At night the waterside is productive of life, and here it is most varied. Like most poachers, the heron is a night fisher, and there is one equally destructive which carries on its nefarious trade under the full light of day--the kingfisher. And the kingfisher is a poacher in another respect. It never constructs the hole in which its young is reared, but takes possession of that of some small burrowing rodent, or even that of the little sand-martin. The buzzard is another bird of the moorlands, but can hardly be convicted of poaching. When it takes moor-game these are invariably found to be diseased or late hatched birds, and it certainly has not speed to pull down a full-grown grouse. Many times during whole summer afternoons have we seen the buzzards wheeling about when the young grouse have been following the brooding birds, but never have we seen them swoop at one. And seeing that as many as sixty mice have been taken from the crop of a single bird, surely the buzzard ought to be protected. During times of severe frost the buzzard often performs deeds of daring to obtain a meal. When a lad, Wordsworth was in the habit of setting "gins" for woodcocks, and one morning on going to examine his snares he discovered a buzzard near one which was struck. The bird of prey attempted to escape, but being held fast could not. A woodcock had been taken in one of the snares, which when fluttering had been seen and attacked by the buzzard. Not content, however, with the body of the woodcock, it had swallowed a leg also, round which the noose was drawn, and the limb was so securely lodged in the latter's stomach that no force that the bird could exert could withdraw it. In the glades and woodlands the garrulous blue-jay is a sad pilferer, to say nothing of its poaching propensities. In the spring it sucks innumerable eggs, and makes free right and warren of the peas and beans in the keeper's garden, and those sown in the glades for the pheasants; and so the old man's whole knowledge of woodcraft is directed against it. In addition to this, the jay does indirect harm, which multiplies the cunning engines devised for its destruction. For by pilfering the crops before mentioned, which are planted with the object of keeping the wandering pheasants on the land, a poor show of birds may be the result when October comes round, and the keeper's reputation suffers. Even the audacious pies steal both pheasant and partridge chicks, and consequently each find a place in the "larder." The brown-owl is mostly a rabbit poacher, but its congener, the barn-owl, poaches to good effect, as a subsequent statement will show. Almost all the birds of the crow-kind are persistent poachers, and are generally shot down.