286 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
think he must have meant hog’s-bane or henbane. 
At any rate, he skinned three rabbits, scored their 
flesh, which he dusted with the powder, and tied 
the carcasses high up in three trees in a little covert 
away out on the Hampshire downs. When he 
returned the next day nothing but the skeletons of 
the rabbits remained ; and he actually picked up no 
fewer than forty-seven crows and magpies beneath 
the first rabbit-baited tree. I do not deny that a 
few keepers may abuse the use of poison, but I 
know that many an innocent keeper has been 
blamed for the death of cats and dogs, which 
evidently had ‘picked up something.’ Cottagers 
use poison-paste on bread and butter for mice with 
as little compunction as blacking for boots. Once 
a lady met me in a lonely lane, and tackled me in the 
most aggressive way about her cat. I told her it 
was news to me that she had a cat, denied that I 
had anything to do with its end, and expressed a 
polite regret. Asshe clung to her cocksure attitude, 
I suggested that for two guineas the kind of poison 
that had finished her cat might be ascertained. | 
could have put her on the track of her own gardener, 
who, I knew, was losing sweet-peas by mice in- 
numerable. No decent keeper ever dreams ot 
interfering with cats that don’t poach. 
It is a mistake to suppose that there are no 
rabbits in a wood because none can be got by 
ferreting. Wiring, trapping, and ferreting are all 
