132 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE-BOOKS. CH. XXVIII. 



tailed coat of this classical-looking gentleman, who 

 seems to be merely enjoying the beauty of the 

 evening, although all the while he is watching 

 with the eyes of a lynx the unsuspecting partridges 

 as they run about calling to each other preparatory 

 to going to roost. The fellow is thus able to form 

 a pretty good guess as to where half-a-dozen coveys 

 may be netted ; and he returns to his confederate, 

 who in the meantime has been equally usefully 

 employed at some alehouse or elsewhere in pre- 

 paring and mending the nets. "Dressing" for 

 the occasion, as it is termed, is now become by no 

 means an uncommon practice near large towns in 

 England, and many a pheasant preserve is laid waste 

 by Methodist parson-like fellows, whose black coat- 

 pockets and clerical-looking hats contain, instead 

 of sermons, neatly-coiled piles of horsehair nooses 

 ready tied on a line long enough to be run across 

 a large extent of cover, at the favourable moment 

 when the keeper, of whom they have just asked 

 the way to the rectory, has gone about his business 

 in some other direction. 



By such means as these a great part of the game 

 is obtained which we see hung up in such immense 

 quantities in all the poulterers' shops. A game- 

 keeper cannot be too curious and inquisitive as to 

 the business and movements of all strangers about 



