THE FISH-POACHER. 129 



poachers' houses, though only for a short period, 

 when about to be used. At this time the police 

 have found them secreted in the chimney, between 

 a bed and the mattress, or even wound about 

 the portly persons of the poachers' wives. The 

 women are not always simply aiders and abettors, 

 but in poaching sometimes play a more important 

 role. They have frequently been taken red- 

 handed by the watchers. The vocation of these 

 latter is a hard one. They work at night, and 

 require to be most on the alert during rough and 

 wet weather in the winter, when the fish are 

 spawning. Sometimes they must remain still for 

 hours in freezing clothes; and in summer they 

 not unfrequently lie all night in dank and wet 

 herbage. They see the night side of nature, and 

 many of them are fairly good naturalists. If a lap- 

 wing gets up and screams in the darkness they know 

 how to interpret the sound, as also a hare rushing 

 wildly past. It must be confessed, however, that 

 at all points the fish-poacher is cleverer and of 

 readier wit than the river-watcher. 



