POACHING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 95 



French poacher designates a pheasant, and with Sans 

 Pouce, of course, this expression was current coin. On 

 one occasion he engaged two assistants to join him in 

 levying toll upon a certain well-stocked cover, in the 

 supposed absence of the keepers. The keepers, how- 

 ever, stopped at home, and captured the raiders red- 

 handed. The case went to court. The poachers 

 were sentenced to pay a hundred francs apiece as 

 fines, a second hundred francs as damages, and to 

 forfeit their guns. When Sans Pouce quitted the 

 Court-house he remarked aloud, so that all might 

 hear, that this little misadventure would cost him 

 another eighty ' comets ' to repair. 



Here I may remark that if keepers are really intel- 

 ligent, and accustom themselves to track out birds 

 and beasts by the impressions which their feet have 

 left in damp or loose soil, they can often ascertain 

 the movements of a poacher by the casts of his 

 boots. 



An associate of Sans Pouce came to grief in this 

 way. In order to reduce the risk of discovery to a 

 minimum degree, the Frenchman mounted a pair of 

 shoes upon two pieces of wood. Supporting himself 

 on these extemporised stilts, the rascal visited all 

 the best stocked coverts of the neighbourhood with 

 impunity. The keepers, seeing nothing upon the 



