399 Poachers and Poaching. 



In his hands the net is a very effective article, and is 

 employed alike for grouse and partridge. Hares are a 

 speciality, and are taken with wires and gate-nets in the 

 fields, and long and short nets in the pastures. 



Besides the regular poaching labourer there are the men 

 who only occasionally have a turn at poaching. They are 

 generally a great nuisance, because one never knows when 

 they are at their nefarious practice, and they are not worth 

 watching continually. For game-stealers such as these 

 there is nothing so effective as to lead them to believe 

 that they are always being watched. Whenever he can, 

 the keeper should make it his duty just to drop down 

 upon them suddenly when at work, or to appear upon the 

 other side of a wall as they are going home from or coming 

 to work ; meet them accidentally upon the Saturday night, 

 and see them the first thing on the Sunday morning after. 

 Nothing deters them so much as this. 



On the whole, I do not think the ranks of the profes- 

 sional poachers are recruited so much from the farm- 

 labouring classes as from those living near and not 

 engaged in agriculture. Mechanics of different kinds, 

 village tradesmen, posting stablemen, contribute far more 

 poachers than do the labourers, and upon such men I 

 would be harder than upon farm people, because the latter 

 have the opportunities so frequently afforded them for 

 poaching, and the others seek them. They have, more- 

 over, a knack of getting permission to use a gun to knock 

 over a few pigeons, or perhaps to try their powers on a few 

 rabbits. This leads them on, and they soon make a little 

 poaching a regular item in their monthly routine. These 

 men are for the most part owners of dogs of very dubious 

 breed and character, but which, when it comes to picking 

 up a hare or so, or " chopping " a few rabbits, are seldom 

 deficient. 



