68 The Amateur Poacher 



the meadows and called by the same name : the latter 

 are often only segments of circles, are found near 

 hedges, and almost always either under a tree or 

 where a tree has been. There were more mushrooms 

 on the side of the hill than we cared to carry. Some 

 eat mushrooms raw — fresh as taken from the ground, 

 with a little salt : to me the taste is then too strong. 

 Of the many ways of cooking them the simplest is 

 the best ; that is, on a gridiron over wood embers on 

 the hearth. 



Every few minutes a hare started out of the dry 

 grass : he always scampered up the Down and stopped 

 to look at us from the ridge. The hare runs faster 

 up hill than down. By the cornfields there were wire 

 nettings to stop them ; but nothing is easier than for 

 any passer-by who feels an interest in hares and rabbits, 

 and does not like to see them jealously excluded, to 

 open a gap. Hares were very numerous — temptingly 

 so. Not far from where the track crossed a lonely 

 road was a gipsy encampment ; that swarthy people 

 are ever about when anything is going on, and the 

 reapers were busy in the corn. The dead dry thorns 

 of the hedge answered very well to boil their pot 

 with. Their tents, formed by thrusting the ends of 

 long bent rods like half-hoops into the turf, looked 

 dark like the canvas of a barge. 



