162 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



pocket-knife or some such object in the midst of a 

 great meadow, and you will find the utmost difficulty 

 in discovering it again, when the grass is growing tali 

 as in spring. You may think that you have traversed 

 every inch, yet it is certain that you have not ; the 

 inequalities of the ground insensibly divert your 

 footsteps, and it is very difficult to keep a straight 

 line. What is required is something to fix the eye — 

 what a sailor would call a ' bearing.' This the egg- 

 stealer finds in a walking-stick. He thrusts the 

 point into the earth, and then slowly walks round 

 and round it, enlarging the circle every time, and 

 thus sweeps every inch of the surface with his eye. 

 When he has got so far from the stick as to feel that 

 his steps are becoming uncertain, he removes it, and 

 begins again in another spot. A person not aware of 

 this simple trick will search a field till weary and 

 declare there is nothing to be found ; another, who 

 knows the dodge, will go out and return in an hour 

 with a pocketful of eggs. 



On those clear, bright winter nights when the 

 full moon is almost at the zenith, and the ' definition ' 

 of tree and bough in the flood of light seems to equal 

 if not to exceed that of the noonday, some poaching 

 used to be accomplished with the aid of a horsehair 

 noose on the end of a long slender wand. There are 



