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"Poaching is one of the fine arts--how 'fine' only the initiated
know."
[Illustration: THE SQUIRE'S KEEPER.]
The
Confessions
of a
Poacher
EDITED BY
JOHN WATSON, F.L.S.,
Author of "Nature and Woodcraft," "Sylvan Folk," &c., &c.
ILLUSTRATED BY
JAMES WEST.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
The Leadenhall Press, 50, Leadenhall Street, E.C.
_Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd:
New York: Scribner & Welford, 743 & 745, Broadway._
1890.
[Illustration]
THE LEADENHALL PRESS,
50, LEADENHALL STREET, LONDON, E.C.
T 4,463.
EDITORIAL NOTE.
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The poacher of these "Confessions" is no imaginary being. In the
following pages I have set down nothing but what has come within his own
personal experience; and, although the little book is full of strange
inconsistencies, I cannot, knowing the man, call them by a harder name.
Nature made old "Phil" a Poacher, but she made him a Sportsman and a
Naturalist at the same time. I never met any man who was in closer
sympathy with the wild creatures about him; and never dog or child came
within his influence but what was permanently attracted by his
personality. Although eighty years of age there is still some of the old
erectness in his carriage; some of the old fire in his eyes. As a young
man he was handsome, though now his features are battered out of all
original conception. His silvery hair still covers a lion-like head, and
his tanned cheeks are hard and firm. If his life has been a lawless one
he has paid heavily for his wrong doings. Great as a poacher, he must
have been great whatever he had been. In my boyhood he was the hero whom
I worshipped, and I hardly know that I have gone back on my loyalty.
CONTENTS.
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CHAPTER. PAGE.
1. THE EMBRYO POACHER 7
2. UNDER THE NIGHT 19
3. GRADUATING IN WOODCRAFT 32
4. PARTRIDGE POACHING 45
5. HARE POACHING 57
6. PHEASANT POACHING 74
7. SALMON AND TROUT POACHING 90
8. GROUSE POACHING 109
9. RABBIT POACHING 123
10. TRICKS 135
11. PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS 151
THE CONFESSIONS OF A POACHER.
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Chapter 1.
THE EMBRYO POACHER.
I do not remember the time when I was not a poacher; and if I may say
so, I believe our family has always had a genius for woodcraft.
I was bred on the outskirts of a sleepy town in a good game country, and
my depredations were mostly when the Game Laws were less rigorously
enforced than now. Our home was roughly adorned in fur and feather, and
a number of gaunt lurchers always constituted part of the family. An
almost passionate love of nature, summers of birds' nesting, and a life
spent almost wholly out of doors constituted an admirable training for
an embryo poacher. If it is true that poets are born, not made, it is
equally so of poachers. The successful "moucher" must be an inborn
naturalist--must have much in common with the creatures of the fields
and woods around him.
[Illustration]
There is a miniature bird and animal fauna which constitutes as
important game to the young poacher as any he is likely to come across
in after life. There are mice, shrews, voles, for all of which he sets
some primitive snare and captures. The silky-coated moles in their runs
offer more serious work, and being most successfully practised at night,
offers an additional charm. Then there are the red-furred squirrels
which hide among the delicate leaves of the beeches and run up their
grey boles--fairy things that offer an endless subject of delight to any
young savage, and their capturing draws largely upon his inventive
genius. A happy hunting ground is furnished by farmers who require a lad
to keep the birds from their young wheat or corn, as when their services
are required the country is all like a garden. At this time the birds
seem creatures born of the sun, and not only are they seen in their
brightest plumage, but when indulging in all their love frolics. By
being employed by the farmers the erstwhile poacher is brought right
into the heart of the land, and the knowledge of woodcraft and rural
life he there acquires is never forgotten. As likely as not a ditch runs
by the side of the wheat fields, and here the water-hen leads out her
brood. To the same spot the birds come at noon to indulge their mid-day
_siesta_, and in the deep hole at the end of the cut a shoal of silvery
roach fall and rise towards the warm sunlight. Or a brook, which is a
tiny trout stream, babbles on through the meadows and pastures, and has
its attractions too. A stream is always the chief artery of the land,
as in it are found the life-giving elements. All the birds, all the
plants, flock to its banks, and its wooded sides are hushed by the
subdued hum of insects. There are tall green brackens--brackens
unfurling their fronds to the light, and full of the atoms of beautiful
summer. At the bend of the stream is a lime, and you may almost see its
glutinous leaves unfolding to the light. Its winged flowers are infested
with bees. It has a dead bough almost at the bottom of its bole, and
upon it there sits a grey-brown bird. Ever and anon it darts for a
moment, hovers over the stream, and then returns to its perch. A hundred
times it flutters, secures its insect prey, and takes up its old
position on the stump. Bronze fly, bluebottle, and droning bee are
secured alike, for all serve as food to the loveable pied fly-catcher.
[Illustration]
It is the time of the bloom of the first June rose; and here, by the
margin of the wood, all the ground by fast falling blossom is littered.
Every blade teems with life, and the air is instinct with the very
breath of being. Birds' sounds are coming from over and under--from
bough and brake, and a harmonious discord is flooded from the
neighbouring copse. The oak above my head is a murmurous haunt of summer
wings, and wood pigeons coo from the beeches. The air is still, and
summer is on my cheek; arum, wood-sorrel, and celandine mingle at my
feet. The starlings are half buried in the fresh green grass, their
metallic plumage flashing in the sun. Cattle are lazily lying dotted
over the meadows, and the stream is done in a setting of green and gold.
Swallows, skimming the pools, dip in the cool water, and are
gone--leaving a sweet commotion in ever widening circles long after they
have flown. A mouse-like creeper alights at the foot of a thorn, and
runs nimbly up the bark; midway it enters a hole in which is its nest.
A garrulous blue-winged jay chatters from the tall oak, and purple rooks
are picking among the corn. Butterflies dally through the warm air, and
insects swarm among the leaves and flowers of the hedge bottoms. A crake
calls, now here, now far out yonder. Bluebells carpet the wood-margin,
and the bog is bright with marsh plants.
This, then, is the workshop of the young poacher, and here he receives
his first impressions. Is it strange that a mighty yearning springs up
within him to know more of nature's secrets? He finds himself in a fairy
place, and all unconsciously drinks in its sweets. See him now deeply
buried in a golden flood of marsh marigolds! See how he stands
spellbound before saxifrages which cling to a dripping rock. Water
avens, wild parsley, and campions crowd around him, and flags of the
yellow and purple iris tower over all. He watches the doings of the
reed-sparrows deep down in the flags, and sees a water-ouzel as it
rummages among the pebbles at the bottom of the brook. The larvae of
caddis flies, which cover the edge of the stream, are a curious mystery
to him, and he sees the kingfisher dart away as a bit of green light.
Small silvery trout, which rise in the pool, tempt him to try for them
with a crooked pin, and even now with success. He hears the cuckoos
crying and calling as they fly from tree to tree, and quite unexpectedly
finds the nest of a yellow-hammer, between a willow and the bank,
containing its curiously speckled eggs.
Still the life, and the "hush," and the breath go on. Everything
breathes, and moves, and has its being; the things of the day are the
essence thereof. On the margin of the wood are a few young pines, their
delicate plumes just touched with the loveliest green. An odour of
resinous gum is wafted from them, and upon one of the slender sprays a
pair of diminutive goldcrests have hung their procreant cradle. These
things are enough to win any young Bohemian to their ways, and although
as yet they only comprise "the country," soon their wondrous detail
lures their lover on, and he seeks to satisfy the thirst within him by
night as well as by day.
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.
[Illustration]
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.
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