416 THE GAME PRESERVER'S GUIDE. 



CHAPTER IV. 



POACHERS, AND THE BEST MODES OF COUNTERACTING 

 THEIR SCHEMES. 



GENERAL REMARKS LABOURERS THE BEST PRESERVERS OF GAME, AS 



THEY ARE ALSO THE WORST POACHERS THE CERTIFICATED POACHER 



THE REGULAR POACHER, AND HIS PROCEEDINGS. 



Notwithstanding all the clever trapping and careful rearing 

 which may be practised, and although a good head of game 

 may be shown in July and August, yet, unless proper pre- 

 cautions are taken, it will be poached either before the 

 season or as soon as it commences. The recently formed 

 " Association for the Prevention of the Sale of Game out of 

 Season" may be expected to do much in stopping poaching 

 before the proper time for killing each kind of game, and 

 it will doubtless put an end to the traffic in live birds, which 

 has so long held out a premium to the wholesale poacher. 

 There can be no excuse for the sale of live birds of game out 

 of season any more than for that of dead game, for if phea- 

 sants are wanted to breed from they may, and ought to be 

 obtained before the 12th of February, up to which time it is 

 legal for licensed dealers in game to sell them that is, up 

 to ten days after the closing of the shooting season. Those 

 who require more young birds than they breed to turn out 

 for the approaching season may just as well wait till the 1st 

 of October, for there are no tame-bred birds shot till the 

 leaves are off the trees, and this seldom happens till the 

 beginning of November. October pheasant shooting is con- 

 fined to outlying birds bred in the small coverts and hedge- 

 rows near the great preserves, and does not include the 

 battues, for which alone tame-bred birds are required. 

 Hence, not even the most inveterate lover of wholesale 

 murder is injured by a strict adherence to the letter of the 

 law, while if he is a breeder he is benefited, because he 

 cannot be tempted to buy his own young pheasants to turn 

 down, as has more than once happened within my know- 



