148 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



his lower garments were almost concealed by 

 long leather gaiters, which reached high above 

 the knees and bore unmistakeable evidence of 

 having protected the bony legs of their owner 

 from many a bush and bramble. He was a sort 

 of cross between a woodman and a poacher, with 

 a touch of the keeper ; being occasionally em- 

 ployed as a beater and nightwatcher, and as a 

 trapper of all kinds of four-footed vermin, in 

 which department he was still without a rival 

 in the neighbourhood. After a few questions, 

 I found that he had caught the bird in an adjoin- 

 ing moor, and that his apparatus was evidently 

 nothing else than the simple springe which had 

 been in use for centuries, and which in this 

 remote district had not yet been superseded by 

 any more elaborate contrivance. As I had long 

 wished to witness this ancient mode of taking 

 the woodcock, I gladly availed myself of his 

 proposal that we should make the trial that very 

 evening ; so having arranged to meet at the 

 corner of a certain wood a little before twilight, 

 I parted from my new acquaintance for a few 

 hours. 



At the appointed time I found him wait- 

 ing for me. He conducted me along a small 

 stream which ran between high wooded banks, 

 until, at last, on clearing the cover, it opened 



