160 COMMON BRITISH ANIMALS 



make some cry, for instruments known as " hare- 

 pipes '^ must have been used by poachers to lure 

 hares as long ago as the reign of Richard II, since 

 the game laws of 13 Rich. II ch. 13 prohibited the 

 use by unauthorised persons of dogs for hunting, 

 ferrets, nets, hare-pipes, or other engines to take or 

 destroy hares, etc., and in James I^s time the statute 



1 Jac. c. 27 enacted that every person Avho should 

 at any time take, or destroy any hares with hare- 

 pipes, cords, or an}^ such instruments or other engines 

 should forfeit for every hare so taken or destroyed 

 20^. This prohibition of the use of hare-pipes was 

 continued by 22 and 23 Car. II c. 25 as well as by 

 4 and 5 William and Mary c. 23, and only dropped 

 out of the statute book in 1831, when these and 

 other game laws were repealed on the passing of 

 what is now known as the principal Game Act 1 and 



2 Will. TV c. 32. These facts were recorded by 

 Mr. J. E. Harting in the 'Field,' March 4th, 1905, 

 who further states that : " French poachers at the 

 present day call the buck hares in the month of 

 March by imitating with an ivy leaf the cry of the 

 doe.'' 



Dr. Murray defines the hare-pipe as a trap for 

 catching hares, and his quotations on the subject 

 range from 1389 to 1821. 



Mr. Henry Scherren, in writing of the hare-pipe, 

 quotes ' The Early English Miscellany ' : 

 "I have a hare-pype in puree. 

 It shall be set all for thi sake." 



And Tuberville's 'Venerie' (1575), p. 200: ''Also 

 it is possible to take them (otters) under the water. 



