation--even
+came down and helped us to draw the net on to the bank. In thanking us
+for a silvery five-pound salmon we gave him he spoke with a southern
+accent, and I suppose that poachers and poaching were subjects that had
+never entered into his philosophy.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 8.
+
+GROUSE POACHING.
+
+
+For pleasurable excitement, to say nothing of profit, the pick of all
+poaching is for grouse. However fascinating partridge poaching may be;
+however pleasurable picking off pheasants from bare boughs; or the
+night-piercing screams of a netted hare--none of these can compare with
+the wild work of the moors. I am abroad on the heather just before the
+coming of the day. My way lies now along the rugged course of a fell
+"beck," now along the lower shoulder of the mountain. The grey
+dissolves into dawn, the dawn into light, and the first blackcock crows
+to his grey hen in the hollow. As my head appears above the burn side,
+the ever-watchful curlews whistle and the plovers scream. A dotterel
+goes plaintively piping over the stones, and the "cheep, cheep," of the
+awakening ling-birds rises from every brae. A silent tarn lies
+shimmering in a green hollow beneath, and over its marge constantly flit
+a pair of summer snipe. The bellowing of red deer comes from a
+neighbouring corrie, and a herd of roe are browsing on the confines of
+the scrub. The sun mounts the Eastern air, drives the mists away and
+beyond the lichen patches loved by the ptarmigan--and it is day.
+
+A glorious bird is the red grouse! Listen to his warning "kok, kok,
+kok," as he eyes the invader of his moorland haunts. Now that it is day
+his mate joins him on the "knowe." The sun warms up his rufus plumage,
+and the crescent-shaped patch of vermilion over the eye glows in the
+strong light. It is these sights and sounds that warm me to my work,
+and dearly I love the moor-game. Years ago I had sown grain along the
+fell-side so as to entice the grouse within range of an old flint-lock
+which I used with deadly effect from behind a stone wall. Then snares
+were set on the barley sheaves and corn stooks, by which a brace of
+birds were occasionally bagged. In after years an unforseen grouse
+harvest came in quite an unexpected manner. With the enclosure of the
+Commons hundreds of miles of wire fencing was erected, and in this way,
+before the birds had become accustomed to it, numbers were killed by
+flying against the fences. The casualties mostly occurred during
+"thick" weather, or when the mists had clung to the hills for days. At
+such times grouse fly low, and strike before seeing the obstacle. I
+never failed to note the mist-caps hanging to the fell-tops, and then,
+bag in hand, walked parallel to miles and miles of flimsy fence.
+Sometimes a dozen brace of birds were picked up in a morning; and, on
+the lower grounds, an occasional partridge, woodcock, or snipe.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Grouse are the only game that ever tempted me to poach during close
+time, and then I only erred by a few days. Birds sold in London on the
+morning of the "Twelfth" bring the biggest prices of the season, and to
+supply the demand was a temptation I could never resist. Many a
+"Squire," many a Country Justice has been tempted as I was, and fell as
+I fell. It is not too much to say that every one of the three thousand
+birds sold in London on the opening day has been poached during the
+"fence" time. In the north, country station-masters find hampers dropped
+on their platforms addressed to London dealers, but, as to who brought
+them, or how they came there, none ever knows.
+
+The only true prophet of the grouse-moors is the poacher. Months before
+the "squire" and keeper he knows whether disease will assert itself or
+no. By reason of his out-door life he has accuracy of eye and judgment
+sufficient to interpret what he sees aright. He is abroad in all
+weathers, and through every hour of the day and night. His clothes have
+taken on them the duns and browns of the moorlands; and he owns the
+subtle influence which attracts wild creatures to him. He has watched
+grouse "at home" since the beginning of the year. On the first spring
+day the sun shines brightly at noon. The birds bask on the brae, and
+spread their wings to the warmth. As the sun gains in power, and spring
+comes slowly up the way, the red grouse give out gurgling notes, and
+indulge in much strutting. The fell "becks" sparkles in the sun; the
+merlin screams over the heather, and the grouse packs break up. The
+birds are now seen singly or in pairs, and brae answers brae from dawn
+till dark. The cock grouse takes his stand on some grey rock, and erects
+or depresses at pleasure his vermilion eye-streak. Pairing is not long
+continued, and the two find out a depression in the heather which they
+line with bents and mountain grasses. About eight eggs are laid, and the
+cock grouse takes his stand upon the "knowe" to guard the nest from
+predaceous carrion and hooded crows. If hatching is successful the young
+birds are quickly on their legs, and through spring and summer follow
+the brooding birds. They grow larger and plumper each day, until it is
+difficult to detect them from the adult. Meanwhile August has come, and
+soon devastating death is dealt out to them. The sport, so far as the
+poacher is concerned, begins at the first rolling away of the morning
+mists; and then he often makes the best bag of the year. It was rarely
+that I was abroad later than two in the morning, and my first business
+was to wade out thigh-deep into the purple heather. From such a
+position it is not difficult to locate the crowing of the moorbirds as
+they answer each other across the heather. When this was done I would
+gain a rough stone wall, and then, by imitating the gurgling call-notes
+of cock or hen I could bring up every grouse within hearing. Sometimes a
+dozen would be about me at one time. Then the birds were picked off as
+they flew over the knolls and braes, or as they boldly stood on any
+eminence near. If this method is deadly in early August, it is
+infinitely more so during pairing time. Then, if time and leisure be
+allowed, and the poacher is a good "caller," almost every bird on a moor
+may be bagged.
+
+The greatest number of grouse, and consequently the best poaching, is to
+be had on moors on which the heather is regularly burned. Grouse love
+the shoots of ling which spring up after burning, and the birds which
+feed upon this invariably have the brightest plumage. On a well-burnt
+moor the best poaching method is by using a silk net. By watching for
+traces during the day it is not difficult to detect where the birds
+roost, and once this is discovered the rest is easy. The net is trailed
+along the ground by two men, and dropped instantly on the whirr of
+wings. The springing of the birds is the only guide in the darkness,
+though the method skilfully carried out is most destructive, and
+sometimes a whole covey is bagged at one sweep. Silk nets have three
+good qualities for night work, those made of any other material being
+cumbersome and nearly useless. They are light, strong, and are easily
+carried. It is well to have about eighteen inches of glazed material
+along the bottom of the net, or it is apt to catch in dragging. Where
+poaching is practised, keepers often place in the likeliest places a
+number of strong stakes armed with protruding nails. These, however, may
+be removed and replanted after the night's work; or, just at dusk a
+bunch of white feathers may be tied to point the position of each.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The planting of grain patches along the moor-side has been mentioned,
+and on these in late autumn great numbers of birds are bagged. Grouse
+are exceedingly fond of oats, and in the early morning the stooks are
+sometimes almost black with them. A pot shot here from behind a wall or
+fence is generally a profitable one, as the heavy charge of shot is sent
+straight at the "brown." Black-game are as keen as red grouse on oats,
+and a few sheaves thrown about always attracts them. Although the
+blackcock is a noble bird in appearance, he is dull and heavy, and is
+easily bagged. Early in the season the birds lie until almost trod upon,
+and of all game are the easiest to net. They roost on the ground, and
+usually seek out some sheltered brae-side on which to sleep. If closely
+watched at evening, it is not difficult to clap a silk net over them
+upon the first favourable night, when both mother and grown young are
+bagged together. That there are gentlemen poachers as well as casuals
+and amateurs, the following incident relating to black-game shows: "On a
+dull misty day they are easily got at: they will sit on the thorn bushes
+and alders, and let the shooter pick them off one by one. I remember
+once, on such a day, taking a noble sportsman who was very keen to shoot
+a blackcock, up to some black game sitting on a thorn hedge. When he got
+within about twenty-five yards he fired his first barrel (after taking a
+very deliberate aim) at an old grey hen. She took no notice, only
+shaking her feathers a little, and hopping a short distance further on.
+The same result with the second barrel. He loaded again and fired. This
+time the old hen turned round, and looked to see where the noise and
+unpleasant tickling sensation came from, and grew uneasy; the next
+attempt made her fly on to where her companions were sitting, and our
+friend then gave up his weapon to me in despair. Black game grow very
+stupid also when on stubbles; they will let a man fire at them, and if
+they do not see him, will fly round the field and settle again, or pitch
+on a wall quite near to him. Grouse will do the same thing. There is not
+much 'sport' in such shooting as this, but when out alone, and wanting
+to make a bag, it is a sure and quick way to do so. It may be called
+'poaching'--all I can say is, there would be many more gentlemen
+poachers if they could obtain such chances, and could not get game in
+any other way."
+
+Both grouse and black game may frequently be brought within range by
+placing a dead or stuffed bird on a rock or a stone wall. A small forked
+stick is made to support the head and neck of the decoy "dummy," which,
+if there are birds in the vicinity, soon attracts them. As a rule the
+lure is not long successful, but sufficiently so as to enable the
+poacher to make a big bag. Upon one occasion I made a remarkable
+addition to our fur and feather. In the darkness a movement was heard
+among the dense branches of a Scotch fir, when, looking up, a large bird
+which seemed as big as a turkey commenced to flutter off. It was stopped
+before it had flown many yards, and proved to be a handsome cock
+Capercailzie in splendid plumage. Had I been certain as to what it was I
+certainly should not have fired.
+
+Grouse stalking is fascinating sport, and by this method I usually made
+my greatest achievements. The stalking was mainly done from behind an
+old moorland horse, with which I had struck up an acquaintance; and it
+learned to stand fire like a war veteran. I used to think it enjoyed the
+sport, and I believe it did. With the aid of my shaggy friend I have
+successfully stalked hundreds of grouse, as its presence seemed to allay
+both fear and suspicion. Firing over its back, its neck, or beneath its
+belly--all were taken alike, patiently and sedately. An occasional
+handful of oats, or half a loaf, cemented the friendship of the old
+horse--my best and most constant poaching companion for years.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 9.
+
+RABBIT POACHING.
+
+
+If well trained lurchers are absolutely necessary to hare poaching,
+ferrets are just as important to successful rabbit poaching. Nearly
+nothing in fur can be done without them. However lucky the moucher may
+be among pheasants, partridge, or grouse, rabbits are and must be the
+chief product of his nights. Of the methods of obtaining them--field
+netting, well-traps, shooting--all are as nothing compared with silent
+ferreting.
+
+In the north we have two well-defined varieties of ferret--one a brown
+colour and known as the polecat-ferret; the other, the common white
+variety. The first is the hardier, and it is to secure this quality that
+poachers cross their ferrets with the wild polecat. Unlike lurchers,
+ferrets require but little training, and seem to work instinctively.
+There are various reasons why poachers prefer white ferrets to the
+polecat variety. At night a brown ferret is apt to be nipped up in
+mistake for a rabbit; while a white one is always apparent, even when
+moving among the densest herbage. Hence mouchers invariably use white
+ones. Gamekeepers who know their business prefer ferrets taken from
+poachers to any other. I was always particularly careful in selecting my
+stock, as from the nature of my trade I could ill afford to use bad
+ones. Certain strains of ferrets cause rabbits to bolt rapidly, while
+others are slow and sluggish. It need hardly be said that I always used
+the former. Even the best, however, will sometimes drive a rabbit to the
+end of a "blind" burrow; and after killing it will not return until it
+has gorged itself with blood. And more trouble is added if the ferret
+curls itself up for an after-dinner sleep. Then it has either to be left
+or dug out. The latter process is long, the burrows ramify far into the
+mound, and it is not just known in which the ferret remains. If it be
+left it is well to bar every hole with stones, and then return with a
+dead rabbit when hunger succeeds the gorged sleep. It is to guard
+against such occasions as these that working ferrets are generally
+muzzled. A cruel practise used to obtain among poachers of stitching
+together the lips of ferrets to prevent their worrying rabbits and then
+"laying up." For myself I made a muzzle of soft string which was
+effective, and at the same time comfortable to wear. When there was a
+chance of being surprised at night work I occasionally worked ferrets
+with a line attached; but this is an objectionable practice and does not
+always answer. There may be a root or stick in which the line gets
+entangled, when there will be digging and no end of trouble to get the
+ferret out. From these facts, and the great uncertainty of ferreting, it
+will be understood why poachers can afford to use only the best
+animals. A tangled hedgebank with coarse herbage was always a favourite
+spot for my depredations. There are invariably two, often half a dozen
+holes, to the same burrow. Small purse nets are spread over these, and I
+always preferred these loose to being pegged or fixed in any way. When
+all the nets are set the ferrets are turned in. They do not proceed
+immediately, but sniff the mouth of the hole; their indecision is only
+momentary, however, for soon the tip of the tail disappears in the
+darkness. And now silence is essential to success, as rabbits refuse to
+bolt if there is the slightest noise outside. A dull thud, a rush, and a
+rabbit goes rolling over and over entangled in the purse. Reserve nets
+are quickly clapped on the holes as the rabbits bolt, the latter
+invariably being taken except where a couple come together. Standing on
+the mound a shot would stop these as they go bounding through the dead
+leaves, but the sound would bring up the keeper, and so one has to
+practise self-denial. Unlike hares, rabbits rarely squeal when they
+become entangled; and this allows one to ferret long and silently.
+Rabbits bolt best on a windy day and before noon; after that they are
+sluggish and often refuse to come out at all. This is day ferreting, but
+of course mine was done mainly at night. In this case the dogs always
+ranged the land, and drove everything off it before we commenced
+operations. On good ground a mound or brae sometimes seemed to explode
+with rabbits, so wildly did they fly before their deadly foe. I have
+seen a score driven from one set of holes, while five or six couples is
+not at all uncommon. When ferrets are running the burrows, stoats and
+weasels are occasionally driven out; and among other strange things
+unearthed I remember a brown owl, a stock-dove, and a shell-drake--each
+of which happened to be breeding in the mounds.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The confines of a large estate constitute a poacher's paradise, for
+although partridge and grouse require land suited to their taste,
+rabbits and pheasants are common to all preserved ground. And then the
+former may be taken at any time, and in so many different ways. They
+are abundant, too, and always find a ready market. The penalties
+attached to rabbit poaching are less than those of game, and the conies
+need not be followed into closely preserved coverts. The extermination
+of the rabbit will be contemporaneous with that of the lurcher and
+poacher--two institutions of village life which date back to the time of
+the New Forest. Of the many mouching modes for taking conies,
+ferretting, as already stated, and field netting are the most common.
+Traps with steel jaws are sometimes set in runs, inserted in the turf so
+as to bring them flush with the sward. But destruction by this method is
+not sufficiently wholesale, and the upturned white under-parts of the
+rabbit's fur show too plainly against the green. The poacher's methods
+must be quick, and he cannot afford to visit by day traps set in the
+dark. The night must cover all his doings. When the unscrupulous keeper
+finds a snare he sometimes puts a leveret into it, and secretes himself.
+Then he waits, and captures the poacher "in the act." As with some
+other methods already mentioned, the trap poacher is only a casual.
+Ferretting is silent and almost invariably successful. In warrens, both
+inequalities of the ground, mounds, and ditches afford good cover. My
+best and most wholesale method of field-poaching for rabbits was by
+means of two long nets. These are from a hundred to a hundred and fifty
+yards in length, and about four feet high. They are usually made of
+silk, and are light and strong, and easily portable. These are set
+parallel to each other along the edge of a wood, about thirty yards out
+into the pasture. Only about four inches divides the nets. A dark windy
+night is best for the work, as in such weather rabbits feed far out in
+the fields. On a night of this character, too, the game neither hears
+nor sees the poacher. The nets are long--the first small in mesh, that
+immediately behind large. When a rabbit or hare strikes, the impetus
+takes a part of the first net and its contents through the larger mesh
+of the second, and there, hanging, the creature struggles until it is
+knocked on the head with a stick. Immediately the nets are set, two men
+and a brace of lurchers range the ground in front, slowly and patiently,
+and gradually drive every feeding thing woodwards. A third man quietly
+paces the sward behind the nets, killing whatever strikes them. In this
+way I have taken many scores of rabbits in a single night. On the
+confines of a large estate a rather clever trick was once played upon
+us. Each year about half-a-dozen black or white rabbits were turned down
+into certain woods. Whilst feeding, these stood out conspicuously from
+the rest, and were religiously preserved. Upon these the keepers kept a
+close watch, and when any were missing it was suspected what was going
+on, when the watching strength was increased. As soon as we detected the
+trick, we were careful to let the coloured rabbits go free. We found
+that it was altogether to our interest to preserve them.
+
+During night poaching for rabbits and hares the ground game is driven
+from its feeding ground to the woods or copses. Precisely the reverse
+method is employed during the day when the game is in cover. The
+practice is to find a spinny in which both rabbits and hares are known
+to lie; and then to set purse nets on the outside of every opening which
+may possibly be used by the frightened animals. The smaller the wood or
+patch of cover the easier it is to work. A man, with or without a dog,
+enters the covert, and his presence soon induces the furry denizens to
+bolt. As these rush through their customary runs they find themselves in
+the meshes of a net, and every struggle only makes them faster. This
+method has the disadvantage of being done in the light, but where there
+is much game is very deadly.
+
+Snares for hares and rabbits are not used nearly so much now as
+formerly. For all that, they are useful in outlying districts, or on
+land that is not closely watched. For hares the snare is a wire noose
+tied to a stick with string, and placed edgeways in the trod. To have
+the snare the right height is an important matter; and it will be found
+that two fists high for a hare, and one for a rabbit, is the most
+deadly. Casuals set their snares in hedge-bottoms, but these are no
+good. Two or three feet away from the hedge is the most killing
+position--for this reason: when a hare canters up to a fence it never
+immediately bounds through; it pauses about a yard away, then leaps into
+the hedge-bottom. It is during this last leap that it puts its neck into
+the noose and is taken. If a keeper merely watches a snare until it is
+"lifted," good and well; but to put a hare or rabbit into it and then
+pounce on the moucher--well, that is a different matter. It is not
+difficult to see where a hare has been taken, especially if the run in
+which the snare was set was damp. There will be the hole where the peg
+has been, and the ground will be beaten flat by the struggles of the
+animal in endeavouring to free itself.
+
+Field-netting for rabbits may be prevented in the same way as for
+partridges--by thorning the ground where the game feeds. It is quite a
+mistake to plant thorns, or even to stake out large branches. The only
+ones that at all trouble the poacher are small thorns which are left
+absolutely free on the ground. These get into the net, roll it up
+hopelessly in a short time, and if this once occurs everything escapes.
+Large thorns are easily seen and easily removed, but the abominable ones
+are the small ones left loose on the surface of the ground.
+
+The most certain and wholesale method of rabbit poaching I ever
+practised was also the most daring. The engine employed was the
+"well-trap." This is a square, deep box, built into the ground, and
+immediately opposite to a smoot-hole in the fence through which the
+rabbits run from wood or covert to field or pasture. Through a hole in
+the wall or fence a wooden trough or box is inserted. As the rabbits run
+through, the floor opens beneath their weight, and they drop into the
+"well." Immediately the pressure is removed the floor springs back to
+its original position, and thus a score or more rabbits are often taken
+in a single night. In the construction of these "well-traps," rough and
+unbarked wood is used, though, even after this precaution, the rabbits
+will not take them for weeks. Then, they become familiar; the weather
+washes away all scent, and the "well" is a wholesale engine of
+destruction. All surface traces of the existence of the trap must be
+covered over with dead leaves and woodland debris. The rabbits, of
+course, are taken alive, and the best way of killing them is by
+stretching them across the knee, and so dislocating the spine. If the
+keeper once finds out the trap the game is up. Whilst it lasts, however,
+it kills more rabbits than every other stroke of woodcraft the poacher
+knows.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 10.
+
+TRICKS.
+
+
+When it is known that a man's life is one long protest against the Game
+Laws he has to be exceedingly careful of his comings and goings. Every
+constable, every gamekeeper, and most workers in woodcraft are aware of
+the motives which bring him abroad at night. More eyes are upon him
+than he sees, and no one knows better than he that the enemies most to
+be feared are those who are least seen; and the man who has tasted the
+bitterness of poaching penalties will do everything in his power to
+escape detection. Probably the greatest aid to this end is knowing the
+country by heart; the field-paths and disused bye-ways, the fordable
+parts of the river, and a hundred things beside. The poacher is and must
+be suspicious of everyone he meets.
+
+In planning and carrying out forays I was always careful to observe two
+conditions. No poaching secret was ever confided to another; and I
+invariably endeavoured to get to the ground unseen. If my out-going was
+observed it often entailed a circuit of a dozen miles in coming home,
+and even then the entry into town was not without considerable risk. The
+hand of everyone was against me in my unlawful calling, and many were
+the shifts I had to make to escape detection or capture. To show with
+what success this may be carried out, the following incident will show.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I conceived the idea of openly shooting certain well-stocked coverts
+during the temporary absence of the owner. These were so well watched
+that all the ordinary measures at night seemed likely to be baffled. To
+openly shoot during broad day, and under the very eye of the keeper, was
+now the essential part of the programme; and to this end I must explain
+as follows: The keeper on the estate was but lately come to the
+district. Upon two occasions when I had been placed in the dock, I had
+been described as "a poacher of gentlemanly appearance," and "the
+gentleman poacher again." (My forefathers had been small estatesmen for
+generations, and I suppose that some last lingering air of gentility
+attached to me). Well, I had arranged with a confederate to act as bag
+carrier; he was to be very servile, and not to forget to touch his cap
+at pretty frequent intervals. After "making up" as a country squire--(I
+had closely studied the species on the "Bench")--and providing a
+luncheon in keeping with my temporary "squiredom," we started for the
+woods. It was a bright morning in the last week of October, and
+game--hares, pheasants, and woodcock--was exceedingly plentiful. The
+first firing brought up the keeper, who touched his hat in the most
+respectful fashion. He behaved, in short, precisely as I would have had
+him behave. I lost no time on quietly congratulating him on the number
+and quality of his birds; told him that his master would return from
+town to-morrow (which I had learned incidentally), and ended by handing
+him my cartridge bag to carry. A splendid bag of birds had been made by
+luncheon time, and the viands which constituted the meal were very much
+in keeping with my assumed position. Dusk came at the close of the short
+October afternoon, and with it the end of our day's sport. The bag was
+spread out in one of the rides of the wood, and in imagination I can see
+it now--thirty-seven pheasants, nine hares, five woodcock, a few
+rabbits, some cushats, and the usual "miscellaneous." The man of gaiters
+was despatched a couple of miles for a cart to carry the spoil, and a
+substantial "tip" gave speed to his not unwilling legs. The game,
+however, was not to occupy the cart. A donkey with panniers was waiting
+in a clump of brush by the covert side, and as soon as the panniers were
+packed, its head was turned homeward over a wild bit of moorland. With
+the start obtained, chase would have been fruitless had it ever been
+contemplated--which it never was. I need not detail the sequel to the
+incident here, and may say that it was somewhat painful to myself as
+well as my bag carrier. And I am sorry to say that the keeper was
+summarily dismissed by the enraged squire as a reward for his innocence.
+As to the coverts, they were so well stocked, that after a few days'
+rest there appeared as much game as ever, and the contents of our little
+bag were hardly missed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Another trick to which my co-worker used to resort was to attire himself
+in broad-brimmed hat and black coat similar to those worn a century ago
+by the people called Quakers. In the former he carried his nets, and in
+the capacious pockets of the latter the game he took. These outward
+guarantees of good faith, away from his own parish, precluded him from
+ever once being searched. I have already remarked, and every practical
+poacher knows it to be the fact, that the difficulty is not so much to
+obtain game as to transport it safely home. Although our dogs were
+trained to run on a hundred yards in advance so as to give warning of
+the approach of a possible enemy--even this did not always save us. A
+big bag of game handicaps one severely in a cross-country run, and it is
+doubly galling to have to sacrifice it. Well, upon the particular
+occasion to which I refer there was to be a country funeral with a
+hearse from the neighbouring market town, and of this I was determined
+to take advantage. By arranging with the driver I was enabled to stow
+myself and a large haul in the body of the vehicle, and, although the
+journey was a cramped and stuffy one, we in time reached our
+destination. As we came behind the nearest game shop the driver undid
+the door, and the questionable corpse was safely landed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I need hardly say that in a long life of poaching there were many
+occasions when I was brought to book. These, however, would form but a
+small percentage of the times I was "out." My success in this way was
+probably owing to the fact that I was chary as to those I took into
+confidence, and knew that above all things keeping my own council was
+the best wisdom. Another moucher I knew, but with whom I would have
+nothing to do, was an instance of one who told poaching secrets to
+village gossips. The "Mole" spent most of _his_ time in the county gaol,
+and just lately he completed his sixty-fifth incarceration--only a few
+of which were for offences outside the game laws. Well, there came a
+time when all the keepers round the country side had their revenge on
+me, and they made the most of it. I and my companion were fairly caught
+by being driven into an ambuscade by a combination of keepers. Exultant
+in my capture, the keepers from almost every estate in the neighbourhood
+flocked to witness my conviction. Some of them who had at times only
+seen a vanishing form in the darkness, now attended to see the man, as
+they put it. As I had always been followed at nights by an old black
+bitch, she, too, was produced in court, and proved an object of much
+curiosity. Well, our case was called, and, as we had no good defence to
+set up, it was agreed that my companion should do the talking. Without
+letting it appear so, we had a very definite object in prolonging the
+hearing of the case. There was never any great inclination to hurry such
+matters, as the magistrates always seemed to enjoy them. "We had been
+taken in the act," my co-worker told the bench. "We deserved no quarter,
+and asked none. Poaching was right by the Bible, but wrong by the
+law,"--and so he was rushing on. One of the Justices deigned to remark
+that it was a question of "property" not morality. "Oh!" rejoined the
+"Otter," "because blue blood doesn't run in my veins that's no reason
+why I shouldn't have my share. But it's a queer kind of property that's
+yours in that field, mine on the turnpike, and a third man's over the
+next fence." The end of it was, however, a fine of L5, with an
+alternative. And so the case ended. But that day the keepers and their
+assistants had forgotten the first principles of watching. The best
+keeper is the one that is the least seen. Only let the poacher know his
+whereabouts, and the latter's work is easy. It was afterwards remarked
+that during our trial not a poacher was in court. To any keeper skilled
+in his craft this fact must have appeared unusual--and significant. It
+became even more so when both of us were released by reason of our heavy
+fine having been paid the same evening. Most of the keepers had had
+their day out, and were making the most of it. Had their heads not been
+muddled they might have seen more than one woman labouring under loaded
+baskets near the local game dealers; these innocently covered with
+mantling cresses, and so, at the time, escaping suspicion. Upon the
+memorable day the pheasants had been fed by unseen hands--and had
+vanished. The only traces left by the covert side were fluffy feathers
+everywhere. Few hares remained on the land; the rest had either been
+snared or netted at the gates. The rabbits' burrows had been ferreted,
+the ferrets having been slyly borrowed at the keeper's cottage during
+his absence for the occasion. I may say that, in connection with this
+incident, we always claimed to poach square, and drew the line at
+home-reared pheasants--allowing them "property." Those found wild in the
+woods were on a different footing, and we directed our whole knowledge
+of woodcraft against them.
+
+Here is another "court" incident, in which I and my companion played a
+part. We came in contact with the law just sufficient to make us know
+something of its bearings. When charged with being in possession of
+"game" we reiterated the old argument that rabbits were vermin--but it
+rarely stood us in good stead. On one occasion, however, we scored.
+Being committed for two months for "night poaching," we respectfully
+informed the presiding Justice that, at the time of our capture, the sun
+had risen an hour; and further, that the law did not allow more than
+half the sentence just passed upon us. Our magistrate friend--to whom I
+have more than once referred--was on the bench, and he told his brother
+Justices that he thought there was something in the contention. The old
+Clerk looked crabbed as he fumbled for his horn spectacles, and, after
+turning over a book called "Stone's Justices' Manual," he solemnly
+informed the bench that defendants in their interpretation were right.
+We naturally remember this little incident, and as the law has had the
+whip hand of us upon so many occasions, chuckle over it.
+
+We invariably made friends with the stone-breakers by the road-sides,
+and just as invariably carried about us stone-breakers' hammers, and
+"preserves" for the eyes. When hard pressed, and if unknown to the
+pursuing keeper, nothing is easier than to dismiss the dog, throw off
+one's coat, plump down upon the first stone heap on the road, and go to
+work. If the thing is neatly done, and the "preserves" cover the face,
+it is wonderful how often this ruse is successful. The keeper may put a
+hasty question, but he oftener rushes after his man. Mention of
+stone-heaps reminds me of the fact that they are better "hides" for nets
+than almost anything else, especially the larger unbroken heaps. We
+invariably hid our big cumbrous fishing nets beneath them, and the
+stones were just as invariably true to their trust.
+
+Going back to my earliest poaching days I remember a cruel incident
+which had a very different ending to what its author intended. A young
+keeper had made a wager that he would effect my capture within a certain
+number of days, and my first intimation of this fact was a sickening
+sight which I discovered in passing down a woodland glade just at dawn
+on a bright December morning. I heard a groan, and a few yards in front
+saw a man stretched across the ride. His clothes were covered with hoar
+frost, he was drenched in blood, and the poor fellow's pale face showed
+me that of the keeper. He was held fast in a man-trap which had terribly
+lacerated his lower limbs. He was conscious, but quite exhausted.
+Although in great agony he suffered me to carry him to a neighbouring
+hay-rick, from whence we removed him to his cottage. He recovered
+slowly, and the man-trap which he had set the night before was, I
+believe, the last ever used in that district.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Chapter 11.
+
+PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS.
+
+
+When I had finished the last chapter I thought I had completed my work,
+but the gentleman who is to edit these "Confessions" now tells me that I
+am to confess more. He reminds me that I cannot have been an active
+poacher nearly all my life without having had numerous personal
+encounters with keepers and others. And in this he is right. But there
+is some difficulty in my additional task for the following reasons: I
+have never cared to take much credit to myself for having broken the
+head of a keeper, and there is but little pleasure to me in recounting
+the occasions when keepers have broken mine. However, speaking of broken
+heads reminds me of an incident which was amusing, though, at the time,
+somewhat painful to me.
+
+One night in November when the trees were bare, and the pheasants had
+taken to the branches, we were in a mixed wood of pine and beech. A good
+many birds roosted on its confines, and, to a practised eye, were not
+difficult to see against the moon as they sat on the lower limbs of the
+trees, near the trunks. I and my companion had old, strong guns with
+barrels filed down, and, as we got very near to the birds, we were using
+small charges of powder. As the night was windy the shots would not be
+heard very far, and we felt fairly safe. When we had obtained about
+three brace of birds, however, I heard a sudden crash among the
+underwood, when I immediately jumped behind the bole of a tree, and kept
+closely against it.
+
+The head-keeper had my companion down before he could resist, and I only
+remained undiscovered for a few seconds. One of the under-keepers seized
+me, but, being a good wrestler, I soon threw him into a dense brake of
+brambles and blackthorn. Then I bolted with the third man close behind.
+I could easily have outrun him over the rough country that lay outside
+the wood, but--ah! these "buts"--there was a stiff stone fence fully
+five feet high betwixt me and the open. Unless I could "fly" the fence
+he would have me. I clutched my pockets, steadied myself for the
+leap--and then sprang. I heard my pursuer stop for a second to await the
+issue. Weighted as I was I caught the coping, and fell back heavily into
+the wood. As soon as the keeper saw I was down he rushed forward and hit
+me heavily on the head with a stave. The sharp corner cut right through
+the skin, and blood spurted out in little jets. Then I turned about,
+determined to close with my opponent if he was inclined for further
+roughness. But he was not. When he saw that the blood was almost
+blinding me he dropped his hedge-stake, and ran, apparently terrified at
+what he had done. I leaned for a few moments against the wall, then
+dragged myself over, and started for a stream which ran down the field.
+But I felt weaker at every step, and soon crept into a bed of tall
+brackens, and plugged the wound in my head with a handful of wet moss,
+keeping it in position with my neckerchief. After this I munched some
+bread and hard cheese, sucked the dew from the fern fronds, and then
+fell into a broken sleep. I must have slept for four or five hours, when
+I woke thirsty and feverish, and very weak. I tried to walk, but again
+and again fell down. Then I crawled for about a hundred yards, but this
+caused my wound to bleed afresh, and I fainted. Just as day was coming a
+farm labourer came across, and kindly helped me to his cottage. He and
+his wife bathed my head and eyes, and then assisted me to the bed from
+which they had just risen. At noon I was able to take some bread and
+milk, and at night, an hour after darkness had fallen, I was able to
+start for home.
+
+Well, the sequel came in due time. We each received a summons (my
+companion had been released after identification), we were tried in
+about a fortnight from the date of our capture. There was a full bench
+of Magistrates; my companion pleaded guilty (with a view to a lenient
+sentence); myself--not guilty. In the first instance the case was clear,
+but not one of the three keepers (to their credit) would swear to me.
+They looked me carefully over, particularly my assailant. He was
+reminded that it was a fine, moonlight night. Yes, but his man, he
+thought, was taller, was more strongly built, and looked pale and
+haggard--no, he would not say that I was the man--in short, he thought I
+was not. Then came my innings. The keeper had sworn that, after running
+a mile, the poacher he chased had turned on him, and threatened to "do
+for him," if he advanced; that he had hit him on the head with his
+stick, and must have wounded him severely. He was also careful to
+explain that he had done this in "self defence." I then pointed out to
+the "bench" that it was no longer a matter of opinion; that I claimed to
+have my head examined, and asked that the Police Superintendent, who was
+conducting the case, should settle the point.
+
+But my assumption of an air of injured innocence had already done its
+work, and the presiding Magistrate said there was no evidence against
+me; that the case as against me was dismissed.
+
+I had hard work to get out of the box without smiling, for even then the
+pain in my head was acute, and I was not right for weeks after. I knew,
+however, that my wound was a dangerous possession, and close attention
+to my thick, soft hair, enabled me to hide it, always providing that it
+was not too closely examined. My companion was less fortunate, and his
+share of the proceedings, poor fellow, was "two months."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Here is the record of another encounter. There was a certain wood, the
+timber in which had been felled and carted. It had previously contained
+a good deal of "coppice," and after the wood-cutters had done their
+work, this had been utilized by the charcoal burners. The ashes from the
+charcoal had promoted quite an unseasonable growth, and everywhere about
+the stoles of the ash roots and hazel snags, fresh green grass and
+clover were springing. The hares on the neighbouring estate had found
+out this, and came nightly to the clearing to feed. As there were
+neither gaps nor gates we found it impossible to net them, and so had to
+resort to another device. Before the wood had been cleared rabbits had
+swarmed in it, and these had found ingress and egress through "smoots"
+in the stone fences. Upon examination we found that the larger of these
+were regularly used by our quarry, and, as we could not net them, we
+determined to plant a purse net at every smoot, drive the wood with fast
+dogs, and so bag our game. When everything was ready the lurchers
+commenced their work, and, thoroughly grasping the programme, worked up
+to it admirably. Each dog that "found" drove its hare fast and furiously
+(this was necessary), and, in an hour, a dozen were bagged. There was
+only this disadvantage. The wood was so large, the smoots so far apart,
+that many of the hares screamed for some seconds before they could be
+dispatched. The continuance of this screaming brought up the keepers,
+and our game was up, and with it what we had bagged. The watchers
+numbered four or five, and, leaving everything, we ran. In our line of
+retreat was an abandoned hut built by the charcoal burners, consisting
+of poles, with heather and fern for roof and sides. We made for this,
+hoping, in the darkness, to elude our pursuers, then double in our
+tracks as soon as they had passed. But they were not so easily deceived.
+As soon as the crackling of the dead sticks caused by our tread had
+ceased, they evidently suspected some trick, and knew that we were still
+in the wood. And the hut was the first object of search. As they were
+quite unaware of our number they declined to enter, but invited us into
+the open. We replied by barricading the narrow doorway with poles and
+planks which we found within. Of course this was only completing our
+imprisonment, but we felt that one or more of their number would be sent
+for further help, and that then we would make a dash to escape. We
+agreed to take off in different directions, to divide the attacking
+force, and then lead them across the roughest country we could find. A
+deep stream was not far off, and here we would probably escape. But our
+scheme went wrong--or, rather, we had no opportunity to put it into
+practice. After waiting and listening awhile we saw lights glisten in
+the chinks of the heather walls, and then fumes of smoke began to creep
+up them. They were burning us out. Quietly as we could we undid the
+barricading, and, as the air rushed in, tiny tongues of flame shot up
+the heather. Now we lay low with our faces on the damp floor. Then a
+pole was thrust through. Another current of air and the flames shot
+everywhere. The thick smoke nearly stifled us, and the heat became
+intense. The fire ran up the poles, and burning bits of the heather roof
+began to fall. Then came the crisis. A fir pole had been raised without,
+and then was to crash through the hut. This was the first outside
+proceeding we had seen--we saw it through the riddled walls. As soon as
+the men loosed their hold of the tree for its fall we sprang from the
+doorway; and then for a few seconds the sight was magnificent. As the
+roof crashed in the whole hut was one bright mass of flame, and a sheet
+of fire shot upwards into the night. The burning brackens and ling sent
+out myriads of sparks, and these falling around gave us a few seconds'
+start. As agreed, we each hurled a burning brand among the keepers, then
+disappeared in the darkness. Certainly no one followed us out of the
+wood. We had simply scored by lying low with the fire about us, taking
+advantage of the confusion and dazzling light, and then knowing our way
+out of the difficulty. The squire's son, we saw, was one of the
+attacking party. We were a bit burnt, we lost the game and nets, but
+were quite content to have escaped so easily.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There is another incident which I have good cause to remember all my
+life. It is of a somewhat different nature to the foregoing, and
+occurred on the estuary of the river which I used frequently to net with
+good results. Someone who was certainly not very friendly disposed had
+seen me and my companion start for our fishing ground, and had made the
+most of their knowledge. After getting to the near vicinity of our work,
+we lay down beneath a hay-rick to wait for a degree of darkness. Then we
+crawled on hands and knees by the side of a fence until it brought us to
+a familiar pool which we knew to be well stocked with salmon and trout.
+As we surveyed the water we heard voices, and knew that the pool was
+watched. These sounds seemed to come from the lower limbs of a big tree,
+and soon one of the watchers hidden in the branches stupidly struck a
+match to light his pipe. This not only frescoed two forms against the
+night, but lit up their faces with a red glow. The discovery was a
+stroke of luck. We knew where we had the water bailiffs, and the rest
+was easy. We got quietly away from the spot, and soon were at work in a
+pool further up stream. No one but a gaunt heron objected to our
+fishing, and we made a splendid haul. The salmon and sea-trout had begun
+to run, and swarmed everywhere along the reaches. We hid our net in the
+"otter" holes, and, under heavy loads, made for home across the meadows.
+We were well aware that the local police changed duty at six in the
+morning, and timed our entry into town precisely at that hour. But our
+absence of the previous night had gone further abroad, and the local
+Angling Association, the Conservancy Board, and the police had each
+interested themselves in our doings. It was quite unsafe to hide the
+spoil, as was usual, and home it must be carried. I was now alone. In
+the open I felt comparatively safe, but as I neared my destination I
+knew not whom I should meet round the next turn. Presently, however, it
+seemed as though I was in luck. Every wall, every hedgerow, every
+mound aided my going. Now a dash across an open field would land me
+almost at my own door. Then I should be safe. I had hardly had time to
+congratulate myself on my getting in unobserved when a constable, then a
+second, and a third were all tearing down upon me from watch points,
+where they had been in hiding. The odds were against me, but I grasped
+my load desperately, drew it tightly upon my shoulders, and ran. The
+police had thrown down their capes, and were rapidly gaining upon me. I
+got into a long slouching trot, however, determined to make a desperate
+effort to get in, where I should have been safe. This they knew. Strong
+and fleet as I was I was too heavily handicapped, but I felt that even
+though I fell exhausted on the other side of the door-way, I would gain
+it. My pursuers--all heavy men--were blown, and in trouble, and I knew
+there was now no obstacle before me. Now it was only a distance of
+twenty yards--now a dozen. The great thuds of the men's feet were close
+upon me, and they breathed like beaten horses. My legs trembled beneath
+me, and I was blinded by perspiration. "Seize him," "seize him," gasped
+the sergeant--but I was only a yard from the door. With a desperate
+feeling that I had won, I grasped the handle and threw my whole weight
+and that of my load against the door, only to find it--locked. I fell
+back on to the stones, and the stern chase was ended.
+
+For a minute nobody spoke--nobody was able to. I lay where I fell, and
+the men leaned against what was nearest them. Then the sergeant
+condescended to say "poor beggar"--and we all moved off. The fish were
+turned out on the grass in the police station yard, and were a sight to
+see. There were ninety trout, thirty-seven salmon-morts, and two salmon.
+I was not detained. One of the men handed me a mort, telling me I would
+be ready for a substantial breakfast. I knew what it all meant, and
+first thought of bolting, then settled that I would do as I had always
+done--face it out. But I little knew what this meant, as will
+presently be seen. I knew sufficient of the law to forsee that I should
+be charged with trespassing; with night poaching; with being in illegal
+possession of fish; with illegally killing and taking salmon; perhaps
+other counts besides. But what I did _not_ know was that I should be
+charged, in addition, with being in illegal possession of one hundred
+and twenty-nine salmon and trout _during the close season_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And this is how it came about. There had been an agitation throughout
+the whole of the Conservancy district. It was contended that the fishing
+season extended too far into Autumn by a fortnight--that by that time
+the fish had begun to spawn. The old condition of things had held for
+years, and the new Conservancy bye-laws had only just come into
+operation. And so I was trapped. The case came on, and a great shoal of
+magistrates with it. Two of them were personally interested, and were
+charitable enough to retire from the Bench--they pushed their chairs
+back about an inch from the table. I pleaded guilty to all the charges
+except the last, and explained the case as clearly as I could. The
+Conservancy solicitor, who prosecuted, did then what he had never done
+before. It was a bad case he said, but added that I had never before
+been charged with netting during "close-time," and had never used lime
+or other wholesale methods of poisoning. He pointed out, too, to the
+presiding Justice that I always claimed to "poach square"--at which all
+the young ones laughed. He did not press for the heaviest penalty. But
+this was quite unnecessary, as I got it without. I never quite
+understood how they made it up, but I was fined ninety-seven pounds. I
+told the Chairman that I should pay it "in kind," and went to "hard" for
+nine months.
+
+
+
+
+WORKS BY JOHN WATSON.
+
+
+  NATURE AND WOODCRAFT.
+  Crown 8vo, 5/.
+  With Illustrations by G. E. LODGE.
+  LONDON: SMITH & INNES.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  SYLVAN FOLK:
+  SKETCHES OF BIRD AND ANIMAL LIFE IN BRITAIN.
+  Crown 8vo, 3/6.
+  LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  BRITISH SPORTING FISHES.
+  Crown 8vo, with Frontispiece, 3/6.
+  LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _IN THE PRESS._
+  THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY.
+
+
+
+
+  _Crown 8vo, 286 pp., cloth, 3s. 6d._
+  SYLVAN FOLK:
+  Sketches of Bird and Animal Life in Britain,
+  BY
+  JOHN WATSON, F.L.S.,
+  _Author of "Nature and Woodcraft," etc._
+
+
+NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
+
+     "Written by a born naturalist.... Characterised by that indefinable
+     something which distinguishes the observer of the fields and woods
+     from the mere book student."--_Daily News._
+
+     "It is this freshness, this out-door atmosphere, that gives its
+     charm to these sketches of bird and animal life, and that leads the
+     reader along in fascinated interest from the first to the last
+     page."--_Literary World._
+
+     "May be placed on the same shelf with that of the greatest of all
+     writers on English rural life without any quarrel being
+     incurred.... At once a morally bracing and most instructive
+     book."--_Christian Leader._
+
+     "He fully deserves the high compliment of being compared with
+     Jefferies.... This beautiful book, in which a zoologist might find
+     new facts, a poet light, and any thoughtful reader an
+     inspiration."--_Fishing Gazette._
+
+     "There is the same enthusiasm and sincerity that marked Jefferies'
+     work. Mr. Watson always writes like a man who has his eye on his
+     subject. 'Nature by Night' is a thoroughly charming prose idyl,
+     every detail in which is obviously taken at first hand from
+     Nature."--_Observer._
+
+     "Full of delicate description as enchanting as a fairy tale. Dull
+     indeed must be the reader who is insensible to its delightful
+     charm.... Does the increase of such books mean that we are tired of
+     the civilisation of the streets, and are ready to turn back for a
+     while to the relics of a freer and wilder state?"--_Manchester
+     Examiner._
+
+     "After the laboured imitations of Jefferies, Mr. Watson's 'Sylvan
+     Folk' comes like a breath of sweet country air into the atmosphere
+     of an emporium of stuffed birds and calico flowers. A sympathetic,
+     keen-eyed, worshipful observer of Nature, Mr. Watson writes with
+     the simplicity and directness of a man who knows what he is about.
+     There is not an uninteresting page in 'Sylvan Folk' from first to
+     last."--_Echo._
+
+     "He knows how to interpret many of the innumerable signs and
+     symbols which are readily misunderstood, or altogether overlooked,
+     by less careful inquirers.... His descriptions are so fresh--they
+     suggest so vividly the idea of happy hours spent among attractive
+     scenes in the open air--that they will give genuine pleasure to
+     everyone who reads them."--_Nature._
+
+LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.C.
+
+
+
+
+  _Crown 8vo, 302 pp., cloth, 3s. 6d._
+  NATURE AND WOODCRAFT
+  BY
+  JOHN WATSON, F.L.S.,
+  _Author of "Sylvan Folk," &c._
+
+
+NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
+
+     "A delightfully fresh and enjoyable book. Those who know the open
+     air and the life of animated nature will enjoy the skill with which
+     Mr. Watson translates its aspects and its actions into literary
+     expression. Those who dwell in cities will enjoy it because the
+     papers induce the illusion that one is in the
+     country."--_Scotsman._
+
+     "Written with real ability as well as adequate knowledge. On every
+     page there is evidence of genuine though never paraded enthusiasm
+     for the calm delights of the country. Mr. Watson writes in a clear
+     and attractive manner, and one, moreover, around which an
+     imaginative glamour rests."--_Leeds Mercury._
+
+     "Mr. Watson writes effectively, from the accumulations of years of
+     close observation of nature. Since the death of Mr. Jefferies few
+     living writers can compete with him in this particular path of
+     literature."--_Bookseller._
+
+     "This is the best written and most valuable of Mr. Watson's books.
+     Best of all are his chapters on the old Statesman theory of life in
+     the North."--_Academy._
+
+     "Nothing can be better than all those chapters which describe life
+     among the Cumbrian mountains; this is Mr. Watson's real theme, and
+     he deserves all the thanks we can give him for executing it with
+     such true feeling."--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+     "Mr. Watson's volume 'Nature and Woodcraft' deserves a hearty
+     welcome, and will doubtless get it. He writes with a grace and
+     fluency that make his book hard to leave."--_Yorkshire Post._
+
+     "Many admirers of Richard Jefferies will be glad to see that one
+     still lives who can write so charmingly of nature and
+     woodcraft."--_Perthshire Advertiser._
+
+     "As an observer pure and simple, and as a bright and pleasing
+     recorder, Mr. Watson can hold his own with anybody; and his range
+     is sufficiently extensive to secure, in addition to all other
+     charms, the charm of variety."--_Manchester Examiner._
+
+LONDON: WALTER SMITH & INNES, BEDFORD ST., STRAND, W.C.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+
+Illustrations have been moved near the relevant section of the text.
+
+Inconsistencies have been retained in hyphenation and grammar, except
+where indicated in the list below.
+
+Here is a list of the minor typographical corrections made:
+
+  - "curiouly" changed to "curiously" on Page 15
+  - Period added after "2" on Page 19
+  - "the the" changed to "the" on Page 22
+  - "avourable" changed to "favourable" on Page 22
+  - Period moved from after "Chapter" to after "3" on Page 32
+  - "sucseeded" changed to "succeeded" on Page 38
+  - "succesfully" changed to "successfully" on Page 39
+  - "dfficult" changed to "difficult" on Page 45
+  - Period added after "apart" on Page 65
+  - Period added after "day" on Page 69
+  - "croocked" changed to "crooked" on Page 92
+  - "difficut" changed to "difficult" on Page 114
+  - "is is" changed to "is" on Page 116
+  - "an" changed to "and" on Page 124
+  - "ha" changed to "has" on Page 124
+  - "troub" changed to "trouble" on Page 124
+  - "alwasy" changed to "always" on Page 126
+  - Comma removed after "Bench" on Page 137
+  - "its" changed to "it's" on Page 144
+  - "fnrther" changed to "further" on Page 159
+  - Single quote changed to double quote after "Nature." on Page 174
+  - "witten" changed to "written" on Page 175
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Confessions of a Poacher, by Anonymous
+
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