s? 



CHAPTER V 



POACHING IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY STYLE 



The various devices for capturing wild pheasants 

 which we glanced at in the last chapter possessed the 

 virtue of being both quaint and curious ; most of 

 them, however, belonged in a great measure to the 

 Middle Ages. Such of their number as happen to have 

 survived the march of modern progress and are still 

 extant could hardly be practised by anyone except 

 professing members of a guild of poachers. 



I have often wondered, by the way, from what 

 source the terms ' poach ' and ' poacher ' came to be 

 embodied in the English vocabulary. The dictionaries 

 refer us to a French verb, packer, which really does 

 seem to have supplied the old English word ' poche,' 

 ' poatch ' or ' potche,' signifying to thrust at or stab. 

 Shakespeare puts this word into the mouth of Tullus 

 Aufidius in the camp of the Volsci, when he ex- 

 claims : 



