On those clear, bright winter nights when the full moon is almost at the zenith, and the “definition” of tree and bough in the flood of light seems to equal if not to exceed that of the noonday, some poaching used to be accomplished with the aid of a horsehair noose on the end of a long slender wand. There are still some districts in the country more or less covered with forest, and which on account of ancient rights cannot be enclosed. Here the art of noosing lingers; the loop being insidiously slipped over the bird’s head while at roost. By constant practice a wonderful dexterity may be acquired in this trick; men will snare almost any bird in broad daylight. With many birds a favourite place for a nest is in a hollow tree, access being had by a decayed knot-hole, and they are sometimes noosed as they emerge. A thin flexible copper wire is said to be substituted for large game. This method of capture peculiarly suits the views of the ornithologist, with whom it is an object to avoid the spoiling of feathers by shot.
Every now and then a bird-catcher comes along decoying the finches from the hedges, for sale as cage-birds in London. Some of these men, without any mechanical assistance, can imitate the “call” note of the bird they desire to capture so as to deceive the most practised ear. These fellows are a great nuisance, and will completely sweep a lane of all the birds whose song makes them valuable. In this way some localities have been quite cleared of goldfinches, which used to be common. The keepers, of course, will not permit them on private property; but in all rural districts there are wide waste spaces—as where two or more roads meet—broad bands of green sward running beside the highway, and the remnants of what in former days were commons; and here the bird-catcher plies his trade. It so happens that these very waste places are often the most favourite resorts of goldfinches, for instance, who are particularly fond of thistledown, and thistles naturally chiefly flourish on uncultivated land. These men, and the general class of loafers, have a wholesome dread of gamekeepers, who look on them with extreme suspicion.
The farmers and rural community at large hardly give the gamekeeper his due as a protection against thieves and mischievous rascals. The knowledge that he may at any time come round the corner, even in the middle of the night, has a decidedly salutary effect upon the minds of those who are prowling about. Intoxicated louts think it fine fun to unhinge gates, and let cattle and horses stray abroad, to tear down rails, and especially to push the coping-stones off the parapets of the bridges which span small streams. They consider it clever to heave these over with a splash into the water, or to throw down half a dozen yards of “dry wall.” In many places fields are commonly enclosed by the roadside with such walls, which are built of a flat stone dug just beneath the surface, and used without mortar. There are men who make a business of building these walls; it requires some skill and patience to select the stones and fit them properly. They serve the purpose very well, but the worst is that if once started the process of destruction is easy and quick. Much more serious offences than these are sometimes committed, as cutting horses with knives, and other mutilations. The fact that the fields are regularly perambulated by keepers and their assistants night and day cannot but act as a check upon acts of this kind.
Chapter Eight.
The Field Detective—Fish-Poaching.
The footpaths through the plantations and across the fields have no milestones by which the pedestrian can calculate the distance traversed; nor is the time occupied a safe criterion, because of the varying nature of the soil—now firm and now slippery—so that the pace is not regular. But these crooked paths—no footpath is ever straight—really represent a much greater distance than would be supposed if the space from point to point were measured on a map. So that the keeper as he goes his rounds, though he does not rival the professional walker, in the course of a year covers some thousands of miles. He rarely does less than ten, and probably often twelve miles a day, visiting certain points twice—i.e. in the morning and evening—and often in addition, if he has any suspicions, making détours. It is easy to walk a mile in a single field of no great dimensions when it is necessary to go up and down each side of four long hedgerows, and backwards and forwards, following the course of the furrows.
The keeper’s eye is ever on the alert for the poacher’s wires; and where the grass is tall to discover these is often a tedious task, since he may go within a few yards and yet pass them. The ditches and the great bramble-bushes are carefully scanned, because in these the poacher often conceals his gun, nets, or game, even when not under immediate apprehension of capture. The reason is that his cottage may perhaps be suddenly searched: if not by authority, the policeman on some pretext or other may unexpectedly lift the latch or peer into the outhouses, and feathers and fur are apt to betray their presence in the most unexpected manner. One single feather, one single fluffy little piece of fur overlooked, is enough to ruin him, for these are things of which it is impossible to give an acceptable explanation.
In dry weather the poacher often hides his implements: especially is this the case after a more than usually venturesome foray, when he knows that his house is tolerably certain to be overhauled and all his motions watched. A hollow tree is a common resource—the pollard willow generally becomes hollow in its old age—and with a piece of the decaying “touchwood” or a strip of dead bark his tools are ingeniously covered up. Under the eaves of sheds and outhouses the sparrows make holes by pulling out the thatch and roost in these sheltered places in severe weather, warmly protected from the frost; other small birds, as wrens and tomtits, do the same; and the poacher avails himself of these holes to hide his wires.