SPORTING WAYS AND DAYS 



The sleep ; or he is busy in storing provender in 



Squirrel's mysterious corners. Squirrels are wonder- 

 Day fully faithful to favoured haunts, and there 

 are woodland glades where one may always 

 see a few at their revels at this season, six or seven of 

 the bright-eyed creatures, frisking and feasting in jovial 

 company. They are always in a hurry, as they skurry 

 amid the fallen leaves, or gnaw at nuts, sitting on their 

 haunches, with tails upstanding and hands to mouths. 

 In some hollow of a beech's roots the larder may be 

 found, stored with beechmast, chestnuts, fir-cones, 

 acorns, hazel-nuts, and hips and haws; certainly the 

 squirrel is a forester, for he plants many trees. 



SPORTING WAYS AND DAYS 



IN our fathers' day the upland forest country of Sussex 

 was a home for blackgame, and famous for 

 Snaring woodcock. The season for 'cock now being 

 Woodcock at hand, we may recall that they were 

 commonly taken by poachers in springes, 

 which have been in use in Sussex for centuries, and are 

 still set occasionally for pheasants. The springe is made 

 by bending down any flexible wand which grows at the 

 chosen place, or one cut for the purpose, a simple, 

 trigger-like arrangement keeping it bent like a bow. 

 To the tip of the wand is fastened a length of string, 

 with a running noose. On the woodcock running his 

 head into the noose the trigger is released, the wand 

 flies upright, and the bird is gibbeted, like a felon, in 

 mid-air. On either side of the run herbage is woven, so 

 as to " weir," as the poacher would say, the bird to the 

 snare. 



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