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 vigils never cease. In season and out, by night and by day, they harry the things of the field and wood. Playing as some say a questionable part in the economy of nature, they play a very certain part in the economy of our game, both winged and furred. Strange anomaly it is, that whilst our game stock could not be preserved a year without their agency, the hand of every one is against them. So long as nature is founded on its present beneficent plan, so long will the swallow be speared by the shrike, and every wood be the scene of plunder and prey. Nature is one with rapine, and the close observance of every woodland way only emphasises the fact. Every sylvan thing is but a unit in a possible chain of destruction. The bee-bird captures the butterfly, and is stricken down in the act by the hawk; the keeper kills the raptor, and the keeper's hobnobbing with death is delayed but a while. The greatest and smallest murder but to live, and whilst the eagle kills the lordly stag, the merlin is lark-hawking on the down. Only those whose harvest is gleaned in the open, who have observed in all weathers and through every hour of the day and night, can form any adequate conception of how dependent is one form of life upon another. The way of an eagle in the air is one of those things concerning which Solomon professed himself unable to understand, and the scythe-like sweep of wings of the majestic bird is one of the most glorious sights which nature has to offer. Just as the eagle is the largest, so the merlin is the smallest British bird of prey, and to see this miniature falcon rush past on the breast of a mountain storm gives an idea of its almost marvellous velocity of flight. Within the whole range of animate nature, nowhere is the adaptation of means to an end more strikingly exhibited than among the raptors--the plunderers. The furred poachers are not less appropriately fitted with their weapons of destruction; and so perfectly adapted is the otter to its environment that its movements in the water are as the very poetry of motion. Let us follow these poachers of the field and covert to their haunts, and there observe them in their wild home. The sparrow-hawk is a roving arab of the air and the most arrant of poachers. Ask the keeper to detail to you the character of this daring marauder, and he will record a black and bloody list of depredations against the bird. He knows nothing, however, of the laws which govern the economy of nature, and if he did, or would, what are they compared to the shilling per head for those he can display on the vermin-rails.