172 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



one end of the catgut or horsehair between the 

 teeth and the other round the index finger of either 

 hand, he could by moving the thimble up and down 

 reproduce the call-note of a Partridge. In order 

 to prove the value of this information before making 

 use of it, I constructed a call for myself, and was 

 surprised by its effective strains. 



Hares are, and probably always have been, much 

 sought after by poachers of all kinds. Only the 

 other day an old man, bent almost half -double with 

 age and carrying a hamperful of groundsel upon 

 his back, called at the back door of a house occu- 

 pied by a neighbour of mine, and when he found 

 he could not dispose of any of his ostensible stock- 

 in-trade he glanced round furtively, and then 

 promptly dived his hand through the groundsel 

 and pulled a splendid Hare forth by the leg and 

 offered her in a whisper for three - and - sixpence. 

 The old fellow had doubtless snared her as she 

 came through some favourite run in a hedgerow. 



The commonest way of illicitly catching the 

 animal in the North of England is netting it by 

 night. 



When a lad of seventeen I was very anxious to 

 know exactly how this was done, and accordingly 

 ingratiated myself into the confidence of a couple 

 of poachers, and accompanied them one night after 

 a heavy fall of snow on to some property which, 

 curiously enough, belonged to my paternal grand- 

 father. I think they were desirous of scaring me 

 at the offset ; for after telling all sorts of tales 

 about narrow escapes from keepers whom we all 

 knew quite well, they set me to watch a net 

 stretched across a field-gate leading into a lane. I 

 had stood waiting in fear and trembling for some 

 time, when a black figure quietly rounded a bend 



