^ THE PHEASANT. 101 
fowling-piece of the nocturnal poacher is the most 
fatal weapon used for its destruction. The report 
of a gun or a clap of thunder, during the night, will 
often cause the pheasants to begin to crow, as I have 
already stated ; and this greatly endangers their 
safety. When once they are frightened from their 
roost, they never perch again during the remainder 
of the night, but take refuge among the grass 
and underneath the hedges, where they fall an easy 
prey to the cat, the fox, and the stoat. A poacher 
armed with a gun finds a cloudy night fully as good 
for slaughter as one in which the moon shines; and 
if larch trees grow in the wood, to these he resorts; 
knowing, by experience, that the pheasant p^'efers 
this kind of tree to any other. The larch suits 
pheasants admirably, on account of its branches 
growing nearly at right angles from the stem. This 
renders the sitting position of the birds very easy. 
I consider the smoking of pheasants, while they are 
roosting in the tree, as a mere idle story. I myself 
ought to be a pretty good hand at poaching; still, I am 
obliged to confess that I have never been successful, 
in one single instance, in the many attempts I have 
made to bring down the pheasant from his roost 
by the application of a smoking apparatus. Indeed, 
when we reflect that the mouth of the bird is al- 
ways shut during sleep, and that both it and the 
nostrils are buried in the dorsal feathers, we are at 
a loss to conceive how the smoke can enter them, 
and cause the bird to fall in stupefaction. If smok- 
ing were a successful method, depend upon it the 
poachers would never be such noodles as to use 
H 3 
