TRESPASSERS AND POACHERS 243 
hate crouching against the butt of a tree. The 
hare already was dead and stiff. That groom was 
converted by getting everyone to ask him if 
he had heard of the man who tried to kill a 
dead _ hare. 
I lay hidden one early morning, watching a wire 
which I had knocked down purposely. At last I 
heard the thud of feet and the friction of corduroy 
trousers. A man said to his companion, as they 
passed the snare, and within arm’s length of me, 
‘Knock’d down, ain’t it? The next time the 
speaker was met in the ordinary way he was 
greeted with, ‘ Knock’d down, ain’t it?’ instead of 
the time of day. There are a good many people 
‘who prefer to profit by the snares set by others 
rather than run the extra risk of setting them them- 
selves. And, conversely, a man who is caught in 
the act of removing the catch from a snare often 
will plead that he did not set it. An old man who 
had leave to wire rabbits on my ground complained 
that someone was sneaking some of those he caught. 
I discovered the culprit; and on my asking him 
why he had taken a rabbit—well knowing he was 
robbing an old man of his scanty living—what do 
you think he had the impudence to tell me? That 
it was his intention to take it to the old man, who 
lived a good three miles away. 
A man told me how he and his family kept them- 
selves in cheap rabbits for months. A farmer 
16—2 
