"[4] The book was published when O'Brian's English birth was not well known, and some reviewers focused on the "Irish" elements within the stories.

[2] The Western Morning News described the stories as taking "their tense drama in hunting, fishing and shooting, and their realism in the author's intimate knowledge."

The reviewer particularly liked the story "The Trap" that had "rare poetical qualities" and that "exhibits a fine sense of period and of the mind of a dolish poacher".

[4] Sales of the collection gave O'Brian more confidence in his writing, and he earned £30 beyond the advance from his publisher Secker and Warburg.

[2] According to his one of his biographers, Dean King, O'Brian used the advance to pay for hot water and electricity for the flat that he was living in with his wife.