POACHING FARMERS. 177 



and induce one of the men-servants to carry his 

 gun for him whilst he hobbled painfully along on 

 two sticks. As soon as the old fellow got a shot 

 his younger companion used to bolt with the dead 

 Hare and gun at the top of his speed, and leave his 

 employer to crawl home at his leisure and without 

 sign of guilt. This was, of course, before the Ground 

 Game Act placed Hares in the hands of farmers. 



I recollect another old farmer whose greed rather 

 than original instincts prompted him to set steel 

 gins in watercourse-holes, through stone walls, on 

 his farm for the Hares that used them ; but he had 

 the spirit of his enterprise broken by a good-natured 

 keeper who, after playing off all sorts of tricks on 

 the old fellow, ridiculed him into good behaviour 

 by hacking off a dead Sheep's leg and putting it 

 into one of his traps in such a way as to suggest 

 that the animal had been caught and had torn 

 it off. 



A Hare's love of parsley is well known by most 

 rural folks, and I remember a quarryman who turned 

 to account this knowledge and a bit of the herb 

 growing in his back garden which abutted on some 

 good game ground. 



I believe it is a popular belief that Rabbits do 

 not leave their nesting burrows open during the day- 

 time until their young ones, which are born blind 

 and remain so for eight or nine days, can see, 

 and that if they are touched by human hands 

 before they have acquired the sense of sight the 

 mother will forsake them. We have proved both 

 these canons of rural natural history to have, at 

 any rate, their exceptions. 



In order to give some idea of the effectual manner 

 in which a Rabbit can hide the whereabouts of its 

 nest, we made a photograph of part of a hedge- 

 M 



