Endless acquaintances are to be made in the fields, and those of the most pleasurable description. Nests containing young squirrels can be found in the larch tree tops, and any domestic tabby will suckle these delightful playthings. Young cushats and cushats' eggs can be obtained from their wicker-like nests, and sold in the villages. A prickly pet may be captured in a hedgehog trotting off through the long grass, and colonies of young wild rabbits may be dug from the mounds and braes. The skin of every velvety mole is one patch nearer the accomplishment of a warm, furry vest for winter, and this, if the pests of which it is comprised are the owner's taking, is worn with pardonable pride. A moleskin vest constitutes a graduation in woodcraft so to speak. Sometimes a brace of leverets are found in a tussocky grass clump, but these are more often allowed to remain than taken. And there are almost innumerable captures to be made among the feathered as well as furred things of the fields and woods. Chaffinches are taken in nooses among the corn, as are larks and buntings. Crisp cresses from the springs constitute an important source of income, and the embrowned nuts of autumn a harvest in themselves. It is during his early days of working upon the land that the erstwhile poacher learns of the rain-bringing tides; of the time of migration of birds; of the evening gamboling of hares; of the coming together of the partridge to roost; of the spawning of salmon and trout; and a hundred other scraps of knowledge which will serve him in good stead in his subsequent protest against the Game Laws.
Almost every young rustic who develops into a poacher has some such outdoor education as that sketched above. He has about him much ready animal ingenuity, and is capable of almost infinite resource. His snares and lines are constructed with his pocket knife, out of material he finds ready to hand in the woods. He early learns to imitate the call of the game birds, so accurately as to deceive even the birds themselves; and his weather-stained clothes seem to take on themselves the duns and browns and olives of the woods. A child brought up in the lap of Nature is invariably deeply marked with her impress, and we shall see to what end she has taught him.
