Po a ch ers and Po a ch ing. 2 1 



Of course the poacher knows this, and is quick 

 to use his knowledge. It by no means follows 

 that the man who rears the pheasants will have 

 the privilege of shooting them. In autumn, 

 when beechmast and acorns begin to fall, the 

 pheasants make daily journeys in search of them ; 

 and of these they consume great quantities. 

 They feed principally in the morning, dust them- 

 selves in the turnip-fields at noon, and ramble 

 through the woods in the afternoon ; and when 

 wandered birds find themselves in outlying 

 copses in the evening they are apt to roost there. 



It need hardly be said that pheasants are 

 generally reared close to the keeper's cottage ; 

 that their coverts immediately surround it. Most 

 commonly it is a gang of armed ruffians that 

 enter these, and not the country poacher. Then 

 there are reasons for this. Opposition must 

 always be anticipated, for the covert should never 

 be, and rarely is, unwatched. And then there are 

 the results of capture to be taken into account. 

 This effected, and with birds in his possession,, 

 the poacher is liable to be indicted upon so 

 many charges, each and all having heavy penal- 

 ties. 



When wholesale pheasant poaching is prose- 

 cuted by gangs, it is in winter, when the trees 

 are bare. Guns, the barrels of which are filed 

 down so as to shorten them, are taken in sacks, 

 and the birds are shot where thev roost. Their 



