THE HILL POACHER, 843 



errand, and takes a snug rap at the partridges or pheasants 

 by day. At night, he sets snares for hares, and I am 

 sorry to say that the English method of doing this in the 

 middle of the fields has come into general use. He also 

 shoots the pheasants at roost during moonlight, and, if the 

 single Argus of the night should happen to be sound asleep 

 close to the scene of carnage, he makes as much despatch 

 as possible, covering the birds where killed with grass or 

 leaves, and marking the place. He then runs to his 

 cottage, the door of which has been left open, in case of 

 pursuit, and quietly picks up his game at any good oppor- 

 tunity. An old hand, when showing me the casts on the 

 Clyde, said that he had one night killed a dozen pheasants 



from the public road, over the Duke of 's park-wall, 



marking the wall with a piece of chalk where each bird 

 fell, and secured every one next day by jumping the 

 wall, and depositing them in a sack, which he called 

 potatoes. 



When such is the common system of game-preserving 

 in Scotland, no wonder that the great proportion of our 

 Lowland shooting is not very first-rate, and that the 

 poachers do not much trouble themselves with the Eng- 

 lish methods of netting the fields, &c., which would not 

 be profitable. They are often men who have a regular 

 trade to trust to, and only engage in poaching as a recrea- 

 tion and " sma' help." 



But the most sporting poacher is the Highlander.* His 



* Before the gangs of smugglers were broken up, the Highland poacher 

 was a much more desperate character. All these smugglers were poachers, 



