John F.L.S. Watson
The Confessions of a Poacher
Chapter V
Hare Poaching
The merry brown hares came leaping
Over the crest of the hill,
Where the clover and corn lay sleeping
Under the moonlight still.
Our hare season generally began with partridge poaching, so that the coming of the hunter's moon was always an interesting autumnal event. By its aid the first big bag of the season was made. When a field is sown down, which it is intended to bring back to grass, clover is invariably sown with the grain. This springs between the corn stalks, and by the time the golden sheaves are carried, has swathed the stubble with mantling green. This, before all others, is the crop which hares love.
Poaching is one of the fine arts, and the man who would succeed must be a specialist. If he has sufficient strength to refrain from general "mouching," he will succeed best by selecting one particular kind of game, and directing his whole knowledge of woodcraft against it. In spring and summer I was wont to closely scan the fields, and as embrowned September drew near, knew the whereabouts of every hare in the parish—not only the field where it lay, but the very clump of rushes in which was its form. As puss went away from the gorse, or raced down the turnip-rigg, I took in every twist and double down to the minutest detail.
Then I scanned the "smoots" and gates through which she passed, and was always careful to approach these laterally. I left no trace of hand nor print of foot, nor disturbed the rough herbage. Late afternoon brought me home, and upon the hearth the wires and nets were spread for inspection. When all was ready, and the dogs whined impatiently to be gone, I would strike right into the heart of the land, and away from the high-road.
Mention of the dogs brings me to my fastest friends. Without them poaching for fur would be almost impossible. I invariably used bitches, and as success depended almost wholly upon them, I was bound to keep only the best. Lurchers take long to train, but when perfected are invaluable. I have had, maybe, a dozen dogs in all, the best being the result of a pure cross between greyhound and sheepdog. In night work silence is essential to success, and such dogs never bark; they have the good nose of the one, and the speed of the other. In selecting puppies it is best to choose rough-coated ones, as they are better able to stand the exposure of cold, rough nights. Shades of brown and fawn are preferable for colour, as these best assimilate to the duns and browns of the fields and woods. The process of training would take long to describe; but it is wonderful how soon the dog takes on the habits of its master. They soon learn to slink along by hedge and ditch, and but rarely shew in the open. They know every field-cut and by-path for miles, and are as much aware as their masters that county constables have a nasty habit of loitering about unfrequented lanes at daybreak.
The difficulty lies not so much in obtaining game as in getting it home safely; but for all that I was but rarely surprised with game upon me in this way. Disused buildings, stacks, and dry ditches are made to contain the "haul" until it can be sent for—an office which I usually got some of the field-women to perform for me. Failing these, country carriers and early morning milk-carts were useful. When I was night poaching, it was important that I should have the earliest intimation of the approach of a possible enemy, and to secure this the dogs were always trained to run on a few hundred yards in advance. A well-trained lurcher is almost infallible in detecting a foe, and upon meeting one he runs back to his master under cover of the far side of a fence. When the dog came back to me in this way I lost not a second in accepting the shelter of the nearest hedge or deepest ditch till the danger was past. If suddenly surprised and without means of hiding, myself and the dog would make off in different directions. Then there were times when it was inconvenient that we should know each other, and upon such occasions the dogs would not recognise me even upon the strongest provocation.
My best lurchers knew as much of the habits of game as I did. According to the class of land to be worked they were aware whether hares, partridges, or rabbits were to constitute the game for the night. They judged to a nicety the speed at which a hare should be driven to make a snare effective, and acted accordingly. At night the piercing scream of a netted hare can be heard to a great distance, and no sound sooner puts the keeper on the alert.
Consequently, when "puss" puts her neck into a wire, or madly jumps into a gate-net, the dog is on her in an instant, and quickly stops her piteous squeal. In field-netting rabbits, lurchers are equally quick, seeming quite to appreciate the danger of noise. Once only have I heard a lurcher give mouth. "Rough" was a powerful, deep-chested bitch, but upon one occasion she failed to jump a stiff, stone fence, with a nine-pound hare in her mouth. She did not bark, however, until she had several times failed at the fence, and when she thought her whereabouts were unknown. Hares and partridges invariably squat on the fallow or in the stubble when alarmed, and remain absolutely still till the danger is passed. This act is much more likely to be observed by the dog than its master, and in such cases the lurchers gently rubbed my shins to apprise me of the fact. Then I moved more cautiously. Out-lying pheasants, rabbits in the clumps, red grouse on the heather—the old dog missed none of them. Every movement was noted, and each came to the capacious pocket in turn. The only serious fights I ever had were when keepers threatened to shoot the dogs. This was a serious matter. Lurchers take long to train, and a keeper's summary proceeding often stops a whole winter's work, as the best dogs cannot easily be replaced. Many a one of our craft would as soon have been shot himself as seen his dog destroyed; and there are few good dogs which have not, at one time or other, been riddled with pellets during their lawless (save the mark!) career. If a hare happens to be seen, the dog sometimes works it so cleverly as to "chop" it in its "form"; and both hares and rabbits are not unfrequently snapped up without being run at all. In fact, depredations in fur would be exceedingly limited without the aid of dogs; and one country squire saved his ground game for a season by buying my best brace of lurchers at a very fancy price; while upon another occasion a bench of magistrates demanded to see the dogs of whose doings they had heard so much. In short, my lurchers at night embodied all my senses.
Whilst preparing my nets and wires, the dogs would whine impatiently to be gone. Soon their ears were pricked out on the track, though until told to leave they stuck doggedly to heel. Soon the darkness would blot out even the forms of surrounding objects, and our movements were made more cautiously. A couple of snares are set in gaps in an old thorn fence not more than a yard apart. These are delicately manipulated, as we know from previous knowledge that the hare will take one of them. The black dog is sent over, the younger fawn bitch staying behind. The former slinks slowly down the field, sticking close to the cover of a fence running at right angles to the one in which the wires are set. I have arranged that the wind shall blow from the dog and across to the hare's seat when the former shall come opposite. The ruse acts; "puss" is alarmed, but not terrified; she gets up and goes quietly away for the hedge. The dog is crouched, anxiously watching; she is making right for the snare, though something must be added to her speed to make the wire effective. As the dog closes in, I wait, bowed, with hands on knees, still as death, for her coming. I hear the brush of the grass, the trip, trip, trip, as the herbage is brushed. There is a rustle among the dead leaves, a desperate rush, a momentary squeal—and the wire has tightened round her throat.
Again we trudge silently along the lane, but soon stop to listen. Then we disperse, but to any on-looker would seem to have dissolved. This dry ditch is capacious, and its dead herbage tall and tangled. A heavy foot, with regular beat, approaches along the road, and dies slowly away in the distance.
Hares love green cornstalks, and a field of young wheat is at hand; I spread a net, twelve feet by six, at the gate, and at a sign the dogs depart different ways. Their paths soon converge, for the night is torn by a piteous cry; the road is enveloped in a cloud of dust; and in the midst of the confusion the dogs dash over the fence. They must have found their game near the middle of the field, and driven the hares—for there are two—so hard that they carried the net right before them; every struggle wraps another mesh about them, and, in a moment, their screams are quieted. By a quick movement I wrap the long net about my arm, and, taking the noiseless sward, get hastily away from the spot.
In March, when hares are pairing, four or five may frequently be found together in one field. Although wild, they seem to lose much of their natural timidity, and during this month I usually reaped a rich harvest. I was always careful to set my wires and snares on the side opposite to that from which the game would come, for this reason—that hares approach any place through which they are about to pass in a zig-zag manner. They come on, playing and frisking, stopping now and then to nibble the herbage. Then they canter, making wide leaps at right angles to their path, and sit listening upon their haunches. A freshly impressed footmark, the scent of dog or man, almost invariably turns them back. Of course these traces are certain to be left if the snare be set on the near side of the gate or fence, and then a hare will refuse to take it, even when hard pressed. Now here is a wrinkle to any keeper who cares to accept it. Where poaching is prevalent and hares abundant, every hare on the estate should be netted, for it is a fact well known to every poacher versed in his craft, that an escaped hare that has once been netted can never be retaken. The process, however, will effectually frighten a small percentage of hares off the land altogether.
The human scent left at gaps and gateways by ploughmen, shepherds, and mouchers, the wary poacher will obliterate by driving sheep over the spot before he begins operations. On the sides of fells and uplands hares are difficult to kill. This can only be accomplished by swift dogs, which are taken above the game. Puss is made to run down-hill, when, from her peculiar formation, she goes at a disadvantage.
Audacity almost invariably stands the poacher in good stead. Here is an actual incident. I knew of a certain field of young wheat in which was several hares—a fact observed during the day. This was hard by the keeper's cottage, and surrounded by a high fence of loose stones. It will be seen that the situation was somewhat critical, but that night my nets were set at the gates through which the hares always made. To drive them the dog was to range the field, entering it at a point furthest away from the gate. I bent my back in the road a yard from the wall to aid the dog. It retired, took a mighty spring, and barely touching my shoulders, bounded over the fence. The risk was justified by the haul, for that night I bagged nine good hares.
Owing to the scarcity of game, hare-poaching is now hardly worth following, and I believe that what is known as the Ground Game Act is mainly responsible for this. A country Justice, who has often been my friend when I was sadly in need of one, asked me why I thought the Hares and Rabbits Act had made both kinds of fur scarcer. I told him that the hare would become abundant again if it were not beset by so many enemies. Since 1880 it has had no protection, and the numbers have gone down amazingly. A shy and timid animal, it is worried through every month of the year. It does not burrow, and has not the protection of the rabbit. Although the colour of its fur resembles that of the dead grass and herbage among which it lies, yet it starts from its "form" at the approach of danger, and from its size makes an easy mark. It is not unfrequently "chopped" by sheep-dogs, and in certain months hundreds of leverets perish in this way. Hares are destroyed wholesale during the mowing of the grass and the reaping of the corn. For a time in summer, leverets especially seek this kind of cover, and farmers and farm-labourers kill numbers with dog and gun—and this at a time when they are quite unfit for food. In addition to these causes of scarcity there are others well known to sportsmen. When harriers hunt late in the season—as they invariably do now-a-days—many leverets are "chopped," and for every hare that goes away three are killed in the manner indicated. At least, that is my experience while mouching in the wake of the hounds. When hunting continues through March, master and huntsman assert that this havoc is necessary in order to kill off superabundant jack-hares, and so preserve the balance of stock. Doubtless there was reason in this argument before the present scarcity, but now there is none. March, too, is a general breeding month, and the hunting of doe-hares entails the grossest cruelty. Coursing is confined within no fixed limits, and is prolonged far too late in the season. What has been said of hunting applies to coursing, and these things sportsmen can remedy if they wish. There is more unwritten law in connection with British field-sports than any other pastime; but obviously it might be added to with advantage. If something is not done the hare will assuredly become extinct. To prevent this a "close time" is, in the opinion of those best versed in woodcraft, absolutely necessary. The dates between which the hare would best be protected are the first of March and the first of August. Then we would gain all round. The recent relaxation of the law has done something to encourage poaching, and poachers now find pretexts for being on or about land which before were of no avail, and to the moucher accurate observation by day is one of the essentials to success.
Naturalists ought to know best; but there has been more unnatural history written concerning hares than any other British animal. It is said to produce two young ones at a birth, but observant poachers know that from three to five leverets are not unfrequently found: then it is stated that hares breed twice, or at most thrice, a year. Anyone, however, who has daily observed their habits, knows that there are but few months in which leverets are not born. In mild winters young ones are found in January and February, whilst in March they have become common. They may be seen right on through summer and autumn, and last December I saw a brace of leverets a month old. Does shot in October are sometimes found to be giving milk, and in November old hares are not unfrequently noticed in the same patch of cover. These facts would seem to point to the conclusion that the hare propagates its species almost the whole year round—a startling piece of evidence to the older naturalists. Add to this that hares pair when a year old, that gestation lasts only thirty days, and it will be seen what a possibly prolific animal the hare may be. The young are born covered with fur, and after a month leave their mother to seek their own subsistence.
Chapter VI
Pheasant Poaching
Through 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.
It is well for the poacher, and well for his methods, that the pheasant is rather a stupid bird. There is no gainsaying its beauty, however, and a brace of birds, with all the old excitement thrown in, are well worth winning, even at considerable risk. In a long life of poaching I have noticed that the pheasant has one great characteristic. It is fond of wandering; and this cannot be prevented. Watch the birds: even when fed daily, and with the daintiest food, they wander off, singly or in pairs, far from the home coverts. This fact I knew well, and was not slow to use my knowledge. When October came round they were the very first birds to which I directed my attention. Every poacher observes, year by year (even leaving his own predaceous paws out of the question), that it by no means follows that the man who rears the pheasants will have the privilege of shooting them. There is a very certain time in the life of the bird when it disdains the scattered corn of the keeper, and begins to anticipate the fall of beech and oak mast. In search of this the pheasants make daily journeys, and consume great quantities. They feed principally in the morning; dust themselves in the roads or turnip-fields at mid-day, and ramble through the woods in the afternoon. And one thing is certain: That when wandered birds find themselves in outlying copses in the evening they are apt to roost there. As already stated, these were the birds to which I paid my best attention. When wholesale pheasant poaching is prosecuted by gangs, it is in winter, when the trees are bare. Guns, with the barrels filed down, are taken in sacks, and the pheasants are shot where they roost. Their bulky forms stand sharply outlined against the sky, and they are invariably on the lower branches. If the firing does not immediately bring up the keepers, the game is quickly deposited in bags, and the gang makes off. And it is generally arranged that a light cart is waiting at some remote lane end, so that possible pursuers may be quickly outpaced. The great risk incurred by this method will be seen, when it is stated that pheasants are generally reared close by the keeper's cottage, and that their coverts immediately surround it. It is mostly armed mouchers who enter these, and not the more gifted (save the mark!) country poacher. And there are reasons for this. Opposition must always be anticipated, for, speaking for the nonce from the game-keeper's standpoint, the covert never should be, and rarely is, unwatched. Then there are the certain results of possible capture to be taken into account. This affected, and with birds in one's possession, the poacher is liable to be indicted upon so many concurrent charges, each and all having heavy penalties. Than this I obtained my game in a different and quieter way. My custom was to carefully eschew the preserves, and look up all outlying birds. I never went abroad without a pocketful of corn, and day by day enticed the wandered birds further and further away. This accomplished, pheasants may be snared with hair nooses, or taken in spring traps. One of my commonest and most successful methods with wandered birds was to light brimstone beneath the trees in which they roosted. The powerful fumes soon overpowered them, and they came flopping down the trees one by one. This method has the advantage of silence, and if the night be dead and still, is rarely detected. Away from the preserves, time was never taken into account in my plans, and I could work systematically. I was content with a brace of birds at a time, and usually got most in the end, with least chance of capture.
I have already spoken at some length of my education in field and wood-craft. An important (though at the time unconscious) part of this was minute observation of the haunts and habits of all kinds of game; and this knowledge was put to good use in my actual poaching raids. Here is an instance of what I mean: I had noticed the great pugnacity of the pheasant, and out of this made capital. After first finding out the whereabouts of the keeper, I fitted a trained game-cock with artificial spurs, and then took it to the covert side. The artificial spurs were fitted to the natural ones, were sharp as needles, and the plucky bird already knew how to use them. Upon his crowing, one or more cock pheasants would immediately respond, and advance to meet the adversary. A single blow usually sufficed to lay low the pride of the pheasant, and in this way half-a-dozen birds were bagged, whilst my own representative remained unhurt.
I had another ingenious plan (if I may say so) in connection with pheasants, and, perhaps, the most successful. I may say at once that there is nothing sportsmanlike about it; but then that is in keeping with most of what I have set down. If time and opportunity offer there is hardly any limit to the depredation which it allows. Here it is: A number of dried peas are taken and steeped in boiling water; a hole is then made through the centre, and through this again a stiff bristle is threaded. The ends are then cut off short, leaving only about a quarter of an inch of bristle projecting on each side. With these the birds are fed, and they are greedily eaten. In passing down the gullet, however, a violent irritation is set up, and the pheasant is finally choked. In a dying condition the birds are picked up beneath the hedges, to the shelter of which they almost always run. The way is a quiet one; it may be adopted in roads and lanes where the birds dust themselves, and does not require trespass.
In this connection I may say that I only used a gun when every other method failed. Game-keepers sometimes try to outwit poachers by a device which is now of old standing. Usually knowing from what quarter the latter will enter the covert, wooden blocks representing roosting birds are nailed to the branches of the open beeches. I was never entrapped into firing at these dummies, and it is only with the casual that the ruse acts. He fires, brings the keepers from their hiding places, and is caught. Still another method of bagging "long-tails," though one somewhat similar to that already set down: It requires two persons, and the exact position of the birds must be known. A black night is necessary; a stiff bamboo rod, and a dark lantern. One man flashes the concentrated light upon the bare branches, when immediately half a dozen necks are stretched out to view the apparition. Just then the "angler" slips a wire nooze over the craned neck nearest him, and it is jerked down as quickly, though as silently as possible. Number two is served in like manner, then a third, a fourth, and a fifth. This method has the advantage of silence, though, if unskilfully managed, sometimes only a single bird is secured, and the rest flutter wildly off into the darkness.
