200 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



is sometimes resorted to, but for this class of poaching 

 the habits and beats of the water-bailiffs require to 

 be accurately known. The method has the ad- 

 vantage of being quick, and a gun in skilful hands 

 and at a short distance may be used without injuring 

 the fleshy parts of the body. That deadly bait, 

 salmon-roe, is now rarely used, the method of pre- 

 paring it having evidently gone out with the old- 

 fashioned poachers who used it with such deadly 

 effect. 



The capture of either poachers or their nets is 

 often difficult to accomplish. The former wind 

 their sinuous way, snake-like, through the wet 

 meadows in approaching the rivers, and their nets 

 are rarely kept at home. These they secrete about 

 farm buildings, in dry ditches, or among the bushes 

 in close proximity to their poaching grounds. Were 

 they kept at home the obtaining of a search warrant 

 by the police or local angling association would 

 always render their custody a critical one. They 

 are sometimes kept in the poachers' houses, though 

 only for a short period, when about to be used. 

 At this time the police have found them secreted 

 in the chimney, between the bed and the mattress, 

 or even wound about the portly persons of the 

 poachers' wives. The women are not always simply 

 aiders and abetters, but in poaching sometimes play 

 a more important role. They have frequently been 



