Poachers and Poaching

The power of flight being almost exclusively the characteristic attribute of birds, it is somewhat strange that even the most eminent naturalists should be silent upon it. And y...

Nature's barometers are the only ones of which most country-folk have any knowledge. These they may consult at all times, and they know them by heart. Almost all field-workers a...

If trout streams and salmon rivers are ever more interesting than when the "March-brown" and the May-fly are on, surely it must be when the fish are heading up stream for the sp...

There is no European country, however fortunately situated, which has so many species of wild-fowl as Britain. This is partly owing to its insular position, and partly to the fo...

Oology may be said to be the latest of the sciences; and although perhaps not a very profound one, it is certainly among the most interesting. Those who are not ornithologists,...

A time of absolute quiet can never be observed in the country. It matters not as to time and season; there seems to be no general period of repose. There is always something abr...

As compared with the doings of human "mouchers," there is a class of field poachers whose depredations are tenfold more destructive. These are nature's poachers, and their vigil...

In our summer fishings, one of the spots to which we used to resort was a quaint cottage in the vale of Duddon--the Duddon that Wordsworth has immortalised in his series of sonn...

The gamekeeper's cottage stands at the end of the oak lane. An orchard surrounds his dwelling, the brown boughs now drooping with ripened fruit. Under an overhanging sycamore is...

At the time of the heaviest bird migrations in autumn, vast flocks of woodcocks pitch on the English coasts. They stay through the winter, and in spring the majority again cross...

The poacher is a product of sleepy village life, and usually "mouches" on the outskirts of country towns. His cottage is roughly adorned in fur and feather, and abuts on the fie...

The confines of a large estate constitute a poacher's paradise; for although partridge and grouse require land suited to their taste, rabbits and pheasants are common to all pre...

Hazelhurst was a long line of woodland, on one side skirted by the sea and on the other by a crumbling limestone escarpment. It was woodland, too, with the deep impress of time...

We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament; No cloud above, no earth below, A universe o...