84 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



is determined by death ; and to steal dead game 

 so situated really amounts to felony. 



With the act of poaching, or theft of game, 

 the love of sport in the rural depredator has no 

 concern wliatever. It used to be the promulgated 

 idea, in the false commiseration of crime, that 

 the thief or poacher, like his betters, had a love 

 for the chase, and could not abstain from gratify- 

 ing it. No such sentiment ever entered the 

 villain's head. His chase of feathered game was 

 carried on by night, when the ^oot creatures 

 Avere asleep, or when pursuing his calling by day 

 he was never on the spot to witness the capture 

 of the creature he sought, save on rare occasions, 

 when with a lurcher he set and then drove to 

 his nets or wires. The poacher slunk, under 

 cover of the night, to shoot the beautiful and 

 unsuspecting pheasant from his perch, or he crept 

 among the paths used by pheasants, hares, and 

 rabbits, to set wire nooses or lay nets to strangle 

 or entangle game after whom he had no exciting 

 chase whatever. Before essaying on his nightly 

 depredations, he and his fellows usually meet in 

 some public-house or beer - shop, Avhere they be- 

 dizen the little brains they had with drink, till 



