Pheasant Poaching.
late summer and autumn the poacher's thoughts go out to the early weeks of October. Neither the last load of ruddy corn, nor the actual netting of the partridge gladden his heart as do the first signs of the dying year. There are certain sections of the Game Laws which he never breaks, and only some rare circumstance tempts him to take immature birds. But by the third week of October the yellow and sere of the year has come. The duns and browns are over the woods, and the leaves come fitfully flickering down. Everything out of doors testifies that autumn is waning, and that winter will soon be upon us. The colours of the few remaining flowers are fading, and nature is beginning to have a washed-out appearance. The feathery plumes of the ash are everywhere strewn beneath the trees, for, just as the ash is the first to burst into leaf, so it is the first to go. The foliage of the oak is already assuming a bright chestnut, though the leaves will remain throughout the year. In the oak avenues the acorns are lying in great quantities, though oak mast is not now the important product it once was, cheap grain having relegated it almost exclusively to the use of the birds. And now immense flocks of wood pigeons flutter in the trees or pick up the food from beneath. The garnering of the grain, the flocking of migratory birds, the wild clanging of fowl in the night sky—these are the sights and sounds that set the poacher's thoughts off in the old grooves.
Of all species of poaching, that which ensures a good haul of pheasants is most beset with difficulty. Nevertheless there are silent ways and means which prove as successful in the end as the squire's guns, and these without breaking the woodland silence with a sound. The most successful of these I intend to set down, and only such will be mentioned as have stood me in good stead in actual night work. Among southern woods and coverts the pheasant poacher is usually a desperate character; not so in the north. Here the poachers are more skilled in woodcraft, and are rarely surprised. If the worst comes to the worst it is a fair stand-up fight with fists, and is usually bloodless. There is little greed of gain in the night enterprise, and liberty by flight is the first thing resorted to.