Page:The Hare.djvu/90

68 depend upon any animal always remaining mute. Even a well-trained lurcher will occasionally forget itself and give tongue, especially if it fears that a hare is about to escape. It is here, in particular, that the superiority of the Bedlington breed lies. Even a Bedlington terrier is liable to make a mistake. I am sorry to find that the Midlothian poachers indulge in the most reprehensible practice of making their dogs mute by mechanical means. An instrument called a shoemaker's 'punch' is used to perforate the tongue of the dog, which it does with a single click. The poor animal is supposed to become mute in consequence of this inhuman treatment.

Dogs are now more often dispensed with by poachers than formerly. Here I may remark that the human voice is sometimes used to decoy the hare within range. The poacher arms himself with a gun, and takes his stand in a thick hedge, well concealed. He then reproduces the piteous cries of a leveret in distress. If the imitation be accurate, it often induces an old hare to approach the poacher within shot; for the hare is sympathetic towards its own kind. This method of poaching is rarely practised nowadays; but the skill with which an old hand imitates the cries of the suffering leveret is perfectly astonishing.

Ever since the days of Xenophon, nets have