506 Practical Game Preserving. 



On the whole, we do not think the ranks of the poachers 

 are recruited so much from the farm labouring classes as 

 from those living near, and not engaged in agriculture. 

 Masons, village tradesmen, posting stablemen, carpenters, 

 et hoc genus omne, contribute far more poachers than the 

 labourers do, and upon such men we would be harddV than 

 upon farm people, because the latter have the opportunities 

 so frequently afforded them for poaching, and the others 

 seek them. They have, moreover, a knack of getting 

 permission to use a gun to topple over a few pigeons, or 

 perhaps to try their powers on a few conies. This leads 

 them on, and they soon make a little poaching a regular 

 item in their monthly routine. These men are for the 

 most part owners of dogs of very dubious breed and 

 character, but which, when it comes to picking up a hare 

 or so, or " chopping " a few rabbits, are seldom deficient. 



So far we have treated only of the poachers which infest 

 semi-preserved districts. They flourish only in parts where 

 on one estate game is strictly looked after, whilst on the 

 next it is anybody's property, z>., if there be any. 



The worst type of poacher, however, is that coming from 

 the large towns, and he is generally a scoundrel in every 

 sense of the word. Such men poach as a means of making 

 money, and in their endeavours so to do they will stop at 

 nothing. They generally work in gangs of from three to 

 thirty, and when sufficiently numerous will take the coverts 

 by storm, and set keepers, watchers, and owners at defiance. 

 When in small gangs they will often offer resistance of the 

 most stubborn kind, and many a scene of bloodshed has 

 been enacted in collisions with desperate ruffians of this 



