Scientific Poaching It has surprised many observers to find that
rabbits, which have been restoring their numbers in some districts, are disappearing in others: Round one country house, for example, in North Devon, you could count them by the hundred on any fine evening, even in a field just below a board's nest. Today not a rabbit is to be seen ; and the reason is said to be the increase of a new form of poaching. The poacher frequently does not leave the road. He both finds and dazzles his quarry by help of a new type of " long-range focusing flash-light " ; and shoots it before it recovers from the surprise. His dog retrieves it. The darker the night the better. The old-time poacher delighted in the full moon " in the season of the year." Long since, in a midland parish, the story was current—and its truth was vouched for—that a party ferreting rabbits at the full moon were so terrified by the eerie light in the wood that they bolted before the rabbits, leaving some of their gear behind, afterward found by the keeper. They had not heard of the date of the eclipse2 One of the men, starting the panic, called out: "There's a bag of soot over the moon "I
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