A GAMEKEEPER'S
NOTE-BOOK

A PIPE OF PEACE
LONDON, EDWARD ARNOLD.

A GAMEKEEPER'S
NOTE-BOOK

BY

OWEN JONES
AUTHOR OF "TEN YEARS' GAMEKEEPING"

AND

MARCUS WOODWARD
JOINT AUTHOR OF "WOODCRAFT"

WITH PHOTOGRAVURE ILLUSTRATIONS

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1910
[All rights reserved]

PREAMBLE

A gamekeeper's notes are written for the most part on the tablets of his mind. He is a man of silence; yet he is ever ready to unlock the casket of his memories if old friends, and sympathetic, are about him. We have known keepers who could talk, when so minded, as well as they could shoot, making their points as certainly as they would bowl over any straying cat that crossed their paths. But few keepers can handle a pen with the same confidence as a gun. Some keepers, it is true, carry note-books, and therein make certain brief notes—simple records and plain statements of fact, interesting enough to glance over, but nothing to read.

The vermin bag has an honourable place in these notes—year by year the keeper may set down precisely how many malefactors (and others) have fallen to his gun and traps. It is a record in which he takes almost as much pride as in his daily and yearly lists of game; the grand total of a good season for game or vermin lingers for ever on his lips. The date of a shoot, the beat, the number and names of the guns, and what luck befell them, all may be noted with scrupulous care, with a word about the weather, perhaps, and possibly also on the benefits in cash received by the keeper at the day's end. Many carry little pocket note-books wherein they keep an account of dates and places—the date of all dates in the year being, of course, that on which the first wild pheasant's egg was found among the primroses. A page of the book may be filled with the names and nicknames of poachers caught, and a record of their transgressions and penalties. For the rest, for all the details, that should clothe the nakedness of these briefly written words, one must go to the keeper's mind. And the best of all a keeper's notes are the ones he never jots down.

In this book the notes set out are culled chiefly from a series of genuine note-books, covering a certain keeper's ten years' experience of gamekeeping and life-long experience in woodcraft: we have taken the rough jottings of his pocket-books, and have done our best with thoughts and memories to sketch in the foreground and background of his facts. Where he has merely noted, "April —, first wild pheasant's egg seen," we have tried to picture him as he set out hopefully expectant, and to describe his feelings as he found that egg, to him more precious than all others of the year. Where, again, he only says, "Saw cubs at play," we have sympathised with him as he noted what wings of partridges and pheasants, what legs of hares and bones of rabbits, littered the playground.

An abundant source of incident and story we have found in our dealings with many good gamekeeper friends, old men and young, some of them locally renowned as "characters," and all good sportsmen. We have elaborated many a note on gamekeepers themselves, about their wives and children, their cottages, their dreams, their ways of speech and their philosophic sayings, matters which no keeper would trouble to record.

Should we be pressed to name the original author of the note-books from which our memories have been mainly refreshed, we should have to name one of ourselves: we would be excused. Together, we share the recollection of glad companionship through many a long day and night; and, above all, that magic interest in the countless phases of a gamekeeper's life and work covered by that wide word, Woodcraft.

Our notes appeared originally in the Saturday editions of the Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette, in which journal they have long been and are still a regular feature: we thank the editor for permission to publish them in the present form. We are indebted to the editor of Pearson's Magazine for permission to reproduce the two bird-pictures by Mr. Frank Southgate, R.B.A.

O. J. and M. W.

September 1910.

LIST OF CONTENTS

SPRING

SUMMER

AUTUMN

WINTER

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

SPRING

The Keepers' Lot

The position of a gamekeeper in England is a curious one. Admittedly he is among the most skilled and highly trained workers of the countryside. His intimate knowledge of wild life commands respect. Often he is much more than a careful and successful preserver of game—a thoroughly good sportsman, a fine shot. His work carries heavy responsibility; as whether a large expenditure on a shooting property brings good returns—and on him depends the pleasure of many a sporting party. On large estates he is an important personage—important to the estate owner, to the hunt, to the farm bailiff, and to a host of satellites. His value is proved by the many important side-issues of his work—dog-breeding and dog-breaking, or the breaking of young gentlemen to gun work. Yet, in spite of the honourable and onerous nature of his calling, he is paid in cash about the same wage as a ploughman.

Perquisites

The actual wages of a first-class gamekeeper may be no more than a pound a week. A system has sprung up by which he receives, in addition to wages, many recompenses in kind, while his slender pay is fortified by the tips of the sportsman to whom he ministers. This system has bred in him a kind of obsequiousness—he is dependent to a great extent on charity. With a liberal employer he may be well off, and all manner of good things may come his way; but with a mean employer the perquisites of his position may be few and far between.

At the best, he may live in a comfortable cottage, rent free. His coal is supplied to him without cost, and wood from the estate. Milk is drawn freely from the farm—or he may have free pasturage for a cow of his own. A new suit of clothes is presented to him each year. He may keep pigs for his own use, usually at his own expense, but this is a small item, and even here he may be helped out by a surplus of pig-food from the kitchen of the house or from the farms. He has a fair chance to make money by dog-breeding and exhibiting. Then there is vermin and rabbit money which he earns as extra pay, and useful sums may flow into his pocket from the hunt funds. He may keep fowls at his employer's expense, and if not solely for his own use, he has the privilege of a proportion of the eggs, and a reasonable number of the chickens may be roasted or boiled for his own table. The estate gardeners aid him with his gardening operations, and many surplus plants and seeds find their way into his plot. To rabbits he may help himself freely, also to rooks and pigeons. After each shooting party his employer—if a generous master—invites him to take home a brace of pheasants and a hare; and there may be other ways in which game comes to his larder. Commissions and fees of various indeterminate sorts may swell his coffers. All kinds of supplies he secures, if not freely, at reduced prices. And always there is the harvest of tips. Clearly there is every chance for a gamekeeper to receive charity of some form or another, if it is not always offered; and this must tend to weaken that independence which is found by the man who is paid for his labour fairly and squarely in cash.

Pets at the Cottage

One usually sees a pretty assortment of pets about the keeper's cottage, where there are children. The keeper himself is not above a pet animal, though he may not confess it—and, strange to say, the keeper's favourite is often a cat. But you may be sure it is a cat among cats, and without sin—an expert among rats, mice, and sparrows, yet able to sit for hours on the hole of a rabbit, or alone with a canary, and not yield to temptation. At one keeper's cottage a dormouse is to be seen—at this season he is broader than he is long. Here lives "Billy," a buff bantam cock, who will sit on your knee and take a mouthful of bread from your lips; here also is "Tommy," a game-cock, who takes lunch and tea on the inside of the kitchen window-ledge; and here is "Sally," a goose that will lay more than threescore eggs in the spring, lives on grass, likes to explore the cottage's interior, and puts all the dogs to shame as a guard, loudly proclaiming the arrival of strangers. In a coop on a lawn lives a white rabbit, whose mission in life is to keep the grass short; this rabbit will not look at a carrot, but rejoices in bread and milk, and above all in cold chicken. In the yard is a retriever, who is always careful to offer you her right paw in greeting, loves blackberries, and is the special friend of a little terrier. Once there was a pet lamb. On many a little rough grassy grave the keeper's child places wreaths of wild flowers.

Wood-Pigeons

The shooting of pigeons is the keeper's special feather-sport—he is always on the spot to take advantage of favourable circumstances. It goes on in summer as in winter, and remembering the tremendous amount of damage done to pea-fields, corn crops and roots by pigeons, there is a justification for this shooting which cannot be urged in favour of pheasant-shooting. The keeper understands the sport. He knows the pigeons' habits and feeding times, and that concealment is the secret of success. Lying at ease on the ground, with his back to a tree-trunk, he waits in all patience for the pigeons to come to their favourite trees. Or, having noted the part of the feeding-field where the birds alight, he conceals himself in a hedge, or behind bushes arranged by himself, so that from his butt he can shoot comfortably at any bird within range. As birds are shot he sets them up as decoys. A stick about nine inches long is put in the ground, and one pointed end inserted in the pigeon's throat, the bird being set up in a life-like way. Knowing that they are thirsty birds, especially when feeding on the ripe, hard grain, he builds a hut near the pond where the pigeons drink, and if he cannot see them on the ground or in the trees, creeps out to stalk them, and the shots they give as they rise, diving and turning in all directions, are such that no one need despise.

The Keeper's Larder

Wood-pigeons are among the gamekeeper's perquisites. Apart from a very occasional request from "the house" for the wherewithal for pigeon-pie, the pigeons shot are for the benefit of the keeper and his family, and when he shoots more than he requires there are always labourers and others glad of a pigeon or two "to make a pudden." Rabbits, also, are perquisites, but to be sold no more than pigeons. The popular idea is that keepers may help themselves to any game they please—true, they could if so minded. But no matter what a keeper's ethics in other directions, as a rule he deals honourably with the game in his charge. The keeper has no more right to take a brace of birds or a hare without permission than has an ironmonger's assistant to take a coal-scuttle. There is little to be said against the keeper making use of game killed, but not eaten, by foxes or vermin, or of chance-killed game unsuitable for his employer's table. One old keeper was so anxious to make every available pheasant figure in the game-book that he would never keep the brace given him at the end of a day's shooting. Instead, he would include the birds with the bag on the following day, and this he would do day after day.

Free though they are to kill and cook rabbits, few keepers care for them, or eat them often. Most keepers, indeed, would be as pleased to go to penal servitude, or to live in London, as to eat rabbits more often than once a month. This is not because they have eaten too many, but because the smell of rabbits has become distasteful. However, rabbits prove a great help to the keeper with children to feed. Usually his larder is well stocked, and his good-wife has a store of all kinds of dainties in her cupboards—from home-made pickles to home-brewed wine. Often your keeper is a clever gardener; he takes prizes for his vegetables, and he will grow fine cucumbers and even melons under fragments of glass. Something of a cook himself, well accustomed to preparing luxurious meals for his sacred birds, he is a judge of cooks and cooking, as many a keeper's wife has discovered. If she does not know, he can tell her how to prepare a savoury dish which shall have the special advantages of not spoiling through being kept warm or from being warmed up—for the keeper's dinner is a movable feast, and must be ready at any time between noon and night. The sheet-anchor of one such dish is proper home-cured bacon, in winter baked in a pie-dish with alternate layers of parboiled potatoes, for which in summer the contents of eggs beaten just enough to blend the yolks and whites are substituted. Served with new potatoes, it is the very dish to put heart in a man.

Homely Medicines

The gamekeeper is among the few people left in the country who have any knowledge of herb-lore, and faith in home-brewed herbal remedies. His medicine-chest contains a varied assortment. From rose-pink centaury he boils an appetising tonic for his pheasants, which he is not above drinking himself. The roots of couch-grass provide him with a powerful emetic for dogs in the first stages of distemper. He bakes acorns, grinds them to powder, and with its aid quells a rebellious stomach. His good-wife has the secret of cowslip and nettle tea. From the pounded leaves of dock blended with lard, he prepares a salve for cuts. Rheumatism, from which all keepers suffer in their old age, is treated with the fat of hedgehogs, well rubbed in—not that this is a herbal remedy. Cramp in pheasants calls for cayenne pepper boiled in their food; chopped onions are for gape-worms; a little saffron with drinking water—as much as will lie on a threepenny-bit in the water for a thousand birds—assists young birds through the troubles of feather-growing; while the first moult is aided by a few crystals of sulphate of iron in water. But oil is the sovereign remedy: castor-oil for dogs out of sorts, oil of almonds for the glued eyelids of blind birds, linseed-oil and laudanum for gapes—oil of every kind for every purpose. With corn scented with oil of rhodium-wood the keeper lays a trail which every pheasant must follow.

The Earth-Stoppers' Feast

The reward paid to keepers from the funds of fox-hunts is a sovereign for a litter of cubs when hounds come cub-hunting. Ten shillings is paid for each fox found by hounds. And a florin is the keeper's usual reward for stopping earths when the meet is within a distance of four miles. These moneys are paid in round sums on a great occasion in the keeper's year—the earth-stoppers' dinner. In olden days keepers were full of resources for benefiting themselves from the hunt funds, while saving their pheasants' skins from foxes at the same time. The cunning keeper would induce a huntsman to pay a stealthy unofficial visit to the home of a litter, and after his departure, when a reward had been made sure, would quietly take steps to rid himself of fox troubles. Visiting the earth with a supply of sulphur matches and bags of grass, he would light the matches within, block the holes with the bags, and leave the deadly fumes to do their work. Or two keepers would combine to defraud the hunt. One would show a litter and pocket his sovereign, then shift the litter to the preserves of his friend, who in turn would call in the huntsman and pocket his reward, then return the cubs whence they came; and so the game would go on. Luck plays a great part in this matter of fox-rewards. It often happens that foxes which have been harboured honestly by one keeper are found in the preserves of another who is a vulpicide, yet is not above accepting the reward which really is the due of his scrupulous friend in the next parish. How to show foxes to the hunt and pheasants to a shooting party is the prickliest of all the manifold problems of the gamekeeper's life.

The Keeper's Garden

The gamekeeper, like many a countryman, would be at a loss without his garden. His little plot of land means much to him: green food for his table, tonic foods for his pheasants, and a place where, by digging, he may bury some of his cares. He knows no such exercise as digging for keeping away ill-humours. He believes that the more a man sows the more he will reap—it is a lesson daily brought home to him. So he puts his best work into his garden, which is often the model plot of a rural community. In March he divides his time between spade work and his never-ending war on vermin. If he has a pen of stock pheasants he spends a good many minutes a day in admiration of the birds, besides tending to their wants; and he will defy you to prove that you ever saw a finer lot of birds. "Look at that old cock up agen yon corner—ain't 'e got some 'orns? Bless ye, them birds is worth a pound apiece."

So many a March afternoon finds the keeper hard at work at home with spade, fork, trowel or dibbler. His great object is to finish the more laborious work before the time of pheasants' eggs. A feature of the garden is the neat and spacious onion-bed, smoothed with the polished back of a favourite spade, which has dug out countless rabbits. There must be plenty of onions for the young pheasants to come. In time of need a keeper may sacrifice the whole of his onion-bed to his birds, gladly buying such onions as his wife demands for the table. Then there are two or three long rows of peas. Before sowing, the seed is sprinkled with red lead against the ravages of long-tailed field-mice, and after sowing strands of black thread are carried up and down the surface against the attacks of sparrows, while above, as a terrible warning, swings the body of a sparrow-hawk. The site of an old pheasant pen is devoted to Brussels sprouts. A dilapidated dog-kennel will serve to coax rhubarb to be ready for Easter Sunday's dinner.

Flower seeds are not forgotten: in shallow cartridge-boxes, protected by a small home-made frame, seeds are sown for making the little patch of flower-garden gay with stocks and asters, sweet peas, sun-flowers, tobacco-plants, and zinnias. The keeper puzzles over zinnia seed, which is like the fragment of a dead leaf, yet will come up and grow with the speed of mustard and cress, producing a wealth of bloom.

But the planting of the potato patch is the chief work. The neat little furrows which mark each row of potatoes, allowing the hoe to be plied fearlessly before the potatoes show above ground, give a neatness to the cottage garden all the time while the soil is brown and bare.

Gamekeepers, though their work for wages is never done, yet have a few legitimate ways of adding to their incomes. Of course they have the opportunity of making a good deal of money if they trespass on their employers' time; but your keeper is an honest man, and his work is the object of his life. Most keepers are skilled vegetable gardeners, and may make a few shillings from peas and beans. Often enough they have a cunning way with flowers, though envious amateurs are free with their hints about the advantages to be gained from burying foxes to enrich the soil. We know one who will put in a fair day's work with spade and wheelbarrow before even the waggoners have stirred to give their horses breakfast. Going his rounds, the keeper marks good briers for budding; if he does not sell them, he will beg choice buds from rose-growers, and a year or two later the passer-by may be tempted to offer half-a-crown for the fine roses of his little plot. Possibly by this time his roses mean so much to him that he will make some such excuse as, "The missus, she thinks a mortal sight of they."

Keepers' Holidays

In February a few lucky gamekeepers may take a voluntary holiday, many must take an involuntary one—restful, perhaps, but not beneficial to pocket, health, and spirits. Keepers come and keepers go in these days when so many shoots are let for short terms. Resting between berths has one advantage—there can be no haunting worry as to the welfare of game. It would be interesting to collect cases of keepers and other country workers who have held the same berth for long periods, and have never been for a holiday right away from the scenes of their labours. Many and many old keepers would be found to have lived their whole lives on the estates where they were born. The best holiday for keepers would be a change to a bustling town; or they should be sent to a country where game is different to the game at home, the partridge man going to the home of grouse, the moorland keeper to the South.

Most keepers would be the first to say it is impossible that they should take holiday. Their work is peculiarly personal; and even when it is essential to arrange for somebody else to "give an eye to things," they can never feel happy and confident that all is going on in the accustomed way. The work, too, is cumulative—each item must be considered in its relation to several others. Even where there are several keepers, each on his own beat of a shoot, there is a jealous rivalry between them; and any one who went for a holiday would suspect advantage to be taken of his stock of breeding game in his absence. If there is one thing a keeper can endure less than being scored off by a poacher, it is to be scored off by a brother keeper.

An Advantage of Marriage

For the first time in many a long year a gamekeeper may find himself taking a holiday in the early days of February—either because he has left his place of his own free will, or has been dismissed. "Left owing to shoot being given up"—that is the usual reason for a keeper's enforced holiday. Married keepers seldom leave berths of their own accord except to better themselves; but a young bachelor keeper with a light heart may be fond of change, and scores of places are open to him from which married men are barred. Often he can afford to take a holiday while he looks about for a new berth; he can find lodgings anywhere, and what with odd jobs and the money he has saved he can exist comfortably until he finds an employer to suit him. The married keeper is not so light-hearted, and perhaps on this account the best permanent berths go to the married men. The chance of such a berth gives the country maiden her best chance of bagging an elusive bachelor. Sometimes she captures the heart of a bachelor before he has found a berth that will support a wife; then he will advertise for a place, making the ambiguous statement: "Married when suited." No doubt some keepers who have issued this form of advertisement could tell strange stories of the applications received.

The Keeper seeks a New Berth

When going out to look at a place where the chance of a berth has offered itself, the keeper always takes good stock of the game in the country through which he passes. You may meet him, at the end of the season, setting out by road or by rail; he is clad in his best, you will see; bright new gaiters encase his legs, his boots glitter with polish. However great his hurry, as he goes along through park-lands or woods, he is looking out for everything to be seen; not a sign of game escapes him. And there lives a keeper who, passing through an estate on his way to a personal interview with the owner, chanced to be led out of the direct path by certain suspicious sounds which he heard, and caught a poacher red-handed. It is hardly necessary to add that he stepped forthwith into the vacant berth.

In North and South

Many long leagues separate the moor-keeper of the North from the keeper of South-country preserves; their eyes look out upon different worlds; the two men are as different in type, in ideas, and in methods as the North is different to the South, the open, rolling moor to the jungle-like covert. There are certain matters on which they agree—as in their mutual hatred of foxes; the moor-keeper, when the season is out, has no hesitation in killing all foxes and vermin within his power. He has an advantage over his brother in some things; as in nesting-sites. The heather affords an unlimited number of well-concealed places for grouse nests, whereas in Hampshire or Sussex a nesting hedgerow after the heart of pheasant or partridge is likely to be overcrowded, and to attract every sort of egg-thief. Again, he has an advantage in his natural and abundant food-supplies; though much of his success in raising a stock of healthy birds will depend on his judgment in burning old heather, and insuring a plentiful growth of young shoots. When heather is late in starting to grow, and birds are forced to feed on old, dry shoots, digestive troubles may prove fatal to many.

Poachers—

Poachers on the moor differ in many habits and tricks from South-country poachers. They know how to trap grouse with gins, setting up little piles of gravel, which the birds eagerly seek for digestive reasons, and besetting the gravel with traps. They know how to trap grouse in winter without causing them injury; this they do by pressing a bottle into hard snow, thus shaping a hole-trap (to be baited with oats) from which the grouse cannot escape, having fallen into it head first. But on the whole the sneaking type of poacher has fewer chances on the moor than in the pheasant coverts.

And their Dogs

A poacher owns to a dog, so marvellously trained that his master can send it for anything—but at the least sign of anybody watching its movements, or the approach of a gamekeeper or a policeman, the dog drops whatever it may be carrying, makes off for cover, and hides itself. The dog has many rivals to fame of this sort. We knew a poacher whose plan it was to dawdle along the road in his pony-cart while his lurcher foraged in the fields. But at a certain signal the dog would come instantly to heel; on suspecting danger, all the master did was to lift his cap, and scratch his head in the most unconcerned manner in the world. When once a dog grasps the meaning of a signal, he will obey it faithfully in all circumstances if he is kept in practice. In the olden days, in the Netherlands, dogs were trained to smuggle, and without attendants. They were sent off on a journey at night, loaded with goods, the keenest-nosed dog leading, and at the moment when he sighted or scented a custom-house official, he would turn back as a signal to the whole pack to rush off to cover, and hide until the danger passed. This is vouched for in an old work, "Brown on Dogs."

Perfect Obedience

Probably there would be no great difficulty training a dog to drop a hare, or anything else, at the approach of somebody other than its master. Dogs are sometimes trained to lie down, without receiving any signal or order, when their owners meet friends and stop to talk. One old gamekeeper would consider his dogs to be very ill-mannered if they did not lie down of their own accord when he stopped walking. Another keeper has trained his dog to quite an out-of-the-way trick, which is to the keeper's personal advantage, if highly detrimental to his duties. The trick is for the dog, on command, to spit from his mouth any food he may be eating. The keeper will take his dog to a public-house, and set the example of throwing him biscuits, which he will eat greedily. He will then make a boast about the dog's obedience (in the shooting field, by the way, we have never known a more disobedient animal, though he is exceedingly clever). Eventually the keeper wagers a pint of beer to a quart that the dog not only will cease eating biscuits on command, but will eject any crumbs from his mouth, and not touch them again until so ordered. Many a pot of beer has the dog won for his master by this trick. When the two go home, it is the dog that finds the way.

The Black List

In February the gamekeeper's thoughts and energies are turned mostly in the way of vermin and trapping. And where vermin is really plentiful it is a wonderful wild sport that he enjoys in tracking and trapping the creatures of his black list. In the North the vermin bag is more mixed than in the South, and in the olden days contained such a great variety of creatures as to suggest that the keepers enjoyed better sport than their masters. They were ruthless in their war on all that they held to be enemies to game; how ruthless may be judged from the following list of vermin, bagged in three years by a famous keeper on Glengarry, Inverness-shire. It indicates the proportion of the different sorts of animals classed as vermin found in the Highlands in the middle days of the last century: 11 foxes, 198 wild cats, 246 martens, 106 polecats, 301 stoats and weasels, 67 badgers, 48 otters, 78 house cats going wild, 27 white-tailed sea eagles, 15 golden eagles, 18 ospreys, 98 blue hawks or peregrine falcons, 7 orange-legged falcons, 211 hobby hawks, 75 kites, 5 marsh harriers, 63 goshawks, 285 common buzzards, 371 rough-legged buzzards, 3 honey buzzards, 462 kestrels, 78 merlin hawks, 83 hen harriers, 6 gerfalcons, 9 ash-coloured or long blue-tailed hawks, 1431 carrion crows, 475 ravens, 35 horned owls, 71 common fern owls (nightjars), 3 golden owls, 8 magpies. A total of nearly 5000 head, giving an average of more than 1500 head a year, or about five head a day. The list, strangely enough, does not contain a single jay, rat, or hedgehog.

A South-Country Record

A Southern keeper's list of about the same period—from 1869 to 1878—shows a total of just over 8000 head. In the year that saw the greatest destruction of hawks—nearly all sparrow-hawks and kestrels—46 were killed. The greatest number of magpies killed in a year was 205. Probably cats were not very carefully counted—their numbers in different years rise from 47 to 122. Usually more than 100 squirrels were killed each year. And over 100 carrion crows were killed yearly. But jays headed all lists in numbers sacrificed; the largest bag of 346 was made in '78, evidently when the influence of the breach-loader was beginning to make itself felt. Hedgehogs suffered least persecution among the keeper's supposed enemies, only 6 going into the bag in one year—45 was the highest hedgehog loss. Exclusive of rats, this keeper, a Hampshire man, waged war on nine species only, whereas the Inverness-shire keeper destroyed as vermin thirty-one different kinds of birds and beasts. The lists make no mention of rooks. To-day, on the Southern estate to which the list of thirty years ago refers, not a crow or a magpie is left, and the persecution has told heavily on the sparrow-hawks, and many another kind. The present keeper's sport with vermin is as different to his predecessors' as the sport of his master to his master's ancestors—to-day about 300 pheasants are bagged on this estate in the course of a big day's shooting, instead of the 30 birds that would have been a good bag in the olden times.

Woodland Gallows

In olden days the gamekeeper set up his vermin gallows in each of his big woods. It was to his credit to show that he had killed a large amount of vermin; on his gallows he wrote his own testimonial. Nearly all the vermin he killed was duly displayed. But now the day of the gallows is passing. Keepers have little time to give to the display; nor do employers always encourage it. The gallows foster a growing feeling against the destruction of wild life involved by the preservation of game, and lead to bitter, if often misjudged attacks. Keepers are contenting themselves with modified forms of gallows, as the trunk of a tree, to which the heads, tails or claws of the malefactors are nailed. These small gallows do not speak of the keeper's successful war-waging in the bold manner of the old-fashioned, full-measure pattern. But there is much in their favour. As one old keeper remarked of his tree-trunk gallows, the faint odour was only enough to set-off the scent of the flowers.

To the gallows comes a varied bag of robbers. The vermin list of a typical North-country estate included in a recent season 133 stoats, 36 weasels, 62 cats, 98 rats, 115 hedgehogs, 10 hawks, 381 jackdaws, 82 rooks, 23 carrion crows, and 52 magpies—a total of nearly a thousand head. The rats included would probably only be those caught incidentally in the vermin traps, not the far greater number killed during special campaigns by ferret, gun and dog. Hedgehogs are usually spared the indignity of the gallows. Though a keeper cheerfully carries a stoat in the pockets of his Sunday coat—and we have known him in an emergency to put a fox into his pocket—he knows that to pocket hedgehogs means the entertainment of their numerous and active dependants. Of cats only the tails are exhibited, and they are discreetly chosen, the keeper avoiding very striking tails that might be recognised. It would be bad policy on his part to advertise dead cats too freely. He has no desire to make enemies.

The Gallows Martyrs

Though kestrels, unhappily, are still brought to the gallows, with the barn-owl and other creatures innocent of injury to game, keepers grow more discriminating in the matter of vermin. Education has had its effect—it has taught the men to think, and to act according to reason rather than convention. The old men remain obstinate, and we remember how vainly we wasted an hour's good argument on one old fellow who seemed to hold badgers chiefly responsible for his ruined game-nests. It was at a keepers' dinner, an annual entertainment given by the Hunt. Only one badger remained out of a colony that formerly had inhabited our friend's preserves; and he expressed a firm intention of "fetching her hout on it." In a rash moment he went so far as to declare that he would prefer three litters of fox cubs to one of badgers. Overhearing this, the Hunt secretary made a good point by saying: "Very well, my friend; if you kill this badger, next time hounds come your way we shall expect to find at least three litters of cubs." It was notorious that every fox seen on this keeper's ground was, according to him, a mangy one and therefore "best put out of the way."

Once Trapped, Twice Shy

Some creatures, after they have been trapped and have escaped, learn the lesson of their lives, and are never trapped again, while others find no moral at the end of their adventure, and live to adorn the gallows. It is very seldom that a rat is trapped twice. Scores escape from traps at the expense of a leg; this is a common matter, but a man may trap vermin for a lifetime and yet never catch a three-legged rat. Stoats, on the other hand, far less cunning than rats, are often trapped again after escaping with the loss of a foot. We have known a stoat trapped by its last remaining leg, after having been about for a long time on one leg and three stumps. A keeper who was at special pains to preserve the foxes on his ground was much upset by the way in which his neighbours killed them. One year his anxiety for his cubs was so great that he caught them all in weak gins—and released them. He knew that after this experience the cubs would never allow themselves to be again caught in a gin. On the same principle, keepers sometimes net and release their own partridges, hares and rabbits, to save them from falling into the meshes of poachers. In the ordinary way, the fox is never caught in a trap set for other vermin—or foxes would have been extinct years ago. If they could be trapped as easily as the ordinary cat, twenty-four hours would be enough for catching every fox in the country.

Cunning Trappers

The skilled trapper, setting a baited trap for vermin, places it at such a distance from the bait that the creature he wishes to catch cannot reach the food without treading on the pan. Just when it can reach the prize is the moment when it is most likely to overstep the safety-line: desire overcomes suspicion. A fox, if so minded, can reach over the pan, and take the bait of a trap properly set for vermin, without risking a pad. Yet he seldom takes a bait: he detects the scent of man for a longer time than a trap is likely to remain unvisited. A keeper with an experience of more than twelve years vouches for it that though he used a hundred traps for vermin he never lost a bait through a fox, nor the Hunt a fox through a bait. But one keeper surpassed the cunning of the fox. A certain fox had troubled him greatly by too frequent visits to his poultry-run. He decided to attempt to trap it at the bottom of a chalk-pit near by, where the fox went to eat his suppers. Before setting his trap he sacrificed some half-dozen chickens on different days, with a two-fold object: in order to practise throwing a chicken from the top of the chalk-pit so that it should fall exactly where he desired, and in order to cause the fox to expect to find a meal in the pit. One fine day he set his trap. Then he bided his time until his scent should have passed away: and after four or five days he killed another chicken. Making his way to the top of the chalk-pit, he threw the chicken into a bush at the bottom, where the fox could reach it only by treading on the pan of the trap, which it did that night, at the cost of its life.

The Time to Catch a Weasel

February is the month when it is fashionable for stoats and weasels to begin courting. The keeper finds the trapping of stoats or weasels less difficult work than usual in consequence. He maintains that all is fair in love, war, and gamekeeping. He relies chiefly on tunnel-traps. The old way was to fix a long, low, narrow box in a likely run—a box open at each end, but with shutters which dropped when a pan in the middle of the floor was touched by a weasel's feet; so the weasel would be caught alive, without injury—only, however, to be executed. Another old-time trap was the figure 4 trap, set with a heavy stone or slate, which fell upon and instantly killed its victim. These cumbersome and not always reliable traps have passed from the woodlands, and now the keeper merely slips a gin into the entrance of a tunnel. This is made sometimes of earth and sticks, or is a drain-pipe, or is made of three lengths of plank, about a yard long and six inches wide. A hole in a hedge-bank is a favourite place for the gin. These tunnel traps are commonly set a few yards from the end of a hedge, because stoats and weasels have a weakness for cutting corners.

Changes of Coats

We have heard the suggestion many times that there are two varieties of the common weasel, but think this is not the case. The mistake no doubt arises from the marked difference in size between the males and females; the dog weasel is twice or sometimes three times the size of its sister, and is nearly as big as a small female stoat, while the dog weasel's sister may be hardly larger than a big mouse. Then the changes in the weasel's coat are deceptive. In spring a rusty red fur takes the place of the soft winter brown of the upper parts, while the white under-parts turn to a yellow tone. The ordinary brown of rats also changes to a striking rusty red shade in spring. This is most obvious in the case of rats living in burrows in soil, and often going short of food, and the rusty fur is specially marked on rats that have been feeding on carrion sheep and lambs. Shortness of food has the effect of prolonging the business of coat-changing, as is well seen in the case of a ferret kept on short commons. A white ferret is deep yellow in the spring before it has changed its coat. Stoats, too, show yellow on parts which will be white in the new coat.

The Vermin Bag

We met, by chance, an old keeper who, on first acquaintance, seemed a remarkable specimen—for he informed us that his orders were to set not a single trap anywhere on his ten thousand acres. Thinking that we saw a movement of his eyelid, we put the blunt question to him: How many traps did he usually set? And he replied unblushingly, "Forty dozen." He kept no record of his bag of vermin; but as he trapped on such a wholesale scale (remembering that the estate is supposed to be trapless), no doubt his employer would be startled if he knew the numbers of vermin killed; his vermin bag must be exceptional. The old-fashioned keeper is stubborn; the kestrel, as we have said before, is seen too often on his gibbet, and he has no respect for the useful wood-owl, which he ruthlessly exterminates. A record of a year's bag of vermin on one big estate reads thus: Jays, 350; magpies, 160; crows, 150; squirrels, 140; weasels, 80; cats, 70; stoats, 60; hedgehogs, 40; hawks, 30; total, 1080. This record says nothing of rats, rooks or owls, though no doubt numbers of rats and rooks were sacrificed.

The Ways of Squirrels

The gamekeeper whose bag of vermin in a year included 140 squirrels is, we may hope, exceptional. Squirrels are not always treated by keepers as vermin. Now and again a squirrel has been proved guilty of meddling with the eggs and young of pheasants—but so rarely that even keepers speak of these misdeeds as "not worth mentioning." The traditional crime of squirrels is that they damage various sorts of coniferous trees by nipping their shoots when young. Even if they gave this work all their time and attention, their numbers in the woods to-day are so small that the whole damage done would not amount to a very great injury to the country.

Squirrels are the most innocent creatures in the woods, so far as any harm to game preserving goes. It is their misfortune that many keepers look upon them as a convenient form of ferret-food. We have found a freshly killed squirrel, apparently the victim of a bird of prey, beneath a spruce fir, from which a barn owl flew as we examined the body; no doubt owls would take a chance to attack a squirrel. As to what squirrels kill there is little evidence. We have known a squirrel to do away with part of a brood of tits in an apple-tree, and one which visited a pheasant's nest, carrying away an egg, and once we saw a young pheasant in a squirrel's mouth; but we have no doubt that the bird was picked up dead. The squirrel's alarm-cry reminds us of the sound produced from the hole in the body of a rubber doll; it is amusing to see how he stamps his fore-feet while uttering this cry, as if doing his best to frighten away his human intruder by a show of force and fury.

Squirrels always seem to be among the happiest of wild animals. They have few foes, and none to equal their agility and speed in the tree branches. The stoat is a good climber, and if he were to attack the squirrel's nest there would be small chance for the young ones; but stoats rarely climb so high. In the bitterest weather the squirrel is secure in his drey; he dreams away the hard days, while around him birds and animals die of cold and hunger. His only trouble seems to be that hazel-nuts are sometimes blighted.

The Squirrel's Appetite

We know an old keeper who believes that squirrels eat everything eatable in a wood, and that nothing does more damage to his interests. He reviles squirrels bitterly, saying that they steal as many of his precious eggs as rats; the eggs of small birds too, and, on occasion, nestlings. There seems no end to his accusations. He declares squirrels will take strawberries and apricots if they have the chance, and that they eat mushrooms and dig up truffles. A favourite food is supplied by the Scotch pine; though in hot weather larch, silver fir, and spruce are added in liberal quantities to the dietary. While he rejoices in hazel-nuts, beech-mast, acorns, and spruce-seeds, he is sometimes tempted by berries, walnuts, and apples. He eats freely off buds and young shoots, and peels the bark off trees—digging a spiral course with his teeth near the top of the tree, so that the first strong gale blows over the tree-top. It is the sweet stuff between bark and tree, rather than the bark itself, that attracts his fancy. In the spring he plays havoc with the tender shoots of the horse-chestnut, showering them on the ground; while he is so fond of acorns that he is accused even of pulling up young oak plants to devour the remains of the acorns below. But we doubt that one squirrel in ten inflicts serious injury on anybody.

The Departure of Cats

We suppose that more cats disappear from the domestic hearth in February than in any other month. The gamekeeper may or may not know more about this than he will admit—it is certain that the cats go, and it is true that many of them turn up again. Whatever the February fate of the cat, the nearest keeper to its home bears the blame of having spirited it away. He may deny all—that he knows anything about the cat or its colour or its fate—but the more he denies the more strongly will he be suspected, the more furiously accused. One old keeper met all inquiries about the departure of cats with this sound piece of wisdom: "If ye makes 'em bide at 'ome, there won't be no need for wantin' 'em to come back."

Skeletons and Cobwebs

New times give the keeper new excuses. Taxed with a cat's disappearance, he blames the motor-car; some day he will blame the flying-ship; where a railway is at hand he always has a ready
excuse. We would be the last to suggest
that when the mortal remains of a cat are found on a road frequented by motor-cars the presumption is always justified that the cat was slain by a keeper who endeavoured to put the blame on an innocent driver. We are confident that many cats in game-preserved places live to die from old age. Ten years is a ripe age for a cat, but some die from accidents more natural than execution or murder. Like the birds, when they know their hours to be numbered, cats creep away to some quiet hiding-place to await death—perhaps beneath the floor of an old barn, or among the rafters of a familiar roof, where they hunted rats and mice in youthful days.

Now and again, in old buildings, death-chambers are discovered where the skeletons of cats have been hidden among cobwebs and dust, perhaps for hundreds of years.

The Persecuted Magpie

Magpies will soon be exterminated in many parts of the country unless they receive special protection. Like sparrow-hawks, the tribe suffers collectively for the sins of the individual. The ordinary magpie is no more harmful to the interests of game than the ordinary rook. His beauty, certainly, is far more striking. But he has been given a bad name; and magpies are destroyed on every possible occasion. The keeper finds the magpie only too easy to destroy, in spite of the bird's wonderful keenness of eye and his wary ways.

Magpies go year after year to the same huge, domed nest. The birds may be trapped a hundred times more easily than sparrow-hawks; and they may be shot without any difficulty, so slow, laboured and straight is their flight. An imitation of their call lures them unsuspiciously to their doom. Add that the plumage is showy, and it is clear that the thoughtless keeper finds magpies easy targets.

They are in demand as cage-birds, and even if a keeper should reprieve a few lingering pairs, he is likely to complain of "they bird fanciers," who "won't let the birds bide."

Like all of its tribe, the magpie attacks the eye of its victims, whether alive or dead. His taste is for carrion, and this accounts for the ease with which he may be trapped. Here the magpies differ from the hawks, which are seldom to be caught by a dead bait, unless killed by themselves—as when they have been disturbed after a kill and return to an unfinished feast. In trapping for magpies, the keeper ties a rabbit's eye to the pan of his trap, which he covers carefully with moss so that only the eye is visible; then the magpie swoops down; unerringly, and with great force, he drives his bill into the eye, and the trap holds him fast.

While usually building in high trees, some descend to thick bushes, and from this has arisen a popular idea that there are two sorts of magpies—bush and tree. The idea is hard to shake; and it is argued that the bush magpie is the smaller of the two. The nest is always fortified with strong and ugly thorns; marauding crows or rooks would attack it at their peril. Careful as they are to protect their own nests, magpies have small respect for the sanctity of other bird homes; but though they are inveterate egg-stealers, a good word is sometimes heard for their usefulness in destroying slugs, rats, and field-mice.

The Merciful Trap

No solution has been found to the problem of a substitute for the steel trap for rabbits and vermin. So the steel trap remains a painful necessity, as those know who have tried to keep great numbers of rabbits within bounds. But steel traps are sometimes used where more merciful ways of catching rabbits might serve as well. Rabbit catchers who never think for themselves, but do things only because they have always done them, will use steel traps where they could save themselves much labour, and the rabbits a good deal of suffering, if they were to use snares. Several hundred snares can be set in the time it would take to set a hundred traps, and the snares cost little, and weigh next to nothing—a consideration when traps or snares have to be carried a long way. A few traps make a heavy load.

The Rabbit in a Snare

Snares themselves are far from ideal. If they are properly set a good many rabbits may run into them at speed and kill themselves almost instantly; but the majority of the rabbits caught will not be thus neatly despatched. Half a night's catch may be found dead in the morning, some having been hanged outright, others strangled more or less slowly; but half will be found still living, if nearly dead. This slow strangulation is prevented when a knot is made in the snare, or some sort of ring or washer is attached, so that the wire cannot be drawn tight enough to prevent the rabbit breathing; but no rabbit then is killed swiftly and mercifully by the wire, and on other accounts the plan could not prove a real solution to the problem. There is still another way of setting a snare which prevents a slow death: a bender—a springy stick of hazel or ash about four feet long—is fixed firmly in the ground: the snare is made fast to the thin top of it, the stick is bent down, and the top lightly inserted at the edge of the rabbit's run. When a rabbit then rushes into the snare, the bender flies up, swinging him off his feet, so that he is killed quickly. This is a poacher's dodge to prevent rabbits from squealing when caught: it can be practised only in an open place. There are many situations where the steel trap is the only means of dealing with the rabbit pest, and must be used perforce until a substitute is found—unless man is to give way to rabbits. We do not think that any gamekeeper uses steel traps for rabbits unnecessarily.

The Sleep of Birds

The gamekeeper perhaps sees more of sleeping birds than most people; and makes many interesting mental notes of the resting habits of creatures in his woods. He observes that perch-roosting birds always rest with their heads to the wind. If when a high wind is blowing a rook alights on the home-tree, he swings his head into the wind before settling. So when the wood-pigeons come home with the wind behind them they pass over their roosting trees, then beat up into the wind. This is done to defeat the force of the wind, which might prevent the bird alighting where desired, or might blow him from his perch. At rest, the bird doubles the knees, as it were, which causes the toes to contract, the weight of the body resting chiefly on the breast and on the outspread wings—not on the eggs, if in a nest. The birds' legs and feet have sinews which work an automatic locking action of the claws, so that, roosting with knees doubled up, the feet grip the branch unfailingly. On rough nights, the pheasants take the precaution of roosting in lower branches than usual. If a strong gale springs up after a bird has gone to roost on an exposed tree, it may be driven to seek a berth on the ground—and to the wind that does no good to the pheasant the passing fox owes his supper.

Some birds seem always half-awake. Wild-fowlers will strike a match at night to test the question of the presence or absence of wild duck in the distant creek; if present, an instant quacking will betray them. Pheasants seem ever vigilant, and on the darkest night it is difficult to stalk them unawares, however quietly you move. If you come within a hundred yards of guinea-fowl at night they will raise the alarm. They excel at talking in their sleep. Sparrow catchers know that directly their nets touch one part of an ivy-covered wall birds fly out from another. But some birds, such as the wrens when cuddling in a hole in the thatch, seem to sleep soundly. And while we have found that on striking a match beneath a tree where wild pigeons were roosting they have flown out at once with a clatter of wings, a pigeon-lover in London informs us that his city birds, roosting on his window-ledge, lose their wariness by night, and will hold their own in face of a candle, while a hand is outstretched to touch their necks.

As the day closes in, the partridges seek some sheltered, dry-lying hollow in the fields, and a covey of twenty birds will huddle on a spot a yard in diameter. The colder the weather the closer they roost. The birds on the edge of the ring have their breasts outwards. Sometimes, by the way, it is unfortunate for partridges and pheasants that the positions of their nests prevent them from flying to and fro. Having to force their way through tangled undergrowth, a trail is left for the fox to follow home. The barn-door fowl, in captivity, may walk from her nest; but when in possession of a stolen nest abroad, she resumes the flying habit. Fowls suffer frequently from deformed breast-bones, perhaps from roosting when their bones are young and soft. That they and their cocks are not heavy sleepers most people have cause to know.

Animals at Rest

Wild animals asleep fall into graceful attitudes. The fox curls himself up with all the luxurious air of a cat; he rests his head in the lap of two front pads, then twines his brush neatly round over his long, pointed nose. He is a light sleeper; but hares and rabbits are still more easily roused. We believe hares sleep with their eyes wide open; the uncapped lenses of the eyes remain active through sleep, so that any vision of danger conveys an automatic alarm to the brain. People are sometimes puzzled when, in open fields, they notice a dozen or more hare forms or beds within a few yards of each other. They may conclude that hares swarm in those fields. Probably the reason for the many forms is that a hare likes to face the wind when sleeping, and so scratches out many beds to suit the wind's changing directions. Among animals that sleep very soundly is the hedgehog—he has little to fear when asleep; in case of danger, he has only to erect his spines, to discourage effectively any disturber of his dreams. While hedgehogs, dormice, and badgers sleep deeply through the greater part of the winter, the squirrel is the lightest of sleepers; on dry, bright winter days he enjoys a frolic in the snow.

Vigilant Fulfers

It is commonly held that fieldfares roost on the ground; yet we never remember to have disturbed them when roosting in that way, but have often done so in the woods, in which they had favourite parts. They come to the chosen haunt on the brink of darkness, after the habit of carrion crows, and they roost in companies apparently of twenty and thirty on the older growths of underwood. At all times the fieldfares are wide awake, and they never fail to take wing and utter their throaty chuckle on the slightest provocation.

The Eyes of Wild Creatures

There is a theory that the eyes of wild creatures magnify things seen, so that they appear many times larger than to human eyes. This has been held to explain why creatures smaller and weaker than man, like hares and rabbits, flee desperately at his approach—a reasonable habit if all men to them are as giants. One's sympathies would go out to the rabbit if he sees foxes as horses, and weasels as foxes. If birds' eyes have magnifying power, many miracles of flight and of feeding would seem natural. The swift passage of birds through obstacles that appear to our eyes to be almost impenetrable is something of a miraculous nature. Without a moment's survey of difficulties or direction, a bird flashes through a jungle where there is no possible way for it to be found by human eyes. The blackbird flies shrieking in and out of a dense hedge of thorns; but not a feather is ruffled in the course of his intricate flight. Or watch the jay or the sparrow-hawk passing at speed through an almost solid network of twigs and stems. The human eye cannot properly follow this performance by the sparrow-hawk; a swish and a streak of bluish grey, and it is gone. Many a bold jay, finding itself caught between beaters and guns, has saved its life by this wonderful power of flight at speed, going away without giving the slightest chance for a shot; it will dash out of a wall of undergrowth on one side of a ride sheer into another wall. No doubt the jay knows to an inch which is the shortest cut out of man's sight. Hardly less wonderful than birds' flight through crowded obstacles is the way in which rabbits scurry and twist through masses of fern and brambles. But where the theory of eye magnification would seem most probably true is where tits and goldcrests are searching for food on the underside of fir boughs, and finding food which no man's eye could see unaided.

The Season's End

While February 1 brings security to pheasants and partridges, hares—where any survive in spite of the Ground Game Act—are now also nearly safe from persecution, thanks, however, to the courtesy of sportsmen, and not to the law. Like rabbits, hares may be killed all the year round, but, unlike rabbits, they may not be sold or exposed for sale between the first day of March and the last day of July.

The end of the season has a strong effect on the gamekeeper. February 2 marks his annual truce with his birds, save woodcock, snipe and wild-fowl. Thereafter he loses the vindictive look of the shooting season—he becomes a man of peace. For long months he has been scheming death and destruction—he has devoted himself wholly to the science of killing game. Happy, if anxious, his face has been as he has bustled his birds to guns belching forth some three hundred pellets of lead at each discharge. At the end of the day he has rejoiced over the long rows of the dead, in feather and fur, while his hand jingles gold and silver—his reward for success in the contest of wit and reason against cunning and instinct. The second day of February comes—and his whole nature seems to undergo a change. No longer he boasts to his rival neighbour how a week ago come to-morrow the bag was so many hundred pheasants, and would have been doubled if the guns had shot "anyhow at all." But he will make a boast of the numbers of his hen pheasants. The sight of hen pheasants is the greatest joy of his days—over his hens he watches with maternal love. "And how many hens was there?"—this is the answer he will return should you mention casually that you had seen pheasants feeding in a field.

As to cock pheasants, his sensations are different. The sight of a cock pheasant is a taunt. The veteran cocks that have passed unscathed through the shooting season now grow proud in bearing, and the keeper thinks they seem to eye him with scornful looks. They are approaching the reward of their cunning, of their keen eyes, their sharp ears, their speedy legs—the possibility of several wives is before them. No matter where the keeper goes now, he is taunted by the sight and sound of these victorious veterans that have eluded all his efforts to bring them low. In summer it is the lament of the twenty thousand gamekeepers in this country that there are "too many cocks by half."

SPRING'S LOOKING-GLASS
LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD.

An idea is widespread among keepers, if not among employers, that they are privileged, by virtue of their office, to kill off superfluous cock pheasants for ten days after the end of the season. The mistake may have arisen from the fact that licensed dealers in game may expose game for sale for ten days after the end of the shooting season. We knew an old keeper whose antipathy to superfluous cocks was deeply rooted: the sight of too many cocks maddened him. By an ingenious argument he was able to overcome his legal and conscientious scruples as to disposing of the unnecessary game. The legal scruples troubled him more than those of conscience; but this argument always prevailed: "It is not lawful to take cocks killed out of season to my master's larder. But if I should happen to have any dead ones to dispose of it would be a sinful waste to throw them away. Therefore, it will be best if I eat them myself."

Beaters' Sport

Among others whose days of sport end with the season are those little considered sportsmen, the beaters. While making sport for others, they find opportunities for themselves, and it would be a churlish host or keeper who grudged the poor beaters the rabbits which occasionally they knock over with their sticks. But their love of sport becomes too marked when, in a gang, they creep along stealthily on the look-out for crouching rabbits for their own bagging, instead of plying their sticks with a will on the cover to drive forward game. They show some skill of a rough sort, and considerable woodcraft. A man gives no sign that he has seen a rabbit, his stride is unhalting as he comes up, and it is without any flourish that suddenly a swift, deft blow of the stick is delivered, aimed a little forward of the head. Too late, the rabbit knows its fatal mistake in thinking that the slow eyes of man had passed it over, as it crouched in its seat.

The law forbids any man to shoot either partridge or pheasant when the last second has passed away of the last minute of the first hour after sunset on the first day of February. No doubt the law-makers were mindful that the light one hour after sunset at the beginning of February would make it extremely difficult for a sportsman to hit a flying pheasant or partridge. The law-makers wisely drew no distinction between misses and hits—pheasant-shooting means, they held, shooting at a pheasant with evident intent to kill. What is hard to understand about the law is why the season does not end with the last day of January. Remembering that February 1 is often the day when the keeper goes from the old shoot to the new, we think it would be decidedly better for game that the day should be put out of season. It would be the worse for the poacher. As things are, February 1 is often a day of anarchy. And it would be a good plan if dog licences and the game season were made to end on the same day—the one expiration would serve as a reminder of the other.

Tailless Cocks

If a pheasant is seen without a tail in the early part of the shooting season the cause may be put down as fox. Probably the tail has been lost through an ill-judged effort to capture the pheasant made by some inexperienced cub—the old fox well knows how important it is to grip the body of a bird, not merely feathers. But the end of the season also is a likely time for seeing birds, especially cocks, without tails. The cause then is not foxes' failures. Long before Christmas, even the foxes of the year are old in cunning, while the birds whom they robbed of tails in the days of their callow cubhood will have grown fresh feathers long since. The cock pheasant who must face courting days without a tail probably owes his loss of tail and dignity to a gunner who aimed too far behind, firing at close quarters.

But if you should see several cocks without tails at the end of the season the fewer questions you ask the keeper in public the better: the birds are the superfluous ones of those captured for the laying pens, and have been for a time imprisoned to provide a spirited ending to the last days of shooting. The keeper is not proud of them, and no doubt they are sorry for themselves.

Preparations

From the young days of the year, when his hens began to lay once more, the keeper adds eggs to his store for the sake of the birds of May. His cares and worries, his long hours and weary trudgings, and the chances and changes of the weather make the keeper grumble more and more with the years; but he is always a devoted slave to sport, and takes pleasure in each act of preparation for a new season. Every time he adds to the store of feeding eggs he is thinking of the prospects of his pheasants. He sees chicks turning to awkward poults, and poults turning to full-feathered birds, topping the lofty trees or sailing high over the valley, while the guns are coughing below. Over his store of eggs for feeding he gloats like a miser over gold. Stowed away in a cool place these eggs—after each one has been dipped for about thirty seconds in boiling water—will keep their good feeding qualities for months.

Hungry Rabbits

From the New Year until well on in March rabbits are hard pressed to find food—not necessarily because the weather may be bad, but because so many fields present a surface of bare earth, where hitherto rabbits have been able to find ungrudged pickings. When barred from other food, they will be driven to bark underwood, and so cause a price to be set on their heads; and cause people to think and say that a couple of rabbits are at least a score. When they are shut in a wood by wire netting, they will be almost certain to attack the undergrowth, whereas if free to come and go they would have done no damage to speak about, outside or in.

To Save Underwood

The secret at once of preserving a few rabbits and saving the underwood from their attacks is judicious feeding. Swedes or mangels, and some tightly tied bundles of clover-hay, if thrown down in the rabbits' resorts will prevent much damage, and prove indirectly an excellent investment. The food will go far towards allowing foxes, shooting tenants, farmers, landlords, and the rabbits to dwell together without extraordinary annoyance to each other. Rabbits always have to bear the brunt of much more blame than they deserve, and are continuously persecuted from one year's end to another. Yet they are essential to the well-being alike of foxes and game, and ought to be better respected—especially when foxes and game in combination are considered desirable. The man so anxious to preserve foxes for hounds that he would not object if the foxes ate his last pheasants acts foolishly if he refuses to keep a few rabbits. The foxes will turn more than their usual attention to the pheasants, or they will shift their quarters to where rabbits are to be found, and a living is to be made with the least exertion.

Studies in Fear

How far animals are conscious of fear, and where the instinct of self-preservation merges into fear, are questions not easily to be solved. A hare appears to be among the most timid of creatures, making off with speed at the slightest alarm—yet confidence in her own power to escape danger may drive all real fear from her heart. Instincts of fury, bravery and fear are nearly related.

There is a common idea that wild animals have an inborn fear of man. But it seems probable that where fear of man is marked it has been impressed upon the animals by example of parents, or experience. Fear, or at least a strong suspicion of what is unknown and strange, is evident among creatures of uninhabited places, though wild-fowl on waters visited by man for the first time may take no notice of a boat that sails through their flocks.

Flight is usually the first instinct of self-preservation. The zigzag start of a flight is cultivated by many besides snipe and woodcock—by hares, which bound from side to side of their line, and double back with a wonderful turn, when hard pressed; by deer pursued by wolves; by stoats when danger threatens; or by the rabbit nearly taken unawares by the spring of a cat or dog. But often a wild animal, surprised, will pause for a moment to snort or grunt, and strike the ground angrily with a fore-foot before making off—a stag for example. A stamp is a common signal or sign of annoyance, curiosity or danger. Both the weasel and the squirrel stamp impatiently with their front feet on occasions—as when they seem divided between curiosity and alarm at the presence of a motionless man. The stamp suggests an attempt to discover whether the man is friendly or hostile, alive and capable of action, or paralysed. The alarm signal given by rabbits, by striking the ground with their hind feet, produces a thumping noise, no doubt to be heard for a great distance underground. So far as danger from man goes, it is usually anticipated before it becomes pressing. Walk along a hedge within a yard of a partridge on her nest, or a leveret in its form, and no notice may be taken so long as you keep on walking. But stop, or even hesitate in your stride—the partridge or the leveret goes on the instant. Wary rooks will feed within a few yards of a man hoeing in a field—but let him stop his work, and take a look at them, and they wait for no stronger hint of danger.

The Rookery

Rooks are the most conservative birds, and sometimes nothing will induce them to form a colony where their presence and their cawing would be the perfecting touches to the trees of some ancestral park. The most hopeful plan to tempt them is to put up old empty nests or brooms, or to put rooks' eggs into a nest that happens to be the desired place for the colony. Their strong preference for certain sites is curious; they will crowd nest-trees on one side of a road, and yet pay no attention to other trees of the same sort, seemingly more perfect for their needs, and only a few yards distant. We have watched a case where for twenty years the rooks remained faithful to the original nest-trees of the colony. About ten years ago half these trees were cut down, and even then the evicted rooks would not build in trees across the road, though their tops touched the tops of the favoured trees, which became more crowded with nests than ever. But two or three seasons ago their favourite nesting-tree, a beech with far-spread top, began to show signs of disease; and then, after a deal of wrangling, two or three pairs were permitted to nest in the trees near by, hitherto despised. In the next season there were nineteen nests in these trees, and in the next twenty-six. The old beech meantime grew more and more feeble, as the rooks perhaps discovered by some brittleness in the twigs at the top; and after one more year, though it bore foliage, but not so luxuriantly as usual, the tree gave shelter to only two nests. And now the long-despised trees are the home of almost the entire colony.

When Rooks Build

In February, the rooks pay visits to their home-trees, wheeling and squawking round about, and demolishing old nests. On fine February evenings they linger after sunset before setting off to their winter roosting-place. A few, who have begun work on new nests, turn back to the trees undecided, then turn again after their companions. Not until the beginning of March do the rooks seriously set about their building, in mid-March deserting the great roosting-places of winter and mounting guard over their rough nests of sticks.

Ways of the Crows

Rooks would seem to believe that while there is life there is hope. A dead rook displayed before other rooks for the first time attracts no particular attention beyond a casual inspection. But if a rook is wounded, and especially if it hops about with a broken wing, other rooks will swoop about it, and hover above with wonderful perseverance, squawking all the time excitedly, even in spite of a man with a gun. We have seen a hundred rooks perch on a fence to take stock of a relative caught in a trap set to pheasant eggs.

The cunning of rooks, crows, and magpies is very marked at nesting-time; and the keeper who would shoot them by hiding and waiting within shot of their nests may wait for hours in vain if the birds have seen him approach—as they seldom fail to do. The birds are cunning enough to watch from the top of a tall, distant tree, until they see the enemy go away, when they will return at once to the nest in full confidence. But they may be tricked quite easily. Let two men with a gun go together to stand below a rook's nest. Away go the nesting birds. Then let one of the men take his departure, with or without the gun, while the other waits. The birds will return promptly, as though they imagined both men had gone.

The keeper has small sympathy with the crow tribe, and takes every opportunity to reduce their numbers. Sometimes he will carry a ferret to an open spot, over which crows or others are likely to fly, peg the ferret down, and himself lie in wait with a gun. No rook, crow, magpie or jay can resist the temptation to mob the ferret. So the keeper takes advantage of the widespread bird-hatred of the weasel tribe. He traces a lost and wandering ferret by the wild clamouring of the jays that have caught sight of the bloodthirsty creature, or by hints from other birds, great and small.

The Crow as Terrorist

Carrion crows hold mysterious sway over rooks; a single pair of crows will drive a great crowd of rooks from a rookery. Yet a crow, when compared to a rook, does not seem to be much more powerful or armed with a much more formidable beak. A casual observer would find little difference between a rook and a crow in the hand. If a pair of crows were pitted in a duel against a pair of rooks, the balance of power would make the odds slightly in the crows' favour no doubt. But one imagines the rooks would still have a sporting chance. Probably crows have a black enough reputation among other birds to inspire a general fear. And rooks are cowards. It is a common sight to see them put to shameful flight by peewits or missel-thrushes when they have ventured near the others' nesting-places. Yet a rook could kill a missel-thrush or peewit if it had the pluck to fight. The gamekeeper knows that the hissing and spitting of a sitting partridge will cause a rook to approach her very cautiously. A jackdaw, one would say, has ten times the spirit of a rook.

Imperial Rooks

We have a little story of how some rooks paid a pretty compliment to an Empress. The preceding tenant of the Empress Eugénie's place at Farnborough is said to have spent hundreds of pounds in a vain attempt to induce rooks to build in the trees. Old brooms were hoisted—real rooks' nests, with and without eggs, were fixed in the most tempting sites among the tree-tops—young rooks were procured and given every attention—and some were even hatched and reared artificially. But the rooks refused to colonise. Then came the Empress; and promptly the rooks came also. Soon a flourishing rookery was established. Perhaps the new-comers, too, were exiles.

Rook-Pie

Though May is still the month of rook-shooting, this sport has passed out of fashion, and rook-pie is no longer an honourable dish—it has sunk, indeed, into a place of disrepute from which no amount of steak, seasoning, and hard-boiled eggs can rescue it. In old times a dozen rooks would be sent and received with compliments, like a brace of pheasants; and labourers prized a few rooks as much as the charity beef at Christmas. But now one might search far before finding a cottager who would deign to eat rook-pie. The rooks are shot and buried, or are left where they fall beneath the rookery trees, for foxes to find and carry to their cubs.

The farmer and the gamekeeper have a common cause against the rooks, which, when they are not attacking the interests of the one are pilfering the produce of the other. An April blizzard consoles the keeper for the pheasants' eggs it ruins by blotting out a generation of rooks. For when such a disaster overtakes a rookery late in April, as young birds are nearly ready to leave the nests, the parent birds are hardly likely to make another attempt to rear a brood. But when rooks' eggs are frosted before or during hatching there will be late broods, not hatched until the trees are in full leaf. Then the young rooks might escape the watchful eye of the keeper were it not for the habit of squawking for food, and for the garrulous chuckling of the parent birds when feeding the hungry mouths. These late broods increase the toll of the eggs and young game birds, parent rooks taking five times as much food as the others.

Old rooks are very cunning in search of prey. On one excellent partridge-shoot there is a hedge bordered by telegraph poles. It is the only hedge on the place, and in seasons when grass and corn are backward it is packed with partridge nests. The rooks of the neighbourhood have learnt the trick of sitting on the telegraph wires, the better to find the way to the nests, as revealed by the movements of the nesting birds. Thus, waiting and watching in patience, in time they find out every nest in the hedge.

Birds for Stock

In February the work begins of catching up pheasants for stocking aviaries, to supply the coming season's eggs. In mild Februaries, keeper after keeper tells the same sad story—he "can't catch no hens." Many of those caught in food-baited traps in mild weather are weak and unsound, and some are injured by shot, and so are not desirable for stock. The birds most capable of producing plenty of fertile eggs and strong chicks are those that scorn to enter a cage, except during hard or snowy weather. Some keepers make a practice of catching up the desired number of stock-birds before covert shooting begins. Otherwise they are caught up early in February—so that they may settle down to the new way of life before the laying season is upon them.

"Catching up" is, in its way, a fine art. One secret is to place the cages, before use, in the principal feeding-places without setting them for action, for a few weeks. Cages of wire-netting with a roomy, horizontal opening at one end, after the style of a lobster-pot, are most effective; a scanty trail of corn leading on to an ample supply within. These cages are ever ready, and so catch bird after bird; they have the drawback that if the captives become restive they are liable to bark their heads on the wire. Less satisfactory traps are made with lengths of wood (local underwood is used preferably, to allay suspicion) and only so high that when the trap is thrown the birds cannot injure themselves if frightened. These traps seldom capture more than one bird at a time, and they may be thrown accidentally. A small annoyance of pheasant-catching is provided by the active little tits of the wood, who carry the corn outside the cages, and scatter it far and wide for the pheasants to pick up without running any risk. When pheasants come regularly to feeding-places in fair numbers, a large and effective cage is built of hurdles, one hurdle square. The birds are allowed to grow accustomed to feeding therein. One day the keeper lies hidden, and makes a family catch by stealthily dropping a shutter attached to a string. Where a wood with plenty of pheasants joins a belt or wide hedgerow the keeper may erect guiding wings of wire-netting, which converge on a covered-in tunnel, and then gently beats the wood through in that direction. The pheasants are run into captivity in a short time, and with little trouble.

Old Hens

In the gamekeeper's eyes a hen pheasant becomes an old hen when she enters upon her second nesting season. But all cock pheasants are old birds when they have seen their first Christmas—only seven or eight months having passed over their glossy, green heads. With the New Year the youngest of the cocks is old in craft, guile and cunning, and all the keeper's skill is taxed to checkmate his endless ways of escape. A beat of the wood has no sooner started than all the birds depart to the point farthest from the beaters.

A Gamekeeping Problem

When catching up pheasants for the laying-pens, there is always the difficulty of preventing their escape from the wire-net enclosures, and it is interesting to see the different devices by which this trouble is met. The enclosure must not be covered over with wire-netting, for the birds, whenever startled, would fly upwards and injure themselves—and it is wonderful with what perseverance a pheasant will fly up again and again, until its pate has no skin left, and sometimes until it can fly up no more. So the keeper sometimes covers the enclosure with string netting, small enough to prevent the birds escaping, and large enough to prevent them catching their heads and hanging themselves. Others follow the hawker's system, called brailing, attaching Y-shaped pieces of leather to one wing so that it cannot be opened for flight—or the wing may be tied with a piece of tape. The wings are treated in this way in turn, lest one should grow stiff through having no work.

Pheasants bred simply for stocking purposes are pinioned when small birds, as are wild duck; but this reduces their value when their egg-laying days are numbered. Some keepers cut the flight feathers of one wing, but the birds cannot then fly again until the shortened quills have moulted and new ones have grown. But a bird whose flight feathers have been pulled out in the spring will grow fresh ones by June, when she is turned out of the pen. At this time the bird with cut wings is at a heavy disadvantage, alike in escaping the dangers and in mothering any brood she may succeed in hatching out in the woods.

How shall a pheasant gather her chicks beneath her wings if she have only a wing and a half?

The Hare Poacher

In March many keepers are worried by hare poachers. To lose a hare by poaching during the shooting season is bad enough, but to lose one of those left for stock is a calamity to the keeper—though to the poacher a hare means a meal for his family, or a week's supply of beer. The chances are ten to one that a hare snared in March will be a doe—for the does run pursued by a pack of bucks, and so go first into the snare. Hare-poaching would be a matter of less concern to the keeper if the buck hares were always taken, for he could often spare a few, as they will race does to the point of utter exhaustion or death. At rutting times the poacher's task is easy. He selects three or four runs which, from their well-used appearance, are promising, then slips down his snares of brass wire, dulled by exposure to smoke to be the less easily seen by hare or keeper. The poacher chooses runs close together, and should he be a man who goes to work, prefers that they shall be near his line of march, so that he may keep an eye on the snares without stepping out of his lawful path.

Slouching along, with a lie ever ready on his lips in case he should meet a keeper, he can see when a hare is caught merely by moving his eyes, and without turning his head. And if a hare is caught, he will pass on his way unconcernedly, returning without a sign. Meantime his mind has been scheming out the best way to take possession. Probably he will wait for night and darkness—or, instead of going to work the next day, he may devote a large part of it to waiting for the chance of a clear coast, so that he may fetch the hare in broad daylight. But give the cunning poacher the smallest hint that the keeper knows about his snares and he will leave them alone altogether. He will only visit his snares when he has no reason to suspect that a keeper has heard of them—otherwise the keeper may be watching to "put a stop to these here little games."

March Hares

The March hare is certainly mad; what but madness could cause him to go capering round and round a field for hours at a stretch? The battles of the hares are waged in companies; you may see a score of militant, amorous hares together, and several couples will be engaged in duels. The combatants rear themselves on their hind legs, and spar furiously with their front feet, and when one of a fighting pair has had enough of it another instantly takes his place; while the hare that refuses to fight may be chased until forced to turn and square himself to the battle. The whole company may set upon some poor coward, and worry his life out of him. It would seem that when once hares and rabbits have finished their duels, so common a sight in the country in March, they live peaceably enough through the rest of the breeding season. After these early days of courting, one seldom sees more than a slight skirmish between a couple of hares or rabbits, though the does breed again and again through the summer. Fights at courting times among wild creatures are usually due either to a local or temporary preponderance of males, or to some special attraction of particular females. At this time of year, it might appear that fighting and courtship went naturally together; but we doubt if wild creatures who pair are given very much to fighting and quarrelling. It is when one has many wives, as the cock pheasant or the stag, that the most desperate fighting is done.

The Cubs' Birthday

A majority of fox cubs are born about March 25, five or six to a litter. With such crafty parents there is small chance that they will go short of food, and fortunately they come into the world just when baby rabbits are most plentiful. Much else than rabbit goes down their throats, as the entrance to any fox's earth makes evident—there you see remains of quantities of frogs, mice, rats, hares, and, of course, of countless pheasants and partridges, and of many a fowl. The dog fox is not one to show any great attention to his mate: he pays her many visits, but he enjoys himself in his own way. Nor could he be expected to take a deep interest in the welfare of his half-dozen families, several miles apart. But some foxes make better fathers than others; one we have known to rear a litter of cubs on the death of the vixen. Of course a dog fox could do little if the cubs were dependent on a milk diet. A curious case of an exemplary fox was that of the unfortunate one which met his end while carrying a shoulder of carrion mutton to two vixens and two litters inhabiting the same earth.

Courtiers in Pens

March brings the gallant cock pheasant to his courting days. He knows that he is safe from men and guns, and stands recklessly within easy gunshot, a figure of defiance. Should he step away he lifts his feet with a pompous and disdainful air. He keeps a sharp eye on the hen pheasants of the wood: the time is near when he will be the sultan of half a score of hens; that is, if he remains at large in the woods. If confined in the keeper's pens, the number of wives is sternly regulated, and five, or at the most seven, are allowed to him. It is curious that in captivity the number of the cock pheasant's hens must be kept down, whereas the mallard, who pairs when wild, will cheerfully accept a polygamous state, and will faithfully husband two or three ducks if kept in a pen.

When partridges are penned up for a few months in the breeding season, on the French system of rearing, they remain faithful to their rule of pairing. Keepers have found that it is useless to try to regulate the partridge courtships: the birds must be left to their own instincts in choosing mates. It will not do to put any cock and hen together and expect them to pair. The hen is quite as particular in accepting a mate as the cock in selecting one for his attentions. Sometimes a hen wins the hearts of several suitors, and then there will be fighting, the strongest securing the prize, the defeated contentedly pairing off with the less sought-for hens. When a partridge betrothal has been ratified, the happy pair announce the fact to their friends by keeping sedulously together, apart from the other occupants of the general pen. The partridge is seldom quarrelsome: in a wild state a cock bird will go far afield in search of a mate if he cannot find one peaceably in his usual haunts—or he may make up his mind to go through the season unwedded. Sometimes, but rarely, it will happen that trouble arises through an amorous cock partridge losing his mate late in the nesting season and trying to run away with another's wife. But while some partridges show a pugnacious temperament, as they boast no spurs, like cock pheasants, their duels mostly take the form of chasing and running.

When Hawks Nest

In March the hawks pair—and the pairs visit and examine all sorts of old nests. The nest of a kestrel is usually found in the heart of a wood—though it may be recognised as a kestrel's only by the sight of the birds flying off, for they rear their young in old sparrow-hawks' nests, or in a magpie's, a crow's, or in a squirrel's abandoned drey. The sparrow-hawk builds its own nest, as a rule, of rough sticks, with twigs as lining, usually placed near the tree's trunk. It will return to the same nest year after year. But at times the nest of a wood-pigeon is adopted, or of a carrion crow. The cock sparrow-hawk is a polite mate, perhaps of necessity, being so inferior to the hen bird in size and strength. He is energetic in inspecting nest-sites, in advance of his mate. This habit has proved fatal to many, for it is a favourite plan with some keepers to place a circular gin in likely nests—a cruel trick, and illegal, for the law which prohibits the use of the pole-traps forbids also that traps shall be set in nests. Faithful as are hawks and magpies to each other, it is strange how swiftly a new mate is secured should an old one suffer a fatal accident. In the earlier part of the breeding season, a hen sparrow-hawk may lose her mate time after time; yet a new mate is quickly at her side, though no other hawks are to be seen about the country, except those in pairs.

Love-Dances

The little blue pigeons, the stock-doves, call "Coo-oop, coo-oop, coo-oop," all day, in the old elms in the meadow, or high among the massed twigs of the lime. Pigeons and doves are fantastical love-makers like several other birds—the blackcock and cock grouse hold regular love-levees, going through ridiculous antics and gestures; ducks skim absurdly about the water, bobbing their heads up and down as if bowing compliments to each other; and even the sober rook will perform a kind of love-dance. At courting times, the wood-pigeons assume a wonderful lustre of plumage, and the white of the neck-ring is very striking, like the edging of a woodcock's tail. The cock wood-pigeon is a laughable sight as he goes sidling down some bare branch to greet his prospective bride; nearer and nearer he works his way, bowing incessantly with a sideways motion of the body, until at last, with neck bent low, bill meets bill in some kind of bird-kiss.

Names that Puzzle Cockneys

The Cockney in the country is perplexed by the countryman's names for birds and beasts; especially by names denoting gender. The countryman seems to the townsman to be particular in drawing his distinctions, and his precise way of referring to an ox or a steer, a bull-calf or a heifer, is found very puzzling, particularly to ladies—who hold all cows to be bulls. And when the countryman speaks of a wether-sheep, a barrow-hog, of a hummel-stag, he is speaking in mysteries. Even the terms of the poultry-yard—cock, cockerel, pullet, fowl, hen, or capon—are not always understood.

Custom grants some creatures only one sex. A cat is usually a she, and a hare nearly always. To be precise, as to hares, one should refer to the male as a jack and a female as a jill, the terms buck and doe being more properly applied to rabbits and to fallow deer; red deer are distinguished by the terms stag and hind. Ferrets in some parts are known as hobbs and gills. Rats, like badgers and hedgehogs, may be boars and sows. The males of otters, stoats, weasels and foxes are dogs, but only the female fox is a vixen. Rams are sometimes "tups." The terms bulls and cows are applied to many kinds of animals, such as elands, moose, whales, elephants, and the seals; but the young seals are pups, and gather in rookeries. The terms for birds offer some difficulties; all common wild duck are mallards, to distinguish them from widgeon, teal and so on; but while the male may be called either the mallard or the drake, the female is always a duck. Grouse are cock and hen; blackcock, blackcock and greyhen; and all woodcock are 'cock.

No less confusing to the Cockney in the country are the terms for quantities of game. He speaks of a "brace of rabbits," and the gamekeeper's eyebrows rise at the term. Two rabbits are a "couple"—when they are not a pair. Two pheasants, two partridges, or two grouse are a "brace," three forming a "brace and a half" or a "leash"; but we speak of a "couple" of woodcock, snipe, duck, or pigeons.

When the gamekeeper speaks of "pairs" of birds he is referring to birds that have paired; but a cock and a hen pheasant remain a cock and a hen. Some confusion arises from the terms applied to gatherings of birds or beasts. Young families of birds are usually "broods," and families of animals "litters." One speaks of a brood (or pack) of grouse, a covey (or pack) of partridges, a bevy of quail, a nid of pheasants (meaning a young family), a wing of plover, a wisp of snipe, a team of duck, a company of widgeon, a flock of sparrows, rooks, or pigeons, a skein or gaggle of geese, a herd of swans or deer, and a sounder of wild pigs. The gamekeeper knows better than any one else just what is meant by a litter of cubs. There is a distinction between a big "rise" of pheasants and a good "flush." If a thousand pheasants fly up at the same time it is a big rise, but not a good one, because few can be shot. A good flush does not mean necessarily that there are many birds, but that they rose, or were flushed, so that most of them offered shots—a few at a time.

Hares and their Young

A wet, cold spring means death to the majority of early leverets. They are given a good chance of life, coming into the world as perfect little hares, with complete fur coat and open eyes; and, like partridge chicks, they can run on the day they are born. But they are not always strong enough to withstand the English spring. A leveret, no larger than a man's fist, runs with extraordinary speed, and often escapes from a dog, while a man must be sound in wind and limb to overtake it in the open. Rabbits, born naked, develop a very fair turn of speed so soon as they come above ground, but they quickly give up in despair if pursued.

There is a widespread idea that hares breed only once in a year, and produce only one leveret. The gamekeeper knows well that puss may produce several leverets at a birth, and will have family after family from as early as January to the end of September. As with rabbits, the leverets born early one year themselves may breed in the late summer of the same year. No doubt the hare is credited with only one or two young ones because only one or two are found together. Occasionally, it is true, several very young leverets may be found in one place; but they are usually cradled in separate seats, not far from each other. We once found a family of eight little leverets crouching in a bunch under a heap of hedge-trimmings. Evidently we discovered them within a few moments of their entry into the world.

The mother hare is wise to separate her family. Many dangers threaten the leveret's life; but if families were kept together the young ones would be even more open to attack from rooks and crows, and scent-hunting vermin in fur. The leveret with its eyes pecked out by a rook, yet still living, is a sight which pleads for the mercy of a swift death at the gamekeeper's hands. The mother hare is keenly alive to the dangers besetting her family. If you find a leveret one day nestling in a tuft of grass, or against a clod of earth, whether or not you handle it the mother will certainly remove it before the morrow. She will wind danger in your scent.

Starving Birds

The old name for March, "Starvation Month," is usually justified, if winter, with snow, carries on into March. Countless birds die of starvation. After a hard winter there is little food to be found; but large berries remain a long time on some of the ivy bushes, and come into favour among robins and blackbirds. There has been little green growth since September, though the larger celandine shows bigger leaves, coltsfoot is out, wild arum leaves are green in the hedges, and there is green growth on elder-bushes, woodbine, privet, and brier bushes. Insect life for food is of negligible quantity: though myriads of gnats may be hatched by the sun, they are poor eating. Of flowers there are hardly any, and the sparrow, pecking at the crocuses in his need, earns the hatred of gardeners. It is a time of hunger with many animals awakening out of sleep; with the field-voles uncurling from their beds of grass, and with the hedgehogs shaking themselves free of their balls of leaves. A new activity is stirring, birds are living at pressure, many animals have young, hundreds of birds come in daily from overseas—but supplies for all seem at the lowest ebb.

The Egg of Eggs

In the keeper's year there is no moment so delightful as when he finds his first wild pheasant's egg. The earliest egg of the season is looked on almost like a nugget of gold. You may observe a keeper turning out of his way to pass along the sunny side of a hedgerow favoured by pheasants, craning his neck to look at the far side of a tuft of withered grass, and with his stick turning over the dead leaves of a likely hollow. Day after day, in early April, he perseveres in his quest; and though he may find scores of depressions scooped out by the hens—"scrapes" he calls them—it may be a long while before his search is rewarded by the sight he yearns for. He is appeased—though he has but found something found thousands of times before, only a pheasant's egg. But it is the first of a new season, and precious beyond all others. There may have been eggs already in his pens. The penned birds are protected from wind and cold rains. They live on a well-drained plot facing the south, and they are treated so liberally to rich foods, spices, and tonic drinks that they can hardly help laying early. The first egg is a satisfaction, but nothing like the first wild-laid egg. At the earliest chance, the finder meets a brother keeper, and his story of the finding loses nothing in the telling, while it gains a good deal from the envy on the brother keeper's face.

Pheasants' Eggs

By the middle of April, the gamekeeper finds that a few of his pheasants are sitting. They are the older hens. Those that begin to lay early in April do not often lay more than ten or twelve eggs before beginning to sit. But it is not unusual for a young hen to lay fifteen, seventeen, or even more eggs. That the older hens should lay fewer eggs suggests that they have no more than they can furnish with the heat necessary for hatching. Later on, in warmer weather, a pheasant can manage half as many eggs again as in early spring. The old hens have eggs well on the way towards hatching before hens still in their first year have begun to lay. Pheasants commonly lay eggs in each other's nests. We have known a pheasant even to lay eggs in a thrush's nest, built on the ground beneath a furze-bush. Like the nest, three of the four thrush's eggs were destroyed by the intruder. The keeper well knows how to take advantage of this slovenly habit of his pheasants. About ten days before the time when he expects them to begin to lay in earnest, he makes up a number of false nests, into which he puts either imitation nest-eggs, or addled eggs saved from the last season. Having some respect for the sweetness of his pocket, he takes the precaution of boiling the addled eggs for several hours in lime-water. He makes up the false nests in places where the eggs shall be comparatively safe; his great object being to induce his birds to lay at home, and not to stray away into his neighbour's coverts. The method saves much time in searching for nests. But even when he has the best of luck, a keeper would not be a proper keeper if he did not complain that his hens are laying on his neighbour's ground. Not unusually, three or four hens lay in the same nest—we have known six to lay in one nest, and on one day. From three nests within fifty yards of each other we have counted more than one hundred eggs—and this in a place where pheasants were few. It is a great satisfaction to the keeper to find one of these co-operative nests. He knows that if he leaves the hens to themselves, their eggs will soon be piled up in the nest on top of each other, like a heap of stones. No one pheasant could hatch out such a prodigious clutch, even if left in undisputed possession. What usually happens is that some hens want to lay and others to sit, so that between them the eggs are spoiled. The keeper anticipates trouble by collecting the eggs and distributing them elsewhere for hatching. He knows that his fowls will not hatch out as high a proportion of pheasant eggs from large nests as from smaller ones, since few are given the regular turning necessary to preserve their fertility. But, in spite of this knowledge, there is a deal of friendly rivalry among keepers as to who shall find the nest with the most eggs.

Hens in Cocks' Feathers

A mule pheasant is a sterile hen who has assumed more or less the plumage of a cock. We cannot say we have ever heard one of these transformed hens give vent to a crow. But once we owned a game-bantam hen, who, without changing into cock's plumage, crowed in a way that would have done credit to any fine rooster. The keeper does not appreciate a barren hen pheasant, whether or not she wears cock's feathers. She is an unproductive loafer, and is likely to be destructive to the chicks of other hens, both to wild ones and those reared artificially. Disappointed in motherhood herself, she is jealous that others should be mothers.

About Nesting Pheasants

Pheasants' eggs vary strangely in shade: they show a much wider range of shading than partridges', from almost white through the most delicate gradations of blue-green and olive-brown to the rich, warm hue of the nightingale's egg. The keeper prefers the eggs with the deeper tones, persuading himself that they will produce the strongest chicks. He has small faith in the fertility of eggs that are very light in hue, and he holds to an idea that if a light, sky-blue egg hatches at all it will produce a pied chick. When a hen lays in another's nest, it is rather by some subtle distinction of shape than by colour that the keeper discovers the trespasser's eggs: for the eggs of one bird may vary much in shade. The nest is a simple affair, merely a shallow hollow, scratched out, ringed by dry grass or leaves or any dead material of the sort within easy reach; if dry grass is plentiful a generous supply fringes the hollow, but a pheasant is not one to trouble to fetch and carry for her nest. Cunning as she may be in the choice of a site, no instinct or reason prompts her to go a yard away to collect material, however plentiful at that short distance, for comfort and warmth. Her fabric, plentiful or scanty, is arranged in a typical fashion. Standing in the middle of her scraped-out hollow, she throws the bits of grass or the leaves over her back, so that the margin of the nest corresponds to the size of her body. Sometimes a fowl is seen going through this performance; the goose also employs this primitive instinctive manner of gauging her nest's dimensions.

All game-birds lay their eggs on the ground. Though pheasants are peculiarly fond of perching in trees, by day as well as by night, they rarely make a nest off the ground; though now and again one may see a nest placed a few feet high in a tree, resting on a mattress of ivy or on the ruins of other nests—the derelict homes of pigeons, perhaps occupied later by squirrels. Pheasants will also sometimes make use of those convenient hollows to be found on the top of underwood stumps; and doubtless would do so more often if it were not for the unyielding nature of wood, which they cannot scratch into shape as instinct prompts. In rides where the old underwood stumps have not been grubbed, pheasants love to nest on the stumps' tops. In spite of annual trimming, the stumps for years continue to throw up a mass of leafy shoots. The pheasant creeps between them, and is perfectly hidden—at least, as to her head and body. We recall a nest in such a spot within a foot of a path where many people passed daily. Not one discovered the pheasant's secret, except a keeper who saw her protruding tail. The pheasant had forgotten about her tail. Naturally the keeper was annoyed at her stupidity in thinking that because her body was hidden her tail could not be seen. Fearing lest others should discover the nest on this account, he went for a pair of his wife's scissors, and made sure that the tail would tell no more stories.

The Broody Hen

The wisest poultry-farmer does not understand broody hens better than the gamekeeper. The ways of the broody hen are at once deep, and stupid, and annoying. No power on earth will force a broody hen to sit when she is in a revolting spirit. To take a hen from the nest of her choice and expect her to sit properly on a fresh nest, where even pheasants' eggs costing a shilling apiece await her, usually means disappointment. Yet it is as risky to put the pheasants' eggs in the broody hen's chosen nest. Other hens will disturb her, rats are likely to steal the eggs, dogs may worry her, and she cannot be relied upon to return to her own nest after going off to feed. And if she may leave the nest at her own free will she is liable to sit too long without a break. Her eggs in that case do not have enough fresh air, and the heat of the hen diminishes through want of food, so that weak chicks develop, and may fail even to break their shells. So the keeper is obliged to provide a suitable nest, and to try to induce the broody hen to take to it kindly. He finds that an empty cheese-box with a lid will make a capital nesting-box for occasional use. If rats are feared, he encases the box in an armour of wire-netting. Then within he fashions a shallow nest, using firm mould, and adding a little bruised straw; if the hollow is too deep the eggs may be piled on each other, and the hen cannot plant her feet comfortably or sit evenly over the eggs. The hollow is lined with a ring or collar of twisted straw, to retain the warmth of the hen, and prevent her eggs falling out when she moves her feet to turn round. Then the keeper goes off for the broody hen, which he carries in a sack of open texture. Whether or not a hen is really broody may be determined most easily at night. A hen chosen by day, though she imitates the broody plaint, may be intent only on laying eggs—not on sitting. But the hens who are in earnest will be found in the nests after dark; and they are known by their dull combs. Into the sitting-box the keeper shuts the hen of his choice, leaving her with a nest-egg or two by way of encouragement. He is in no hurry to give her live eggs. He waits until she is well settled after the move, and has had time to round up the nest to her liking. At first she may be inclined to stand, or at least not to go down properly; but after a little while she will be found spread out in the proper fashion of the hen who intends to hatch eggs at all costs, and she will complain loudly, and peck fiercely if touched. And then she is entrusted with the precious eggs.

Once a day the keeper gently lifts each broody hen off the nest to feed, tethering her by a string tied to her leg or shutting her into a coop. On the first day she is taken from the eggs only for ten minutes; but her time off is gradually increased, as the eggs require more oxygen, to half an hour during the second week of sitting, and then to three-quarters of an hour or longer towards the end of the third week, if the weather proves genial. Plenty of air is good for the chicks in the eggs, especially during the last days of the hatching. A hen was accidentally kept from her eggs for a whole afternoon on the day before they were due to hatch; yet all the thirteen eggs hatched out, and stronger chicks were never seen.

The Frenchmen's Nests

The red-legged partridge begins to nest quite a week earlier than the English birds. The keeper expects to find his first partridge's egg about April 25: and probably it will be a Frenchman's. Great will be his satisfaction if the first egg should happen to be an English bird's. The same friendly rivalry exists between neighbouring keepers as to who shall find the first partridge egg as with the first pheasant's egg. Not until May will the partridges' laying season be in full swing. English partridges nest always on the ground, but Frenchmen sometimes nest so far aloft as on the top of a straw-rick. So they escape the fox, which tears the English birds off their nests on all sides. There is an idea in the heads of country folk that the French partridge habitually deserts her first clutch of eggs without cause. No doubt this delusion has arisen from the forsaken appearance of the birds' nests and eggs; when stained by soil, the eggs look decidedly stale. While the mother bird never deserts her nest without good cause, she is in no hurry about nesting; and there are often long intervals between the laying of the first egg, the completion of the clutch, and the beginning of sitting operations. We have heard of a case where this interval was one of six weeks. Yet a full brood was hatched.

French partridges have a good deal in common with guinea-fowls. The call which members of a covey of Frenchmen make to each other bears the strongest resemblance to the guinea-fowl's "Go-back, go-back." They are alike in making a deep "scrape" in the soil for their nest, which is complete when the hollow has been scratched to their liking. Then the dingy-white ground-colour and the rusty speckles of their eggs are similar; and the eggs of guinea-fowl and of Frenchmen are commonly found well plastered and stained with soil, through being turned over in the unlined nest. The eggs have notably thick shells.

The Last of the Hurdlers

The ancient art of making hurdles is fast dying out. In a small Hampshire village, where a score of hurdlers could have been found a quarter of a century ago, to-day but one or two old men remain who can make a hurdle of the genuine sort. The reason is not that hurdle-making is profitless, for there is a demand for good workers, and the rate of pay is higher than of old—from four to five shillings for a dozen hurdles, which represent a day's hard work. But few boys follow the old calling of the hurdler, probably because a long apprenticeship must be served. There is difficulty in finding a qualified man to take a boy in charge; and for a long while the boy would be useful only to strip the rods of knots, and would earn but a nominal wage. At other work his earnings would be enough at least to pay his share of the family expenses at home. So that few hurdlers see their way to teach even their own sons this honourable trade.

Hurdlers' Science

The first stage in making a hurdle is the splitting of the rods; and this is an art calling for years of practice before such perfect efficiency is attained that the worker can divide each rod exactly down the centre with his eyes shut. The bill-hook is inserted at the rod's smaller end, the other end is held between the knees, and the straight, clean split is made by directing the pressure of the bill-hook one way or the other—the edge of the hook being turned towards that side of the rod which threatens to splinter. When the rods are split, the "salins"—the upright stakes which form the framework of the hurdle—are fixed into the "mole"—a solid piece of wood, slightly curved, and drilled with holes. "Spurs" are the small, round, unsplit rods woven over the top and bottom to prevent slipping. The weather has much to do with the ease and speed of the work. Cold, sunless days with east winds tend to make the rods brittle, and then when a binding spur is being wound into place it will break, and part of the hurdle must be remade. Drought hardens the wood, and the rods lose elasticity. A hard frost may freeze the wood's moisture, and the rods may then snap. The most favourable weather is sunny, but not scorching, with occasional light showers. In wet weather the strongest worker is terribly handicapped, and rheumatism, sooner or later, is almost certain to take hold of him.

HAMPSHIRE HURDLES
LONDON, EDWARD ARNOLD.

The Woodman

Not all who work in the woods are entitled to the name of woodman: a word standing for an ancient and an honourable calling. The woodman proper is an estate official, a sort of general foreman over the underwood and the timber. He ranks a grade below the gamekeeper. A man of parts, he knows his woods through and through. He can tell you the exact age of the various growths of underwood, for it is his duty to advise what shall be cut each year, to map it out in lots for sale, to undertake the marking and felling of timber, and to see to the upkeep of covert fences, and the trimming of rides. He receives a retaining weekly wage, except when he is turning underwood to account or laying a hedge, when he is paid by the piece. In time of need, the gamekeeper calls on the woodman's assistance, and he seldom goes long in want of a rabbit. The keeper is always generous with his friends and allies.

A Dying Race

Below the woodman in rank, and not rightly to be called a woodman, is the copse-worker, or copser; a piece-worker, free to work for any one who will give him a job. He is a skilled craftsman, one of a dying race, for his boys are kept too long at school ever to take kindly to his calling. This is his constant complaint: and he will air his views freely on "eddication" and the making of "scholards." He himself had only enough learning drubbed into him to allow him to make every night an entry of his day's work—so many bavins, so many bundles of pea-sticks, so many fencing-poles. His daily earnings fluctuate with the quality of the wood, which he is sure to declare is nothing like what it was in the days of his youth.

Choice Nesting-Places

It is the keeper's lot to make the best of many a bad job. If he could have his way, all underwood would be chopped and stacked in neat piles by the middle of April, so that his nesting birds might enjoy undisturbed peace in his woods. In olden days, all underwood was cut, worked up, and cleared off the ground by certain fixed dates so that the new shoots of the shorn stumps had full measure of light and air. But the dates are no longer remembered, and the work is carried on into early summer. The birds benefit in some ways. Pheasants find the long rows of felled underwood very attractive as nesting-places, and many pairs of partridges decide to give them a trial. Pheasants and partridges prefer to nest in dead material—it is warmer and drier than greenstuff, does not hold dew or rain, and cannot grow, and so possibly upset the nest. Dry leaves are driven by the wind beneath the rows of wood, so nesting material is plentiful. And there is no dense canopy of leaves to shut out the sun that is so loved by the sitting birds.

Hidden Nests

Much underwood remains in the long drifts where it was laid after cutting until well on in May, and even into June. The keeper may search carefully, but unless the rows are very narrow and thin he can hope to find only a few of the many nests they shelter. Especially difficult is it to find the partridge nests. The finding is almost as much a matter of luck as of skill, for the eggs are covered completely by the birds with a drab quilt of leaves, perfectly matching the surroundings. The eggs of pheasants, too, though the birds seldom cover them, are often hidden through the play of the leaves in the wind. Even should a bird be sitting on her nest, she is not easily found—unless the keeper catches the glint of her dark eye. Her feathers are merely one shade more in the prevailing blends of brown. The woodworker, keeping the most careful watch for nests, often does not see the sitting bird until he strips the underwood from her very back.

A Mutual Understanding

Between the gamekeeper and copsers in his woods there is an unwritten agreement, making for the good of all. The workers take heed and care of the game-nests, and the keeper sees that they are rewarded according to the care. He does not pay people to find nests, but to protect those discovered in the course of daily work—a small sum, by way of encouragement, usually a shilling for each nest. But the copser, while chopping up the rows of underwood, finds a good many small nests, with three or four eggs each, and the keeper may agree to pay him a penny for each of these odd eggs, as he calls them, and a shilling for each more respectable nest saved. The copser must leave cover for a few yards around the nests, and do nothing to disturb the tenancy. When the nest is so situated that it causes no inconvenience or delay to the copser's work, the shilling is paid only when the eggs hatch; in special cases the keeper takes the risk of safe hatching. It is a proud moment for the copser when he makes a satisfactory report of a nest. "That there old bird over agen they ash-stems," he will say delightedly, "she be hatched and gone, master."

Many Guardians

Often a keeper must give judgment as to who is entitled to the reward for a nest found and protected by two or three men. It would be easy if the spirit of justice were satisfied by handing the shilling to the man who first found the nest; or if a shilling were given to each man; but this would make up an alarming account for nest-money. So the keeper may give the first finder a shilling, and the others a couple of rabbits each. It would not be policy to foster a man's interest only in the nest which he finds himself, and is the first to find, for a nest may need the guardianship of many workers. First it may be found by a copser, working up underwood; he keeps an eye upon it for a week, finishes his job, and departs. Then a hurdler comes, or perhaps a hoop-maker, who starts work, sees the nest and guards it for awhile. And then the nest catches the eye of a carter when he comes to fetch a load of wood; he notes the position, lest it should come to harm under the hoofs of his horse or the wheels of his waggon—and after his day's work he may walk a mile or two to lay his information at the keeper's cottage.

When three men work in the same part of a wood, one may have the luck to find several nests, and the others may have no luck. So the men, if good mates, arrange to pool the nest-money; but sometimes the lucky man is avaricious. The keeper must study the vagaries of luck and character. Some men will be spoiled by too liberal rewards; but an extra shilling or two may be well spent if it prevents a sour man from thinking he has been harshly treated. The keeper knows the labourer as a man who broods much, and is slow to forgive an insult, or to forget an injustice. And he knows it makes all the difference to his own work if the men who labour in the woods for six months in the year are his friends and allies. This, in turn, is no bad thing for them—many odd jobs the keeper puts in their way when work is slack, and he puts many rabbits into their hands to the comfort of their hearts.