204 SHOOTING THE PHEASANT 



he either deUberately leaves home to poach far away, 

 or, being a stranger, visits your preserves from a dis- 

 tance. In either of these cases he has become a 

 professional or ' made ' poacher, and you can only 

 treat him as such ; he is beyond reclamation. 



But first of all your head keeper should, and 

 probably will, have a pretty good general knowledge 

 of the characteristics of the youth of your imme- 

 diate village surroundings ; should take up with a 

 friendly care such a one as I have described, and 

 either engage him as watcher or under keeper, or, 

 by bringing him to your notice, give him the chance 

 of being removed to some more active and useful 

 sphere, before he has become a confirmed loafer and 

 bad character. The ' made ' poacher can thus often 

 be avoided in your own neighbourhood. 



There is all the difference in the world between 

 the man who does a bit of snaring or shooting on the 

 sly, from mere love of sport, and the man who steals 

 other people's game on a deliberate and wholesale 

 system for profit. 



The former, as I have said, should be treated in a 

 somewhat paternal manner, and, above all, arrested 

 while still young in what may prove a disastrous career-. 

 To this end it is of the highest importance that your 

 head keeper should have the wit to preserve his 



