126 The Confessions of a 'Poacher. 



can afford to use only the best animals. A 

 tangled hedgebank with coarse herbage was 

 alwasy a favourite spot for my depredations. 

 There are invariably two, often half a dozen 

 holes, to the same burrow. Small purse nets 

 are spread over these, and I always preferred 

 these loose to being pegged or fixed in any 

 way. When all the nets are set the ferrets are 

 turned in. They do not proceed immediately, 

 but sniff the mouth of the hole ; their inde- 

 cision is only momentary, however, for soon 

 the tip of the tail disappears in the darkness. 

 And now silence is essential to success, as 

 rabbits refuse to bolt if there is the slightest 

 noise outside. A dull thud, a rush, and a 

 rabbit goes rolling over and over entangled in 

 the purse. Reserve nets are quickly clapped on 

 the holes as the rabbits bolt, the latter invari- 

 ably being taken except where a couple come 

 together. Standing on the mound a shot would 

 stop these as they go bounding through the 

 dead leaves, but the sound would bring up the 

 keeper, and so one has to practise self-denial. 

 Unlike hares, rabbits rarely squeal when they 



