270 Poachers and Poaching. 



hanging in the larder he is responsible. When 

 the keeper wants game he knows to a yard where 

 it may be found where the birds will get up 

 and in what direction they will go away. If a 

 hare, he knows the gate or smoot through which 

 it will pass, and out of this latter fact he makes 

 capital. It is well known to poachers that when 

 once a hare has been netted there is no chance 

 of its being taken again in like manner. Rather 

 than' go through a second time, even though a 

 " lurcher" be but a yard behind, it will either 

 " buck " the gate or take the fence. Conse- 

 quently the keeper has netted every hare on his 

 ground. This greatly reduces the poacher's 

 chances, and wire snares are now the only 

 engines that can be successfully used. Spring 

 and summer are taken up with breeding and 

 rearing pheasants, and this is an anxious time. 

 The work is not difficult but arduous. And then 

 so much of the keeper's work is estimated by the 

 head of game he can turn out. This result is 

 tangible, and one that can be seen by both his 

 master and visitors. There is nothing to show 

 for long and often fruitless night-watching but 

 rheumatism ; and so the keeper appreciates all 

 the more readily the praise accorded him for the 

 number of well-grown birds he can show at the 

 covert side. After pheasant-shooting in October 

 the serious winter work of the keeper begins. 

 Each week he has to kill from three to five 



