16 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



without causing them injury ; this they do by press- 

 ing a bottle into hard snow, thus shaping a hole -trap 

 (to be baited with oats) from which the grouse can- 

 not escape, having fallen into it head first. But on 

 the whole the sneaking type of poacher has fewer 

 chances on the moor than in the pheasant coverts. 



A poacher owns to a dog, so marvellously trained 

 that his master can send it for anything but -at the 



least sign of anybody watching its move- 

 DORS ments, or at the approach of a gamekeeper 



or a policeman, the dog drops whatever 

 it may be carrying, makes off for cover, and hides 

 itself. The dog has many rivals to fame of this 

 sort. We knew a poacher whose plan it was to 

 dawdle along the road in his pony-cart while his 

 lurcher foraged in the fields. But at a certain signal 

 the dog would come instantly to heel ; on suspecting 

 danger, all the master did was to lift his cap, and 

 scratch his head in the most unconcerned manner in the 

 world. When once a dog grasps the meaning of a 

 signal, he will obey it faithfully in all circumstances 

 if he is kept in practice. In the olden days, in the 

 Netherlands, dogs were trained to smuggle, and with- 

 out attendants. They were sent off on a journey 

 at night, loaded with goods, the keenest-nosed dog 

 leading, and at the moment when he sighted or scented 

 a custom-house official, he would turn back as a 

 signal to the whole pack to rush off to cover, and hide 



