The footpaths through the plantations and across the fields have no milestones by which the pedestrian can calculate the distance traversed; nor is the time occupied a safe criterion, because of the varying nature of the soil—now firm and now slippery—so that the pace is not regular. But these crooked paths—no footpath is ever straight—really represent a much greater distance than would be supposed if the space from point to point were measured on a map. So that the keeper as he goes his rounds, though he does not rival the professional walker, in the course of a year covers some thousands of miles. He rarely does less than ten, and probably often twelve miles a day, visiting certain points twice—i.e. in the morning and evening—and often in addition, if he has any suspicions, making dètours. It is easy to walk a mile in a single field of no great dimensions when it is necessary to go up and down each side of four long hedgerows, and backwards and forwards, following the course of the furrows.

The keeper's eye is ever on the alert for the poacher's wires; and where the grass is tall to discover these is often a tedious task, since he may go within a few yards and yet pass them. The ditches and the great bramble-bushes are carefully scanned, because in these the poacher often conceals his gun, nets, or game, even when not under immediate apprehension of capture.