136 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



as a rule, they leave to gipsies, who are experts in setting wire 

 snares. A rabbit never bolts from its hole in a hurry, unless 

 pursued by a ferret or stoat, but reconnoitres cautiously, and 

 any recent disturbance of the ground by hand of man is enough 

 to put him on his guard. Then he goes back and tries to go out 

 some other way. Knowing this, the gipsies smear their hands with 

 moist earth before setting a wire, and where they have laid a trap 

 they rake leaves or earth over it lightly with a stick, not venturing 

 to use a finger. If a professional Poacher stoops to rabbit- 

 catching, in absence of higher game, he does it wholesale, with 

 nets that match the hue of grass when hazy evening light is on it, 

 so that when spread their fine meshes look only like a film of 

 mist. Walking along the head of a cover in the dim twilight of 

 summer or hazy moonlight of late autumn, when rabbits are out 

 feeding, the Poacher sticks an iron rod of his net in the ground 

 and then proceeds to set the snare, which may be a hundred 

 yards long, or more, and this he accomplishes almost as 

 fast as he can walk. He wants, however, one assistant to hold 

 the first rod, and another with a lurcher to drive the rabbits back. 

 When alarmed, they come helter-skelter, by tens or scores, rolling 

 in the net they cannot see. When once a rabbit's head is 

 well through a mesh he cannot hope to escape, in spite of all his 

 struggles and terrified beating of feet. One smart tap behind the 

 ear settles him. I have spoken of a lurcher ; that is the 

 Poacher's best friend when in search of rabbits, hares, pheasants, 

 partridges, or black game. The lurcher is a consummate actor, 

 or rather pantomimist, for he never utters a sound while at work, 

 and his training is the greatest triumph of the Poacher's art. 

 When, by a wave of the hand, a signal is given for him to go off 



