. The gamekeeper at home : sketches of natural history and rural life . mmense demand for it since poultryhas become so dear, and, secondly, the ease of trans-mission now that railways spread into the most out-lying districts and carry baskets or parcels swiftly outof reach. Poaching, in fact, well followed, is a lucra-tive business. Some occasional poaching is done with no aid butthe hand, especially in severe weather, which makesall wild animals dummel, in provincial phrase—, slow to move. Even the hare is sometimescaught by hand as he crouches in his form. It re-quires a practised
. The gamekeeper at home : sketches of natural history and rural life . mmense demand for it since poultryhas become so dear, and, secondly, the ease of trans-mission now that railways spread into the most out-lying districts and carry baskets or parcels swiftly outof reach. Poaching, in fact, well followed, is a lucra-tive business. Some occasional poaching is done with no aid butthe hand, especially in severe weather, which makesall wild animals dummel, in provincial phrase—, slow to move. Even the hare is sometimescaught by hand as he crouches in his form. It re-quires a practised eye, that knows precisely where tolook among the grass, to detect him hidden in thebunch under the dead dry bennets. An inexperi-enced person chancing to see a hare sitting like thiswould naturally stop short in walking to get a betterview ; whereupon the animal, feeling that he was ob-served, would instantly make a rush. You mustpersuade the hare that he is unseen ; and so long ashe notices no start or sign of recognition—his eye is Sleight-of-hand Poaching i6i. POACHING IN THE WINTER on you from first entering the field—he will remainstill, believing that you will pass. The poacher, having marked his game, lookssteadily in front of him, never turning his head, butinsensibly changes his course and quietly approachessidelong. Then, in the moment of passing, he fallsquick as lightning on his knee, and seizes the harejust behind the poll. It is the only place where thesudden grasp would hold him in his convulsive terror M 162 The Gamekeeper at Home —he is surprisingly powerful—and almost ere he canshriek (as he will do) the left hand has tightenedround the hind legs. Stretching him to his fulllength across the knee, the right thumb, with a pecu-liar twist, dislocates his neck, and he is dead in aninstant. There is something of the hangmans knackin this, which is the invariable way of killing rabbitswhen ferreted or caught alive ; and yet it is the mostmerciful, for dea
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Keywords: ., book, bookcentury1800, booksubjectcountrylife, booksubjecthunting
