THE PHEASANT. 101 



fowling-piece of the nocturnal poacher is the most 

 fatal weapon used for its destruction. The report 

 of a gun or a clap of thunder, during the night, will 

 often cause the pheasants to begin to crow, as I have 

 already stated ; and this greatly endangers their 

 safety. When once they are frightened from their 

 roost, they never perch again during the remainder 

 of the night, but take refuge among the grass 

 and underneath the hedges, where they fall an easy 

 prey to the cat, the fox, and the stoat. A poacher 

 armed with a gun finds a cloudy night fully as good 

 for slaughter as one in which the moon shines ; and, 

 if larch trees grow in the wood, to these he resorts ; 

 knowing, by experience, that the pheasant prefers 

 this kind of tree to any other. The larch suits 

 pheasants admirably, on account of its branches 

 growing nearly at right angles from the stem. This 

 renders the sitting position of the birds very easy. 

 I consider the smoking of pheasants, while they are 

 roosting in the tree, as a mere idle story. I myself 

 ought to be a pretty good hand at poaching ; still, lam 

 obliged to confess that I have never been successful, 

 in one single instance, in the many attempts I have 

 made to bring down the pheasant from his roost 

 by the application of a smoking apparatus. Indeed, 

 when we reflect that the mouth of the bird is al- 

 ways shut during sleep, and that both it and the 

 nostrils are buried in the dorsal feathers, we are at 

 a loss to conceive how the smoke can enter them, 

 and cause the bird to fall in stupefaction. If smok- 

 ing were a successful method, depend upon it the 

 poachers would never be such noodles as to use 



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