156 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



A farmer, whose flock of Geese suffered severely 

 on a Fox-infested moor in the North of England, 

 conceived the notion that if he hung a small bell 

 to the neck of his Gander its tinkling would scare 

 the marauders away. The idea answered its pur- 

 pose admirably for a while, but the cunning thieves 

 soon came to understand that it was a harmless con- 

 trivance, and actually killed the bird wearing the 

 noisy piece of metal. 



The Grouse poacher used to be a great thorn in 

 the side of the man of velveteen, but he is now an 

 almost vanished figure. 



I know one old man well who years ago used 

 to don a white shirt and pair of sheep-shearing 

 drawers of the same colour over his ordinary attire, 

 and on a bright moonlight night, when snow lay 

 thick upon the ground, he would steal forth from 

 his house, which stood on the edge of a moor, and 

 creeping quietly up to a flock of sleeping Grouse, 

 deal death amongst them by a shot from his old 

 single-barrel, directed where he saw the most birds 

 in line. 



Although the Grouse poacher of the picturesque 

 old school has almost disappeared, his place has 

 been taken up by a man here and there, where 

 peculiar circumstances permit it, whose methods 

 are loudly anathematised by sportsmen, and espe- 

 cially by those whose game he bags. We have 

 been fortunate enough to secure an interview with 

 one of these men, and a series of photographs of 

 him at work with his engines of destruction. 



He rents a small piece of heather-clad freehold 

 land, surrounded by some of the very best Grouse 

 moors in the British Islands, and as soon as the 

 shooting season commences he plants two thousand 

 copper wire snares, which he calls " hanks," in the 



