216 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



believe that one ' unplumed biped ' * of a poacher, 

 possessing a moderate share of experience, and 

 in the unrestricted exercise of his calling, will 

 purloin a greater number of pheasants 1 eggs from 

 a preserve in a couple of days than all the un- 

 happy members of the genus corvus which the 

 keeper may shoot during an entire summer. In- 

 deed, a familiarity with firearms, except as re- 

 gards the art of cleaning his master's gun, is 

 perhaps the very last accomplishment that a 

 gamekeeper need possess. The trap is the pe- 

 culiar implement of his calling. An acquaintance 

 with the nature and habits of those animals that 

 are really detrimental to the objects of his care 

 and for which he possesses so many facilities will 

 enable him to adopt the most direct and effectual 

 modes of capturing them. He will discover for 

 the truth must be told that the abstraction of 

 eggs from that pheasant's nest, so snugly, and, 

 as he fondly imagined, so securely concealed 

 under a thick canopy of fern, and fenced with 

 impenetrable briars, was not the work of the poor 

 jay, or even of the vagrant crow, or the roving 

 magpie, but of the hypocritical hedgehog, the 

 most insatiable of all ovivorous British quadru- 

 peds whatever his well-meaning and amiable 



* "Animal bipes implume" Plato's definition of man. 



