194 Poachers and Poaching. 



even wound about the portly persons of the 

 poachers' wives. The women are not always 

 simply aiders and abettors, but in poaching, some- 

 times play a more important role. They have 

 frequently been taken red-handed by the 

 watchers. The vocation of these latter is a 

 hard one. They work at night, and require to 

 be most on the alert during rough and wet 

 weather in the winter, when the fish are spawn- 

 ing. Sometimes they must remain still for hours 

 in freezing clothes ; and even in summer they not 

 unfrequently lie all night in dank and wet 

 herbage. They see the night side of nature, and 

 many of them are fairly good naturalists. If a 

 lapwing gets up and screams in the darkness they 

 know how r to interpret the sound, as also a hare 

 rushing wildly past. It must be confessed, 

 however, that at all points the fish poacher is 

 cleverer and of readier wit than the river 

 watcher. 



