Rabbit Poaching.
well trained lurchers are absolutely necessary to hare poaching, ferrets are just as important to successful rabbit poaching. Nearly nothing in fur can be done without them. However lucky the moucher may be among pheasants, partridge, or grouse, rabbits are and must be the chief product of his nights. Of the methods of obtaining them—field netting, well-traps, shooting—all are as nothing compared with silent ferreting.
In the north we have two well-defined varieties of ferret—one a brown colour and known as the polecat-ferret; the other, the common white variety. The first is the hardier, and it is to secure this quality that poachers cross their ferrets with the wild polecat. Unlike lurchers, ferrets require but little training, and seem to work instinctively. There are various reasons why poachers prefer white ferrets to the polecat variety. At night a brown ferret is apt to be nipped up in mistake for a rabbit; while a white one is always apparent, even when moving among the densest herbage. Hence mouchers invariably use white ones. Gamekeepers who know their business prefer ferrets taken from poachers to any other. I was always particularly careful in selecting my stock, as from the nature of my trade I could ill afford to use bad ones. Certain strains of ferrets cause rabbits to bolt rapidly, while others are slow and sluggish. It need hardly be said that I always used the former. Even the best, however, will sometimes drive a rabbit to the end of a "blind" burrow;
and after killing it will not return until it
has gorged itself with blood. And more
trouble is added if the ferret curls itself up for an after-dinner sleep. Then it has either to be left or dug out. The latter process is long, the burrows ramify far into the mound, and it is not just known in which the ferret remains. If it be left it is well to bar every hole with stones, and then return with a dead rabbit when hunger succeeds the gorged sleep. It is to guard against such occasions as these that working ferrets are generally muzzled. A cruel practise used to obtain among poachers of stitching together the lips of ferrets to prevent their worrying rabbits and then "laying up." For myself I made a muzzle of soft string which was effective, and at the same time comfortable to wear. When there was a chance of being surprised at night work I occasionally worked ferrets with a line attached; but this is an objectionable practice and does not always answer. There may be a root or stick in which the line gets entangled, when there will be digging and no end of trouble to get the ferret out. From these facts, and the great uncertainty of ferreting, it will be understood why poachers can afford to use only the best animals. A tangled hedgebank with coarse herbage was
always a favourite spot for my depredations. There are invariably two, often half a dozen holes, to the same burrow. Small purse nets are spread over these, and I always preferred these loose to being pegged or fixed in any way. When all the nets are set the ferrets are turned in. They do not proceed immediately, but sniff the mouth of the hole; their indecision is only momentary, however, for soon the tip of the tail disappears in the darkness. And now silence is essential to success, as rabbits refuse to bolt if there is the slightest noise outside. A dull thud, a rush, and a rabbit goes rolling over and over entangled in the purse. Reserve nets are quickly clapped on the holes as the rabbits bolt, the latter invariably being taken except where a couple come together. Standing on the mound a shot would stop these as they go bounding through the dead leaves, but the sound would bring up the keeper, and so one has to practise self-denial. Unlike hares, rabbits rarely squeal when they become entangled; and this allows one to ferret long and silently. Rabbits bolt best on a windy day and before noon; after that they are sluggish and often refuse to come out at all. This is day ferreting, but of course mine was done mainly at night. In this case the dogs always ranged the land, and drove everything off it before we commenced operations. On good ground a mound or brae sometimes seemed to explode with rabbits, so wildly did they fly before their deadly foe. I have seen a score driven from one set of holes, while five or six couples is not at all uncommon. When ferrets are running the burrows, stoats and weasels are occasionally driven out; and among other strange things unearthed I remember a brown owl, a stock-dove, and a shell-drake—each of which happened to be breeding in the mounds.
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. And then the former may be taken at any time, 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 conies 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 village life which date back to the time of the New Forest. Of the many mouching modes for taking conies, ferretting, as already stated, and field netting are the most common. Traps with steel jaws are sometimes set in runs, inserted in the turf so as to bring them flush with the sward. But destruction by this method is not sufficiently wholesale, and the upturned white under-parts of the rabbit's fur show too plainly against the green. The poacher's methods must be quick, and he cannot afford to visit by day traps set in the dark. The night must cover all his doings. When the unscrupulous keeper finds a snare he sometimes puts a leveret into it, and secretes himself. Then he waits, and captures the poacher "in the act." As with some other methods already mentioned, the trap poacher is only a casual. Ferretting is silent and almost invariably successful. In warrens, both inequalities of the ground, mounds, and ditches afford good cover. My best and most wholesale method of field-poaching for rabbits was by means of two long nets. These are from a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards in length, and about four feet high. They are usually made of silk, and are light and strong, and easily portable. These are set parallel to each other along the edge of a wood, about thirty yards out into the pasture. Only about four inches divides the nets. A dark windy night is best for the work, as in such weather rabbits feed far out in the fields. On a night of this character, too, the game neither hears nor sees the poacher. The nets are long—the first small in mesh, that immediately behind large. When a rabbit or hare strikes, the impetus takes a part of the first net and its contents through the larger mesh of the second, and there, hanging, the creature struggles until it is knocked on the head with a stick. Immediately the nets are set, two men and a brace of lurchers range the ground in front, slowly and patiently, and gradually drive every feeding thing woodwards. A third man quietly paces the sward behind the nets, killing whatever strikes them. In this way I have taken many scores of rabbits in a single night. On the confines of a large estate a rather clever trick was once played upon us. Each year about half-a-dozen black or white rabbits were turned down into certain woods. Whilst feeding, these stood out conspicuously from the rest, and were religiously preserved. Upon these the keepers kept a close watch, and when any were missing it was suspected what was going on, when the watching strength was increased. As soon as we detected the trick, we were careful to let the coloured rabbits go free. We found that it was altogether to our interest to preserve them.
During night poaching for rabbits and hares the ground game is driven from its feeding ground to the woods or copses. Precisely the reverse method is employed during the day when the game is in cover. The practice is to find a spinny in which both rabbits and hares are known to lie; and then to set purse nets on the outside of every opening which may possibly be used by the frightened animals. The smaller the wood or patch of cover the easier it is to work. A man, with or without a dog, enters the covert, and his presence soon induces the furry denizens to bolt. As these rush through their customary runs they find themselves in the meshes of a net, and every struggle only makes them faster. This method has the disadvantage of being done in the light, but where there is much game is very deadly.
Snares for hares and rabbits are not used nearly so much now as formerly. For all that, they are useful in outlying districts, or on land that is not closely watched. For hares the snare is a wire noose tied to a stick with string, and placed edgeways in the trod. To have the snare the right height is an important matter; and it will be found that two fists high for a hare, and one for a rabbit, is the most deadly. Casuals set their snares in hedge-bottoms, but these are no good. Two or three feet away from the hedge is the most killing position—for this reason: when a hare canters up to a fence it never immediately bounds through; it pauses about a yard away, then leaps into the hedge-bottom. It is during this last leap that it puts its neck into the noose and is taken. If a keeper merely watches a snare until it is "lifted," good and well; but to put a hare or rabbit into it and then pounce on the moucher—well, that is a different matter. It is not difficult to see where a hare has been taken, especially if the run in which the snare was set was damp. There will be the hole where the peg has been, and the ground will be beaten flat by the struggles of the animal in endeavouring to free itself.
Field-netting for rabbits may be prevented in the same way as for partridges—by thorning the ground where the game feeds. It is quite a mistake to plant thorns, or even to stake out large branches. The only ones that at all trouble the poacher are small thorns which are left absolutely free on the ground. These get into the net, roll it up hopelessly in a short time, and if this once occurs everything escapes. Large thorns are easily seen and easily removed, but the abominable ones are the small ones left loose on the surface of the ground.
The most certain and wholesale method of rabbit poaching I ever practised was also the most daring. The engine employed was the "well-trap." This is a square, deep box, built into the ground, and immediately opposite to a smoot-hole in the fence through which the rabbits run from wood or covert to field or pasture. Through a hole in the wall or fence a wooden trough or box is inserted. As the rabbits run through, the floor opens beneath their weight, and they drop into the "well." Immediately the pressure is removed the floor springs back to its original position, and thus a score or more rabbits are often taken in a single night. In the construction of these "well-traps," rough and unbarked wood is used, though, even after this precaution, the rabbits will not take them for weeks. Then, they become familiar; the weather washes away all scent, and the "well" is a wholesale engine of destruction. All surface traces of the existence of the trap must be covered over with dead leaves and woodland debris. The rabbits, of course, are taken alive, and the best way of killing them is by stretching them across the knee, and so dislocating the spine. If the keeper once finds out the trap the game is up. Whilst it lasts, however, it kills more rabbits than every other stroke of woodcraft the poacher knows.
