The Amateur Poacher

rom every green thing? Idling along the hedgerows towards the woodlands there may perchance be seen small tufts of white rabbit's fur in the grass,

y oaks, thrown just as they felt the quickening heat. The bark has been stripped from the trunk and branches; the sun has turned th

oak-apples swell, streaked with rosy stains, whence their semblance to the edible fruit of the orchard. All unconscious of the whi

ngainly tool aright: a top-heavy, clumsy, awkward thing, it rules you instead of you ruling it. The handle, too, is flat-almost with an edge itself sometimes-and is quite beyond the grasp of any but hands of iron. Now the American axe feels balanced like a sword; this is bec

lso used for splitting logs and gnarled 'butts.' An American axe is too beautiful a tool for that rude work. The American was designe

astonished at the difficulty. The blows echo and the chips fly, till the base of the tree, that naturally is much larger, is reduced to the siz

ticles of decayed bark, the borings of insects in dead wood, dust, and fragments of twigs, rush down in little streams and fill the eyes. The quantity of woody powder that adheres to a tree is surprising; every motion dislodges it from a thousand minute crevices. As for firs, in climbing a fir one cannot look up a

ays-it staggers; a loud crack as the fibres part, then with a slow heave over it goes, and, descending, twists upon the base. The vast limbs plough into the sward; the twigs are crushed; the boughs, aft

But that from the branches is best. You may mark how at the base the bark is two inches thick, lessening to a few lines on the topmost boughs. If it sticks a little, hammer it with the iron: it peels with a peculiar sound, and the juicy sap glistens white between. It is this that, drying in the sun, gi

oop their blue bells under the wood, and the cowslips rise in the grass. The nightingale sings without ceasing; the soft 'coo-coo' of the dove sounds hard by; the merry cuckoo calls as he flies from elm to elm; the wood-pigeons rise and smite their wings toget

n will be as tall as the shoulder and thick as a walking-stick are as yet no bar; burrs do not attach themselves at every step, though the broad burdo

drives blue cartridge-cases lie among the grass, the brass part tarnished by the rain, thrown hurriedly aside from the smoking breech last autumn. But the guns are silent in the racks, though the keeper still carries his gun to shoot the vermin, w

far down on the lonely outlying farms, where even in fox-hunting England the music of the hounds is hardly heard in three years (because no great coverts cause the run to take that way), foul murder is sometimes done on Reynard or his family. A hedge-cutter marks the sleeping-place in the withies where the fox curls up by day; and with his rusty gun, that sometimes slaughters a roaming pheasant,

der his coat, 'You med have un for sixpence,' he says, and produces a partridge into whose body the point of the scythe ran as she sat on her nest in

o the fields to find these eggs, with full permission to do so, he would probably wander in vain. The grass is long, and the nest has little to distinguish it from the ground; the old bird will sit so

to him. They may be taken elsewhere, or they may even be broken out of spite if the finder thinks he has a grudge to repay. Now that every field is enclosed, and for the most part well cultivated and looke

. Those who work in the fields, again, have still better opportunities: the bird-keeping lads too have little else to do at that season than watch for nests. In the meadows the labourer as he walks to and fro with the 'bush' passes over every inch of the ground. The 'bush' is a mass of thorn bushes fixed in a frame and drawn by a horse; it acts like a light harrow, and l

look, instead of the broad surface of the field. Pheasants will get out of the preserves in the breeding season and wander into the mounds, so that the space the keeper has to range

nakes. Weasels, stoats, and rats spare neither egg, parents, nor offspring. Some of the dogs that run wild will devour eggs; and hawks pounce on the brood if they see an opportunity. Owls are said to do the same. The fitchew, the badger, and the hedgehog have a similarly evil reputation; but the first is rare, the second almost e

erhaps the mowing machine is as destructive as anything; and after all these there is the risk of a wet s

the bough. The very hazel has a pleasant sound-not a nut-tree hedge existed in the neighbourhood that we did not

lingers and the 'Shuck-a-sheck!' of the fieldfare fleeing before the snow sounds overhead. On

sweet milky matter, and the shell begins to harden. A hazel bough with a good crook is then sought by the men that are thinking of the wheat harvest: they trim it for a 'vagging' stick, with which to pull the s

ratched out from a mouse's hole, as they say, by Reynard, who devours the little provident creature without regard for its wisdom. So that man and wild animals derive pleasure or use from t

there in such immense quantities as determined us to see them. Sitting on the felled ash under the shade of the hawthorn hedge, where the butcher

the other it was enclosed by a low bank covered with dead thorn thickly entangled, which enclosed the cornfields. The space between the hedge and the hill was as far as we could throw one of the bleached flints lying

ound near hedges, and almost always either under a tree or where a tree has been. There were more mushrooms on the side of the hill than we cared to carry. Some eat mushrooms raw-fresh as t

-by who feels an interest in hares and rabbits, and does not like to see them jealously excluded, to open a gap. Hares were very numerous-temptingly so. Not far from where the track crossed a lonely road was a gipsy encampment; that swarthy people are ever about when

for basket-making. A bolt is a bundle of forty inches in circumference. Though the women tell fortunes, and mix the 'dark man' and the 'light man,' the 'journey' and the 'letter' to perfection, till the ladies half believe, I doubt if they know much of true palmistry. The magic of the past always had a cha

n the Downs looked all alike, being covered with snow, I came across a 'gip' family sitting on the ground in a lane, old and young exposed to the blast. In that there was nothing remarkable, but I recollect it because the young mother, handsome in the style of her race, had her neck and brown bust qui

signal) called me to Orion. On the border of a thicket, near an open field of swedes, he had found a hare in a wire. It was a beauty-the soft fur smooth to stroke, not so much as a shot-hole in the black-marked ears. Wired or netted hares and rabbits are much preferred by the dea

sited it long before: it had a suspicious look altogether. It would also have been nearly impossible to carry the hare so many miles by daylight and past villages: even with the large

way when some one suddenly spoke from behind, and, turning, there was a man in a velveteen jacket who had just stepped out of the bushes. The keeper was pleasant enough and readily allowed us to handle his gun-a very good weapon, though a little thin at the muzzle-for a man likes t

about doubtless where he could command the various tracks up the hill, had seen us come that way, and did not wish us to return in the same direction; because if the 'g

they sometimes make underground in their buries after a sudden fright. So that the keen plaintive whistle of a kingfisher was almost startling. But we soon found the stream in the hollow. Broader than a brook and yet not quite a river, it flowed

e 'Velvet' the command of the hollow; and it was too risky even to think of. After that the nuts were tame; there was nothing left but to turn homewards. As for trout-fishing, there is nothing so easy. Take the top joint off the rod, and put the wire on the