24 Poachers and Poaching. 



use. In connection with the former it might 

 have been remarked that the gamekeeper some- 

 times outwits the poacher by a device which is 

 now of old standing. Knowing well from what 

 quarter the depredators will enter the woods, 

 wooden blocks representing roosting birds are 

 nailed to the branches of the open beeches. 

 The poacher rarely fires at these " dummies," 

 and it is only with the casual that the ruse 

 works. He fires, brings the keepers out of 

 their hiding places and so is entrapped. 



It need hardly be said that our poacher is a 

 compound of many individuals the type of a 

 numerous class. The tinge of rustic romance 

 to which we have already referred as exhibited 

 in his character may have been detected in his 

 goings. And we may at once say that he in 

 nowise resembles the armed ruffian who, masked 

 and with murderous intent, enters the covert at 

 night. Although his life is one long protest 

 against the game laws, he is not without a rude 

 code of morality. He complains bitterly of the 

 decrease of game, and that the profession is 

 hardly now worth following. Endowed with 

 marked intelligence, it has never been directed 

 aright. His knowledge of woodcraft is superior 

 to that of the gamekeeper, which personage he 

 holds in contempt. He quietly boasts of having 

 outwitted the keepers a hundred times. The 

 " Otter " is chary as to those he takes into 



