Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-08-05

iron bases to the inclosing netting charged
with electricity, which causes death to all
rodents attempting an entrance.
The pheasants begin laying by April, and
they lay very much like the ordinary hen.
Each can be counted on to furnish from 20
to 80 eggs. These are daily carefully gath
cred not only from the nests in the aviaries,
but from those of the unimprisoned birds
The latter is not q difficult task for the
keepers; for it is singular fact that not
withstanding the pheasants' wild nature
they nest most freely in shrub clumps along
the edges of walks and drives The keepers
tell me they love the sound and sense of COM
panionshir, though themselves wonderfully
secretive and sly.
A Harvest for the Poachers.
And here the element of poaching is
ridiculously observable. From April to
June pheasant eggs are worth from "a to
s5 per hundred, or from 20 to 25 cents each.
A regular scramble for them is begun, and
this season provides one of the richest of
the poacher's harvests- 1t is q well-known
fact that onexhalf of the pheasants' eggs ex-
posed for sale by the shopkeepers are stolen.
Expert poachers know every haunt of the
pheasants upon the demesnes as well as the
keepers. They are often ahead of the
latter at the nests of the unimprisoned
birds Not only this, but keepers them
selves do not scruple to surreptitiously
dispose of milord's supply, or help them
selves from the nests on neighboring
demesnesL
However great may be the care in the
breeding of pheasants, not over one-half of
the chicks come safely to maturity. Then
tha preserves are ready for depletion by
poaching in its various forms. Not only do
the birds suffer in diminution from the pro-
fessioual poacher, but milord's pheasants
prove an irresistible temptation to every
tenant and cotter living round about the
demesnes as we'll as many whose interests
should make them their protectors; while
on many estates much of the poaching
attributed to genuine poachers is done by
the employees themselves.
Quite an Important Industry.
On great estates from 20 to 30 men are
regularly employed. There are the
''agent" and his clerks The bailiff, who
looks after the home farm and cattle, and his
helpers There are the head forester and
perhaps a dozen under toresters, all of
whose bird and wood-craft are quite equal
to those of the gamekeeper,and his several
underkeepers. There are a master SAWYER
and three or four men engaged in cutting
timber and posts from forest trees and re-
pairing gates, walls and fences The head
gardener has several assistants. There are
painters, glaziers, carpenters, ETC., all o.
whom are familiar with the castle and the
surrounding grounds And on some
demesnes you will find half dozen lodge
keepers and their families All of these
poorly paid folk love pheasant after it has
come from the oven, pot or grill as well
As do the aristocracy, and they all
know how to get them without bothering
the village marketman.
Professional poaching is a far less danger
GUS pursuit than it is usually considered
During the shooting season all sorts of
village hangers-on are pressed into service
as "beaters" and to carry and fill the game
bags 1t is an easy thing during the e1-
citement to hide q generous portion of the
game at convenient points from which it is
taken under cover of night Clamor and
fright also break up the rucks or coveys
into detached files of pheasants which re-
treat as high as possible among the branches
of larch and fir, when the poachers can
easily take them from their roosts at night
by hand. Other methods are smudging or
smoking them into half insensibility and
knocking them from their perches with
clubs; corn kernels into which short brlstles
are inserted are greedily devoured and the
birds run choking to the hedges to be easily
taken by hand; while an ingenious and sue
cessful device is to fit a gamecock with
artificial spurs, and stealthily place him
alongside a covert, when the pugnacious
pheasant cock instantly responds to the
gamecock's Growing challenge, and three
or four brace of the valuable birds are
taken.
Pheasant shooting usually begins the lat
ter part of October and closes with the final
Christmas ''battue."
And This Is Called Hunting.
Notwithstanding high walls, gentleness of
keepers, and all possible preventives, many
pheasants leave the demesnes, seeking the
outer hedges and bog grasses, where they
fall prey to the snares of tenants and guns
OF the poachers. Therefore few days be-
fore pheasant-shooting begins, all the out
side help at the castle starts in a circle
miles from the demesne and concentrating
toward the same, shout and, 'beat" with a
terrific hullabuloo, thus driving many
back within the preserves. Then
MILFORD and his friends dressed as
for snipe-shooting on the moors
and provided each with two doubled-bar-
relied, breech-loading, center-fre fowling
pieces Of No. II bore, man for reloading
and another Tor carrying cartridges, begin
the slaughter. The sportsmen are stationed
in advance at the edges of open places. The
gamekeeper, who is a sort of master of cere-
monies, brings his assistants or 'beaters''
into line behind. Then they move forward,
perhaps ten yards apart, the keeper, who
knows every bush, hedge, copse or tree,
directing the "beaters" in every movement
In an instant the preserve is perfect bed
lem of yells and explosions. The men yell
"Hi-yi-i-iP' as they ''beat" the bnshes, call
ing, as the startled birds flash from copse to
copse, ''Cock to the right" "Cock abovep'
''To the left, cockT "Hi-yi-i-i!-cock,
cock, cock!-right ahead, cockp' while
the death-dealing guns answer with such
rapidity that they often get too warm to be
held in the sportmen's hands. This goes
on all dav, with an hour for a lunch of
stew and beer at 2, when the "beaters' are
furnished liberal amount of bread, cheese
and beer; and their assistants, who follow
the hunters with carts and donkeys, by
night have often gathered up from 500 to
1, 600 slaughtered birds. These are shipped
direct to London to dealers, who provide
hampers and tags and pay for the birds
from 4 to 6 shillings per brace.
EDGAR L. WAKEMAN.
AN UNACCOUNTABLE TRAGEDY.