36 EE^illNISCEXCES OF A SPORTSMAN. 



Duke of Atholl, who planted, it is said, thirty millions 

 of larch on his hills and moors in Scotland, lived, I have 

 before stated, long enough to see the Atholl frigate 

 built of the larch which he planted. If there should be 

 on the estate some swampy or marshy grounds, cut open 

 drains in proper directions, and plant the black Italian 

 poplar, alders, willows, and other aquatic trees ; and in 

 all probability in the course of three or four years you 

 will have a good cover for the pheasants. This I am 

 able to state from experience, as I planted about five 

 acres of this sort of land, being first well drained, in 

 Cambridgeshire, and at the above period I was quite 

 astonished to see the surprising growth of the trees, and 

 it soon became an excellent pheasant cover. 



I recollect a friend telling me how he found out that 

 a keeper whom he had discharged sold his game for his 

 own profit. The man had only left him a few days, in 

 consequence of his finding a scarcity of game on his 

 estate. A letter came addressed to the gamekeeper 

 bearing a Grloucester post-mark, soon after his departure. 

 My friend having a strong suspicion that it was a 

 poulterer in that town who sold game, opened it, and 

 found it to contain the prices of hares, pheasants, and 

 partridges, and rabbits ; which price he was willing to 

 give him. Some gentlemen have a decided dislike 

 to engage as a gamekeeper a man who has practised 

 poaching ; others act upon the principle, " set a thief 

 to catch a thief," and such men certainly possess this 

 advantage, of knowing many of the sly tricks, in order 

 to be an overmatch for the gamekeeper. One man who 

 had been a poacher in Norfolk once told me, that after 

 he had set his snares he carefully covered all his foot- 

 steps within a certain distance of the place, and if he 

 heard any one coming, he instantly set off running back- 



