174 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



of growth, something that might afford fair harbourage for 

 game. Now all this has changed, and leather leggings no 

 longer brush through dry, ankle-deep stubble on the First, 

 nor, saving under exceptional circumstances, or in remote 

 districts where machinery is unknown, can keepers make 

 the birds lie in the corn lands as they should without the 

 aid of " hawks," or some other scarcely legitimate process. 

 And not alone does the sportsman hear with qualified satis- 

 faction the " reapers' " busy whirr, but there is also another 

 class, the fraternity of nets and lurchers, who consider them- 

 selves aggrieved by modern economical farming, complain- 

 ing that " birds " do not " busk " half so much on the 

 stubble as they used to. Yet the poaching fraternity manage 

 to find the coveys somewhere, and keep pace in ingenuity 

 with the march of civilization, and, without doubt, most of 

 those partridges which are to be had secretly a little before 

 September dawns, or suspiciously early on the first day 

 of that month, have come by their fate under the moonlight, 

 untouched by any gun. One could wish that there was 

 more room for the poacher to satisfy his love of woodcraft 

 in these islands without infringing on the rights of private 

 property, for he is at bottom generally a good fellow, and 

 that instinctive love of the chase taking him to hedgerows 

 with pockets full of cunningly twisted nooses, or a coil of 

 close netting tucked away in the skirt of his coat, is in most 

 cases essentially the same passion as prompts the enthusiasm 

 and delight of the truest and strictest sportsman who ever 

 pressed a trigger or shot over dogs. Nor must it be for- 

 gotten that the strict definition of poaching, like that of 

 virtue itself, is apt to be modified and altered according 

 to varying times and usages. What was lawful sport in one 

 age may become the rankest sylvan high treason in the next ; 

 and Hodge and his kindred, who disregard strict limits of 

 close seasons, or take any advantage of game which their 

 wits can suggest, do no worse than many a keen fowler did 

 a few generations back, greatly to the increasing of his own 



