344 APPENDIX. 



NOTE TO 537. Setters. Poachers. Keepers. Netting Partridges. 

 Bloodhounds. Night-dogs. 



IT is far more easy to get a well-broken pointer than a well-broken 

 setter ; but times may change, for clean farming, the sale of game, 

 poaching, and poisoning of seed-grain, are now carried on to such an 

 extent, and the present game-laws are so inefficacious, that, probably, 

 our children will much prefer the hard-working setter to the pointer. 

 What an encouragement to villany is it that poulterers will give a 

 higher price for game that appears perfectly uninjured, than for what 

 has been shot ; and seldom ask questions ! It is a pity that the sale 

 of such game cannot be rendered illegal. The destructive net sweeps 

 off whole coveys at a time. The darkest night affords no protection, 

 for the lantern attached to the dog's neck sufficiently shows when he 

 is pointing at birds. A friend of mine in Kent, some years ago, 

 wanted a partridge in order to break in a young bitch. Under a 

 solemn promise of secrecy he was taken to an attic in an old house, 

 not far from London, where he saw more than a hundred birds, ready 

 for the market against the approaching first of September, running 

 among the sheaves of corn standing in the corners of the room. To 

 prevent the employment of the net, it has been recommended that 

 the fields frequented by partridges should be staked, according to the 

 method successfully followed in some preserved streams : but there 

 are French gamekeepers who adopt a far less troublesome, and more 

 effective plan. They themselves net the coveys at night, as soon as 

 the harvest is collected, and turn them out again on the same ground 

 the next evening, in the fullest confidence that the birds are hence- 

 forth safe from the poacher's net : for, however carefully they may 

 have been handled, they will have been so alarmed, that their dis- 

 trust and wariness will effectually prevent their being again caught nap- 

 ping. Talking of poaching, I am led to observe that one well-trained 

 bloodhound would be more useful in suppressing poaching than half- 

 a-dozen under-keepers ; for the fear poachers naturally entertain of 

 being tracked to their homes at dawn of day, would more deter them 

 from entering a cover, than any dread of being assailed at night by 

 the boldest armed party. Even as compared with other dogs, the 

 sensitiveness of the olfactory nerves of the bloodhound appears mar- 

 vellous. Let one of pure breed but once take up the scent of a man, 

 and he will hold it under the most adverse circumstances. No cross 

 scents will perplex him. 



At two o'clock on a frosty December morning in '44, when the 

 wind blew bitterly cold from the east, Mr. B e, of S d, War- 

 wickshire, was called up by the keepers of a neighbour, Mr W n, 



and informed that some poachers were shooting pheasants in a plan- 

 tation belonging to Mr. B e, whose keepers were on the look-out 



