The Confessions of a Poacher

John F.L.S. Watson

F.L.S. John Watson

The Confessions of a Poacher

Chapter I

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.

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.

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 i