Poachers and Poaching. F.L.S. John Watson

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СКАЧАТЬ the net may be obviated by having about eighteen inches of smooth glazed material bordering the lower and trailing part of the net. Partridges are occasionally taken by farmers in the following unorthodox fashion. A train of grain is scattered from ground where game is known to lie. The birds follow this, and each morning find it more nearly approach to the stackyards. When the birds have become accustomed to this mode of feeding, the grain train is continued inside the barn. The birds follow, and the doors are closed upon them. A bright light is brought, and the game is knocked down with sticks.

      Partridges feed in the early morning—as soon as daybreak. They resort to one spot, and are constant in their coming if encouraged. This the poacher knows, and adapts himself accordingly. By the aid of a clear moon he lays a train of grain straight as a hazel stick. He has brought in a bag an old duck-gun, the barrels of which are short, having been filed down. This short weapon can easily be carried in his capacious pocket, and is only needed to fire at short distances. Into this he crams a heavy charge of powder and waits for the dawn. The covey comes with a loud whirring of wings, and the birds settle to feed immediately. Firing along the line, a single shot strews the ground with dead and dying. In ten minutes he is a mile from the spot, always keeping clear of the roads. The poacher has yet another method. Grain is soaked until it becomes swollen and is then steeped in the strongest spirit. This, as before, is strewn in the morning paths of the partridge, and, soon taking effect, the naturally pugnacious birds are presently staggering and fighting desperately. The poacher bides his time, and, as opportunity offers, knocks the incapacitated birds on the head.

      The wilder grouse poaching of the moorlands is now rarely followed. The birds are taken in nets similar to those used for partridges. By imitating the peculiar gurgling call-notes of the grouse, old poachers can bring up all birds within hearing distance. As they fly over the knolls and braes they are shot. Many of the birds sold in London on the morning of the "Twelfth" are taken in this way. In the north, since the inclosure of the Commons, numbers of grouse are killed by flying against the wire fences. When the mists cling to the hills for days, or when the weather is "thick," these casualties occur. At such times the birds fly low, and strike before seeing the obstacle. The poacher notes these mist caps hanging to the hill tops, and then, bag in hand, walks parallel to miles and miles of fence. Sometimes a dozen brace of birds are picked up in a morning. Not only grouse, but on the lowlands pheasants and partridges are killed in this way, as are also snipe and woodcock.

      In summer, poachers make and repair their nets for winter use. Large hare nets are made for gates, and smaller ones for rabbit burrows and "smoots." Partridge nets are also necessarily large, having sometimes to cover half a field. Although most of the summer the poacher is practically idle, it is at this time that he closely studies the life of the fields, and makes his observations for winter. He gets occasional employment at hay or harvest, and for his darker profession treasures up what he sees. He is not often introduced to the heart of the land, and misses nothing of the opportunity. On in autumn, he is engaged to cut down ash poles or fell young woods, and this brings him to the covert. Nothing escapes his notice, and in the end his employers have to pay dearly for his labour. At this time the game birds—pheasants, partridge, and grouse—are breeding, and are therefore worthless; so with rabbits and hares. But when game is "out," fish are "in." Fish poaching has decreased of late years, owing to stricter watching and greater preservation generally. In summer, when the waters are low, fish resort to the deep dubs. In such spots comes abundance of food, and the fish are safe, be the drought never so long. The pools of the Fell becks abound at such times with speckled brown trout, and are visited by another poacher—the otter. When the short summer night is darkest, the man poacher wades through the meadows by the river. He knows the deeps where the fish most congregate, and there throws in chloride of lime. Soon the trout of the pool float belly uppermost, and are lifted out, dazed, in a landing net. In this way hundreds of fish are taken, and find a ready sale. The lime in no wise poisons the edible parts; it simply affects the eyes and gills, covering them with a fine white film. Fish so taken, however, lose all their pinky freshness. The most cowardly part of this not uncommon proceeding is that the lime is sometimes put into the river immediately below a mill. This, of course, is intended to mislead watchers and keepers, and to throw the blame upon the non-guilty millowner. And, seeing that chloride of lime is used in various manufactures, the ruse sometimes succeeds. Many of the older poachers, however, discountenance this cowardly method, for by it the destruction of fish is wholesale, irrespective of size. The old hands use an old-fashioned net, to work which requires at least two men. The net is dragged along the quiet river reaches, a rope being attached to each end. The trout fly before it, and are drawn out upon the first bed of pebbles. In this way great hauls are often made. To prevent this species of poaching, stakes are driven into trout stream beds; but they are not of much avail. When it is known that a "reach" is staked, a third man wades behind the net and lifts it over. A better method to prevent river poaching is to throw loose thorn bushes into the bed of the stream. In trailing along the bottom the net becomes entangled, and long before it can be unloosed the fish have escaped. This wholesale instrument of fish poaching is now rarely used. The net is necessarily large and cumbersome. Wet, it is as much as two men can carry, and when caught in the act, there is nothing for it but to abandon the net and run. This is an effectual check for a time, as a new net takes long to knit and is expensive, at least to the poacher. When salmon and trout are spawning their senses seem somewhat dulled, and they are taken out of the water at night by click-hooks. In this kind of river poaching a lighted tar brand is used to show the whereabouts of the fish. A light, too, attracts salmon. Of course, this can only be attempted when the beats of the watchers and keepers are known. The older generation of poachers, who have died or are fast dying out, seem to have taken the receipt for preparing salmon roe with them. For this once deadly bait is now rarely used. Here is a field incident.

      A silent river reach shaded by trees. It is the end of a short summer night. We know that the poachers have lately been busy knitting their nets, and have come to intercept them. The "Alder Dub" may be easily netted, and contains a score nice trout. Poachers carefully study the habits of fish as well as those of game, both winged and furred. To the alder dub they know the trout make when the river is low. The poachers have not noted signs of wind and weather and of local migrations for twenty years past to be ignorant of this. And so here, in the dew-beaded grass, we lie in wait. It is two o'clock and a critical time. A strange breaking is in the east: grey—half-light, half-mist. If they come they will come now. In an hour the darkness will not hide them. We lie close to the bank thickly covered with bush and scrub. Two sounds are and have been heard all night—the ceaseless call of the crake and the not less ceaseless song of the sedge-bird. A lapwing gets up in the darkness and screams—an ominous sound, and we are all ear. Three forms descend the opposite bank, and on to the gravel bed. They empty the contents of a bag and begin to unroll its slow length. The breaking of a rotten twig in a preparatory movement for the rush sufficiently alarms them, and they dash into the wood as we into the water—content now to secure their cumbersome illegal net, and thus effectually stop their operations for three weeks at least. The grey becomes dawn and the dawn light as we wade wearily home through the long wet grass. And still the sedge warbler sings.

CHAPTER II.

       POACHERS AND POACHING.—II.

       Table of Contents

      The confines of a large estate constitute a poacher's paradise; for although partridge and grouse require land suited to their taste, rabbits and pheasants are common to all preserved ground. Since the reclamation of much wild land these latter afford his chief spoil. And then rabbits may be taken at any time of the year and in so many different ways. They are abundant, too, and always find a ready market. The penalties attached to rabbit poaching are less than those of game, and the vermin need not be followed into closely preserved coverts. The extermination of the rabbit will be contemporaneous with that of the lurcher and poacher—two institutions of English village life which date back to the planting the New Forest. Of the many modes of taking the "coney," ferreting and field-netting are the most common. Traps with steel jaws are sometimes СКАЧАТЬ