* * * * * A Gamekeeping Problem When catching up pheasants for the laying-pens, there is always the difficulty of preventing their escape from the wire-net enclosures, and it is interesting to see the different devices by which this trouble is met. The enclosure must not be covered over with wire-netting, for the birds, whenever startled, would fly upwards and injure themselves--and it is wonderful with what perseverance a pheasant will fly up again and again, until its pate has no skin left, and sometimes until it can fly up no more. So the keeper sometimes covers the enclosure with string netting, small enough to prevent the birds escaping, and large enough to prevent them catching their heads and hanging themselves. Others follow the hawker's system, called brailing, attaching Y-shaped pieces of leather to one wing so that it cannot be opened for flight--or the wing may be tied with a piece of tape. The wings are treated in this way in turn, lest one should grow stiff through having no work. Pheasants bred simply for stocking purposes are pinioned when small birds, as are wild duck; but this reduces their value when their egg-laying days are numbered. Some keepers cut the flight feathers of one wing, but the birds cannot then fly again until the shortened quills have moulted and new ones have grown. But a bird whose flight feathers have been pulled out in the spring will grow fresh ones by June, when she is turned out of the pen. At this time the bird with cut wings is at a heavy disadvantage, alike in escaping the dangers and in mothering any brood she may succeed in hatching out in the woods. How shall a pheasant gather her chicks beneath her wings if she have only a wing and a half? * * * * * The Hare Poacher In March many keepers are worried by hare poachers. To lose a hare by poaching during the shooting season is bad enough, but to lose one of those left for stock is a calamity to the keeper--though to the poacher a hare means a meal for his family, or a week's supply of beer. The chances are ten to one that a hare snared in March will be a doe--for the does run pursued by a pack of bucks, and so go first into the snare. Hare-poaching would be a matter of less concern to the keeper if the buck hares were always taken, for he could often spare a few, as they will race does to the point of utter exhaustion or death. At rutting times the poacher's task is easy. He selects three or four runs which, from their well-used appearance, are promising, then slips down his snares of brass wire, dulled by exposure to smoke to be the less easily seen by hare or keeper. The poacher chooses runs close together, and should he be a man who goes to work, prefers that they shall be near his line of march, so that he may keep an eye on the snares without stepping out of his lawful path.