1 66 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

 THE FIELD DETECTIVE — FISH POACHING. 



The footpaths through the plantations and across the 

 fields have no milestones by which the pedestrian can 

 calculate the distance traversed ; nor is the time occu- 

 pied a safe criterion, because of the varying nature of 

 the soil — now firm and now slippery — so that the pace 

 is not regular. But these crooked paths — no foot- 

 path is ever straight — really represent a much greater 

 distance than would be supposed if the space from 

 point to point were measured on a map. So that the 

 keeper as he goes his rounds, though he does not rival 

 the professional walker, in the course of a year covers 

 some thousands of miles. He rarely does less than 

 ten, and probably often twelve miles a day, visiting 

 certain points twice — i.e. in the morning and evening 

 — and often in addition, if he has any suspicions, 

 making detours. It is easy to walk a mile in a single 

 field of no great dimensions when it is necessary to 

 go up and down each side of four long hedgerows, and 



