PAETRIDOES AND PHEASANTS. 175 



fame and advantage ; so largely does custom regulate these 

 matters. But the poacher of one kind or another has always 

 been " in hot water." When those winged bulls of Nineveh 

 were still uncarved in their native quarries game laws were, 

 no doubt, an old and vexed question in the Assyrian courts, 

 and mighty hunters of that empire exerted their skill in 

 devising tortures wherewith to enhedge the sanctity of royal 

 preserves and deter intruders. The game thief of our day 

 need not fear having his eyelids cut off, or^being buried up 

 to his chin in the hot desert sands facing the sun, or sewn 

 up in a raw bull's hide, which by gradual but resistless 

 contraction crushes the life out of him. Yet these were once 

 legal procedures for the same offence where Nimrod ruled. 

 Even the milder but effective remonstrance of our Norman 

 kings, the putting out of a right eye and the lopping of a 

 right thumb in the case of those who misdirected their shafts 

 amongst the king's deer, are measures too drastic for the 

 spirit of the age. We do not now tie the hares Hodge has 

 poached round his neck and make him wear them thus for 

 a month or two, the evidence and punishment of his guilt, 

 as was done with much success in mediseval princedoms, but 

 we give Hodge " fourteen days " and bread and water, and 

 even this does not cure him of his " delight on a shiny 

 night." 



Probably the least observant of travellers through our 

 fair and fertile shires has noticed, as he has been swept by 

 meadow and coppice on the iron road, withy bushes and 

 brambles dotted about pasture and corn land, apparently 

 aimlessly, where there could be no cause or reason for bushes 

 to grow, and he will see they are not big enough for cattle 

 to scratch against, and far too small for shelter. These, we 

 regret to say, illustrate the watchful care required in modern 

 game preserving, and the mistrust of all ungaitered kind 

 abiding in the mind of the gamekeeper. They are put down 

 wholly for the confusion of the poacher, and indicate the 

 manner of that worthy's nightly raids. The partridge, 



