POACHING PARTRIDGES 69 



was concerned. It is always hard, however, to 

 unlearn the devices upon which we depended for 

 amusement in youth. What mattered it that prudence 

 warned Bill that it were best to keep on a pleasant 

 footing with ' t' squire ' ? However willing Bill might 

 be in the main to forego his beloved forays, the Old 

 Adam within him must inevitably experience a special 

 hankering after forbidden fruit, and human nature 

 being what it is, a lapse of his good resolution was 

 pretty certain to occur in the long run. 



A recent writer has informed us that the old stamp 

 of rural poacher has become well-nigh as extinct as 

 the Dodo itself. In some districts he is seen, we 

 admit, less frequently than formerly. In spite, how- 

 ever, of the spread of education and diffusion of 

 enlightened ideas, we doubt whether the typical 

 poacher is really much scarcer than formerly, in ratio 

 at least to the decreasing population of rural com- 

 munities. The old dogged type of brutal poacher has, 

 perhaps, become scarce, but his tastes and predi- 

 lections have been transmitted to his descendants. 

 There are plenty of families who treasure the details 

 of their forefathers' craft and endeavour to reproduce 

 the traditions of those who went before them with all 

 seriousness of purpose. 



In the Highlands of Scotland the vast majority 



