1 84 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



passed far enough along the body or has slipped and 

 seized the creature just at the gills. It then garottes 

 the fish. If, on the other hand, the wire has been 

 passed too far towards the tail, it slips off that way, 

 the jack falling back into the water with a broad white 

 band where the wire has scraped the scales. Fish 

 thus marked may not unfrequently be seen in the 

 stream. The jack, from its shape, is specially liable 

 to capture in this manner; long and well balanced, 

 the wire has every chance of holding it. This poach- 

 ing is always going on ; the implement is so easily 

 obtained and concealed. The wire can be carried in 

 the pocket, and the stick may be cut from an adjacent 

 copse. 



The poachers observe that after a fish has once 

 escaped from an attempt of the kind it is ever after 

 far more difficult of capture. The first time the jack 

 was still and took no notice of the insidious approach 

 of the wire gliding along towards it ; but the next — 

 unless a long interval elapses before a second trial — 

 the moment it comes near he is away. At each suc- 

 ceeding attempt, whether hurt or not, he grows more 

 and more suspicious, till at last to merely stand still 

 or stop while walking on the bank is sufficient for 

 him ; he is off with a swish of the tail to the deeper 

 water, leaving behind him a cloud, so to say, of mud 



