280 OLD WEST SURREY 



is supported by a pivot on which they turn. Wires, stretch- 

 ing across the ride or path through the covert, are attached 

 to the longer bars. When one of these is struck by the 

 poacher or trespasser the short bar is released ; it falls 

 on the cap and explodes the charge. A sheet-iron cover 

 protects it from the weather. In the illustration the com- 

 plete spring-gun is the one lying on the bench. It was 

 used the other way up, the mouth of the barrel facing the 

 ground, but raised a little way above the ground at the 

 barrel end by a short stump for the square nib beyond 

 the barrel to rest on. 



But they were also used set horizontally, and with a 

 shotted charge, with the intention of injuring the poacher. 



Such use of spring-guns, also the use of man-traps, 

 was made illegal in the year 1861, though notices of 

 such dangers were posted on the outsides of plantations to 

 within a comparatively recent date. At the present day 

 it is legal to set a spring-gun inside a dwelling-house and 

 at night only. As alarm-guns they may be used with 

 blank charge, set vertically to explode either upward or 

 downward, but set horizontally and charged they are illegal. 



Dog-spears were set in the woods. They were sharply- 

 pointed iron rods, three to four feet long, fixed in wooden 

 sockets, also pointed to go into the ground. They were 

 set at an angle of forty-five degrees in the grassy covert 

 paths, and either speared a poacher through the legs, or ran 

 a dog through the chest as he raced down after a rabbit. 



A neighbouring squire set lines, with large fish-hooks 

 attached, across the rides in his coverts. The poachers 

 came, the lines were found broken and many hooks gone. 

 The poachers did not go that way again ! But it was 

 a barbarous thing to do. 



