Periscoping Grouse.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 20 July 1917, Page 4

Periscoping Grouse.

A Poacher's Novel Invention,

The latest use which the periscope has been put to is in the capturing of grouse. In the Highland? of Scotland a great number of small holdings and large farms border forests and tracts of moorland. The wet season this year has aeriously hamptred the farmer in securing hii crops and oats and other grains have been left on the field in stook for weeks instead of for days. The ravages of winged game are a serioa3 loss to the occupier of the holding. The birds alight in < flocks on the stooks and the farmer who Bhoots them renders himself liable under the Game Act to fine and imprisonment.

An enterprising poacher last year conceived the idea that the periscope might be utilised to aid him in his illegal work. After some experimentation with and adjustment of the instrument he set to work. Taking possession before daylight of a stook on the edge of a field bounded by a grouse moor, hp put the periscope into the middle of a sheaf and stood it od end among the other He then got inside the stook, lay flat upon his back, and waited developments.

The hungry birds, as soon as daylight came in, swooped down on tbe stooks, and as they did so on tbe one concealing the poacher fiey speedily vanished. An invisible band pulled the birds suddenly and noiselessly to their doom. So rapid and silen' were tl.e poacher's movements that tne other birds remained undisturbed until the same doom overtook each of them.

The poacher was amazed at his success. His first week's bag numbered over sixty birds, which he sold at the cadger-grocer's vanman at a shilling a piece. Since then he has improved the periscope for poaching purposes, and through it he has been enabled to widen considerably the field of bis operations.