118 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



jimiped, and landed with his feet in the back of 

 the thief, and secured him. On searching him, 

 there were live pheasants in his pockets, and 

 one dead cock pheasant, which, no doubt, had 

 been killed in the fall. There was, therefore, 

 a penalty for the trespass, and for the possession 

 of dead game out of season — when, on the 

 magistrate convicting, the thief plunged his 

 hand into his pocket, and flung on tlio table a 

 heap of gold and silver, a game certificate, and 

 a licence to deal in game, and insolently told the 

 magistrate's clerk to take the fine, whatever it was. 



Taking live game, and stealing the eggs when 

 keepers are slack, are two of the easiest as well as the 

 most mischievous and lucrative manorial aggressions. 



Thieves, when setting their snares for all or 

 any kinds of game, to be. left down all night, will 

 very often select what they think is the keeper's 

 dinner-liour to go and look at them. Then, if 

 there should 1)0 a head of game caught, they will 

 come to the spot, stoop down over it, make a 

 bundle of their smock-frock or jacket-j^ockets, rise 

 up again, and appear to sneak away. Then, if 

 the keeper is deceived by this, he rushes out from 

 his hiding-plnce, and seizes the supposed delinquent. 



