160 Practical Game Preserving. 



an epidemic seems to fall upon and decimate them. It is 

 similar in its nature to the liver rot, and is traceable to some 

 extent to too luxurious feeding and continued wet weather. 



The hare is exposed to the attacks of all kinds of vermin, 

 of which the stoat is remarkably persistent, so much so as to 

 have become proverbial, but polecats, weasels, wild cats, and 

 poachers' dogs are very destructive ; the fox also is included 

 in the category of enemies. Of winged vermin, crows, 

 magpies, and hawks kill a large number of leverets, and the 

 hedgehog is also very mischievous. 



The poaching of hares is generally looked upon as a very 

 lucrative employment, and finds many votaries. Shooting 

 from the high road, and at the hedgeside, snaring proper and 

 hingling, are the more obvious methods ; but a peculiarly 

 interesting adaptation of netting, performed at night, is the 

 most wholesale and difficult of discovery. Having learnt a 

 little about this kind of poaching, we will endeavour to show 

 how hares may be caught alive. The only requisite is a good 

 dog, and unless it be a good one it is of no use. These dogs 

 are supposed to be lurchers, but there are many old sheep 

 dogs, or old pointers that have never been broken, which 

 take to this pursuit of their own accord, and, of course, prove 

 unequalled in it. We cannot give our readers a better idea 

 how to proceed than by narrating a supposed evening's 

 sport with a pair of accomplished poachers. To commence, 

 then, we will suppose that we have arrived at the gate of 

 a field opening out on the road or avenue leading up to the 

 house; in this field there are several hares, either still feeding 

 or retired to their forms for the night ; the evening is fine, 

 a heavy mist is rising, and it is just getting as dark as it ever 



