110 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



the nearest towns set horse-hair nooses in their runs amongst 

 the heather ; and, as they -often forget where many a springe 

 has been placed, such nooses may remain set until the 

 spring, and take parent birds, with nests adjacent. Again, 

 in autumn, the reapers always ready for a little work of 

 the kind stroll out of an evening, under the pleasant yellow 

 harvest moon, and peg down fine nooses atop of the barley 

 shocks. As a result of this sundry grouse are found there, 

 napping helplessly, head downwards, next morning, before 

 the mists are off the low meadows. A few find their way 

 into rabbit traps, Yarrell tells us, set on open moors, and 

 one has been taken in a steel hawk trap, on top of a pole; 

 but of all destructive and objectionable methods, netting of 

 grouse by fixed nets is, perhaps, the worse. 



They consist of long lines of fine netting hung on poles, 

 usually by the proprietors of small, narrow allotments facing- 

 big moors, where a large head of game is reared. Now, when 

 grouse fly, they rise ten or twelve feet perpendicularly, and 

 then rush forward at the same height with a velocity which 

 must be seen to be understood, and thus they plunge head- 

 long into the meshes with a force which generally disables 

 them at once. Instead of fair give-and-take, which is the 

 rule amongst neighbouring landowners in matters of game, 

 these daytime poachers take all they can lay hands on, and 

 hardly rear a score of grouse, in return. 



All this misplaced ingenuity is painful enough, and I turn 

 with satisfaction to more legitimate manners of sport, adding 

 a sketch or two from -my note-books of quiet days upon the 

 heather and solitary scrambles amongst pine barrens, dear 

 to the naturalist as well as the sportsman. If I succeed in 

 beguiling an idle half hour, as my own half hours have often 

 been beguiled, by classic pens in the literature of out of 

 doors, or in recalling pleasant remembrances, the object of 

 these chapters will have been fully obtained. 



