270 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



AN OLD POACHER'S YARN 



If all the good things seen by naturalists were " made a 

 note of" and could be preserved and given to the public, 

 what a vast addition to the store of general knowledge would 

 accrue! The same may be said with regard to those whose 

 occupations and hobbies bring them into contact with wild 

 life at various seasons of the year. However ignorant and 

 unobservant a man may be, strange things and happenings 

 must appeal to him from time to time ; and as a rule 

 those who spend much of their time in the open and the 

 wild are men of keen observation. Only get into the confi- 

 dence of such men, and they will astonish you by their 

 knowledge of Nature's ways, and by their store of anecdotes. 

 More is the pity that so much rich field-lore dies with them. 

 My chats with old Breydoners, as my small volumes will bear 

 testimony to, show at once what, even in my own little 

 sphere, would have been lost but for the little trouble I have 

 taken from time to time in jotting down the narratives. 

 Every naturalist, I boldly assert, should feel it his duty as 

 well as a pleasure to place such interesting facts as he may 

 meet with at least in black and white in his notebooks. It 

 may be urged that when these men spin yarns they interweave 

 with them much that is fabulous. That depends upon whom 

 they yarn to. To a man who they feel is an honest one, 

 they will keep within the confines of truth. If they imagine 

 a man knows as much as they do they will respect him, and 

 not try to astonish him. I make these remarks because I 

 feel assured there is much native lore irretrievably lost with 

 the demise of every gamekeeper, bird-catcher, mole-snarer, 

 wildfowler, and poacher the last-named being not the least 

 interesting, shrewd, or observant. At his feet I would sooner 

 sit at any hour of the day or night, and listen to his experi- 

 ences and deductions, than at the knee of his deadly rival, 

 the more prosaic and matter-of-fact gamekeeper. The natu- 

 ralist would do well to make friends of these outdoor rovers 

 all, for there is always something to learn from, and usually 

 much to interest and amuse in their tales and gossips. I do 

 not profess to find anything exceptional in " my " old poacher 

 friend's yarn, for I only happened with him casually, in a little 

 country town inn where he, toned down by the Salvation 



