File:Game birds and wild fowl, their friends and their foes (1850) (14770222313).jpg

Identifier: gamebirdswildfow00knox (find matches)
Title: Game birds and wild fowl, their friends and their foes
Year: 1850 (1850s)
Authors: Knox, Arthur Edward
Subjects: Game and game-birds Hunting
Publisher: London : J. Van Voorst
Contributing Library: University of British Columbia Library
Digitizing Sponsor: University of British Columbia Library

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ted from springing upwards,by its other extremity being placed against anotch at the end of the stick which had beenfastened to the peg on the other side of the run,across which it now lay, two or three inches fromthe ground, and supported the noose. This, infact, constituted the trigger, which was to bereleased when struck by the breast of the wood-cock. The old man constructed the trap in much lesstime than I have taken—and how imperfectly—todescribe it. Indeed, I feel that it is a subjectbetter suited to the pencil than to the pen. His last care was to weave the sedges on eitherside of the run into a kind of screen so as toweir the woodcock into the snare, and this heaccomplished with much skill and expedition. Itwas now nearly dark, and we separated, afterarranging to meet again on the same spot earlyon the following morning. I arrived there, how-ever, some time before him, and found myselfthreading my way through the willows just asthe grey dawn was beginning to appear on the
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THE OLD POACHEP.S SPRIN&E. WOODCOCK CAUGHT. 151 eastern horizon. Nor was I long kept in uncer-tainty, for on emerging from the sedges, therehung dangling before my eyes, suspended like agibbeted felon in mid-air—a woodcock. He wasnoosed round the neck, and although still warmwas quite dead; and as I smoothed down hisruffled, though bloodless feathers, and admiredthe exquisite arrangement of his plumage, Ithought he was worthy of a place in my collec-tion. There he now occupies a conspicuous niche,and I never look at him without thinking ofbygone days, the swamp in the glen, and the oldpoacher and his springe. 152 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. CHAPTER IX. Therefore I think my eagle is so justly styled Joves servant inordinary : and that very falcon that I am now going to see deserves nomeaner a title.—Izaak Walton. Falconry—Youthful Attempts in the Noble Art — HeronHawking—The Look-out—The Chace—An Irish Bog—Fabulous Errors—Magpie Hawking—Colonel BonhamsHawking Expe

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