rO ACHING PARTRIDGES 79 



poacher to carry a sack of partridges to a strange station, 

 and there to book the goods to the dealer, attaching the 

 printed labels of a licensed dealer in game as the most 

 effectual means of allaying inconvenient suspicion. 

 Sometimes the birds are packed in soap-boxes and 

 consigned to some small general dealer. Others call in 

 the assistance of their womankind, who carry the birds 

 ' to wash ' in baskets of foul linen, or stow them in the 

 trunk of the ' servant girl,' who is going out to a ' new 

 place.' 



A more open method of securing the sale of 

 poached partridges is to impress the co-operation of 

 some individual who himself shoots a few acres, and 

 takes out a gun licence to serve as a blind which may 

 cover other irregularities. Such a man does not 

 hesitate to add a score or two &f netted partridges 

 to the single brace which honestly fell to his own gun 

 the previous day. Some game-dealers have a private 

 entrance for early visitors, approached by some more 

 or less circuitous route on the plea of feeding the pigs 

 or filling a bucket with spring water. If the normal 

 means of despatching game are suspended, recourse 

 must be had to itinerant hawkers, many of whom are 

 adroit enough at bartering away poached game in the 

 prosecution of their ordinary traffic. 



The trade in live partridges has received consider- 



