Poachers and Poaching. 15 



the whereabouts of the fish. A light, too, 

 attracts salmon. Of course, this can only be 

 attempted when the beats of the watchers and 

 keepers are known. The older generation of 

 poachers, who have died or are fast dying out, 

 seem to have taken the receipt for preparing 

 salmon roe with them, For this once deadly 

 bait is now rarely used. Here is a field 

 incident. 



A silent river reach shaded by trees. It is 

 the end of a short summer night. We know 

 that the poachers have lately been busy knitting 

 their nets, and have come to intercept them. 

 The " Alder Dub" may be easily netted, and 

 contains a score nice trout. Poachers carefully 

 study the habits of fish as well as those of 

 game, both winged and furred. To the alder 

 dub they know the trout make when the river 

 is low. The poachers have not noted signs of 

 wind and weather and of local migrations for 

 twenty years past to be ignorant of this. And 

 so here, in the dew-beaded grass, we lie in wait. 

 It is two o'clock and a critical time. A strange 

 breaking is in the east : grey half-light, half- 

 mist. If they come they will come now. In 

 an hour the darkness will not hide them. We 

 lie close to the bank thickly covered with bush 

 and scrub. Two sounds are and have been 

 heard all night the ceaseless call of the crake 

 and the not less ceaseless song of the sedge-bird. 



