Poachers and Poaching. 31 



eggs (unknowingly, of course) from his own 

 preserves, as well as from those of his neighbours. 

 In the hedge bottom, along the covert side, or 

 among gorse and broom, the poacher notices a 

 pair of partridges roaming morning after morning. 

 Soon he finds their oak-leaf nest and olive eggs. 

 These the keeper readily buys ; winking at what 

 he knows to be dishonest. Plough-boys and 

 farm-labourers have peculiar opportunities for 

 egg-poaching. As to pheasants' eggs, if the 

 keeper is an honest man and refuses to buy, 

 there are always London dealers who will. 

 Once in the covert, pheasants' eggs are easily 

 found. The birds get up heavily from their 

 nests, and go away with a loud whirring of 

 wings. In this species of poaching women and 

 children are largely employed. At the time 

 the former are ostensibly gathering sticks, the 

 latter wild flowers. A receiver has been known 

 to send to London in the course of a week a 

 thousand eggs probably every one of them 

 stolen. 



When depredations are carried on nightly, or 

 game disappears in large quantities, warrants are 

 obtained, and search made for nets. Except for 

 immediate use the poachers seldom keep their 

 nets at home. They are stowed away in church 

 tower, barn, rick, or out-house. Upon one 

 occasion it got abroad that the constables would 

 make a raid upon a certain cottage where a large 



