If only
their eggs could be protected there should be little difficulty with
partridges.
Pheasants are more individual in their ways, and act less together; but
they have the same habit of running instead of flying, and if a poacher
did but dare he could take them with nets as easily as possible. They
form runs through the woods--just as fowls will wander day after day
down a hedge, till they have made quite a path. So that, having found
the run and knowing the position of the birds, the rest is simplicity
itself. The net being stretched, the pheasants were driven in. A cur dog
was sometimes sent round to disturb the birds. Being a cur, he did not
bark, for which reason a strain of cur is preferred to this day by the
mouchers who keep dogs. Now that the woods are regularly watched such a
plan has become impracticable. It might indeed be done once, but surely
not twice where competent keepers were about.
Nets were also used for hares and rabbits, which were driven in by a
dog; but, the scent of these animals being so good, it was necessary to
work in such a manner that the wind might not blow from the net, meeting
them as they approached it. Pheasants, as every one knows, roost on
trees, but often do not ascend very high; and, indeed, before the leaves
are off they are said to be sometimes taken by hand--sliding it along
the bough till the legs are grasped, just as you might fowls perched at
night on a rail across the beams of a shed.
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