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A GAMEKEEPER'S
NOTE-BOOK

• ' »•

OWEN JONES

»LTHOK Or "TK* 1EAKS* O \MJTK EX^'^O "

AND

MARCUS WOODWARD

J.ifNT \CTIIOB OF " W')Ol» .".VIT

M // // PUOTOGRA \ IRE ll.Lt\

SKi UNO JMl»LK*3lON

LONDON

1 > »

1 9 1

{Alt rUihU rt%t> *<t J

A GAMEKEEPER'S
NOTE-BOOK

BY
OWEN JONES

AUTHOB Or «TBW YBABB* OAMBKUPINO "

AND

MARCUS WOODWARD

JOINT AUTHOR OF "WOODCRAFT"

WITH PHOTOGRAVURE ILLUSTRATIONS

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONDON

E D WAR 1) A R N () L D

1910

IAU rights ruerved]

§K\QS

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 con-
fidence 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

M31E912

vi PREAMBLE

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 game-
keeping 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 back-
ground 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 play-ground.

PREAMBLE vii

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 game-
keeper'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

PACE

FACE

The Keeper's Lot

The Babbit in a Snare

Perquisites

The Sleep of Birds

Pete at the Cottage .

Animals at Best

Wood-Pigeons .

Vigilant Fulf ers

The Keeper's Larder .

The Eyes of Wild Creatures .

Homely Medicines

The Season's End

The Earth-Stoppers' Feast .

Beaters' Sport .

The Keeper's Garden .

Tailless Cocks .

Keepers' Holidays

Preparations

An Advantage of Marriage .

Hungry Babbits

The Keeper seeks a New Berth

To Save Underwood .

In North and South .

Studies in Fear .

Poachers —

The Rookery

And their Dogs .

When Books Build .

Perfect Obedience

Ways of the Crows

The Black List .

The Crow as Terrorist .

A South-Country Record

Imperial Books .

Woodland Gallows

Book-Pie .

The Gallows Martyrs

Birds for Stock .

Once Trapped* Twice Shy .

Old Hens .

Canning Trappers

A Gamekeeping Problem

The Time to Catch a Weasel

The Hare Poaoher

Changes of Coats

March Hares

The Vermin Bag

The Cubs' Birthday .

The Ways of Squirrels

Courtiers in Pens

The Squirrel's Appetite

When Hawks Nest

The Departure of Cats

Love-Danoes

Skeletons and Cobwebs

Names that Puzzle Cockney

b 63

The Persecuted Magpie

Hares and their Young

The Merciful Trap

1 Starring Birds .

V1U

LIST OF CONTENTS

The Egg of Eggs

PAOB

The Luck of Pheasant-

FAGB

Pheasants' Eggs

Bearing

Hens In Cooks* Feathers

From Egg to Larder .

About Nesting Pheasants

Fine Eggs and good Mothers

The Broody Hen

The Cub-Stealing Shepherd .

The Frenchmen's Nests

Lures and Charms

The Last of the Hurdlers

The Law and the Peewit

Hurdlers' Science

The Partridge and the Peewit 93

The Woodman .

A Friend to Agriculture

A Dying Race .

The Bats in the Stocks

Choice Nesting-Places

Thoughts on Rat-hunting .

Hidden Nests

When Cats are Angered

A Mutual Understanding

Hunters' Thirst

Many Guardians

Ldfe-in-Death .

Mark's Day

Ideal Ratters

The Old, Old Story .

;um:

Ratting without Ferrets

MER

. 100

A Keeper Chorister .

. 103

The Cock and the Hen

. 129

Velveteens

. 104

On Finding Feathers .

. 130

Owls and Hawks

. 105

When the Dog's Asleep

. 131

The Bold Sparrow-Hawk

. 106

A Story of Rats

. 132

Nest and Young

. 108

Blood and Water

. 133

The Keeper Outwitted

. 110

The Untimely Opening

. 134

A Jackdaw Nursery .

. Ill

'Ware Wire

135

Detective Work

. 112

Witless Pheasants

135

Cattle in the Woods .

. 112

Nature's Laws .

136

A Tragedy of the Woodland

8 114

The Partridge June

. 137

Fox and Partridge

. 114

Favoured Pheasants .

. 138

A Study in Perseverance

. 115

A Covey of Ancients .

. 140

The Hut in the Woods

. 116

Keepers' Woe .

. 141

Pheasant Chicks

. 117

Red-Legs ....

141

The Boosting Habit .

. 119

Water for Game-Birds

. 142

The Badger's Stealth .

. 121

Ideal Coverts

. 144

To Attract Bullfinches

. 123

The Thrist of Rabbits

. 145

Bird Warnings .

. 123

Puppies at Walk

. 145

A Babbit's Fates

. 124

Schooling the Puppies

. 147

Game-Birds and Motors

. 125

Dogs' Noses

148

Mysteries of the Nightjar

. 126

The Thief of the World

. 149

The Raaor-grinder

. 127

The Cubs' Playground

. 151

A Ventriloquist .

. 127

A Fox's Feat .

. 152

LIST OF CONTENTS

Dog-Washing Days .
Shame-faoed Oooks
The Turtle-Dove's Summer
The Lagging Landrail
The Truoe Ends
The Thieving Jay
The Oldest Writing
Prospects .
Useful Work by Game
Life of the Cornfield
The Keeper's Hopes
Finding the Fox
Harvest Sport .

PAOK

168
155

157
167
150
160
161
162
Birds 163

164
166
167
167

The Luok of the Game
Babbit-Catchers' Craft
Among the Corn
The Last to Leave
Weasel Families
Mother Stoat
Lurking-Placee .
Studies in Stoat Ways
The First .
Early Birds
Walking-up
Thoughts on Cubbing
Wines of the Country

PAGB

160
170
172
172
178
174
176
177
170
179
180
181
183

AUTUMN

The Verdict of the Season

Weather to pray for .

After the Opening

An October Day

Low Flight and High

Wily Grouse Cocks

Rewards for Cubs

" Various "—the Landrail

Sport amid the Shocks

"Mark" .

The Keeper's Dogs

Woodcock Owls

Dogs that Despise Woodcock

Pets of Pigs

Some Deals in Dogs .

Marked Birds

Colour-Changes in Feathers

Nature's Healing

A Little Story .

Accidents to Hares

Hares no longer Speedy

Starling Hosts .

Trials of a Copser

Wild Birds in Cages .

Truffles .

185
187
187
188
189
189
190
191
192
193
195
196
196
198
199
200
200
201
202
202
203
204
205
206
206

Retriever's Usefulness 206

Nuts and Mice . .207

The Hand of Time . 209

The Keeper grows Old . 210

Rabbit Ways in Autumn . 21 1

The Rabbits' House-cleaning 212

The Guileless Countryman . 213

Sporting Policemen 214

The Woodoraft of Gipsies . 215

Gipsy Lies 217

Long-netters 219

Training Rabbits . 219

Why Birds Flock . 221

The Companies of Rats . 222

The Fall . . . . 223

Late and Early Autumns 228

Hares in the Garden . . 224

Food for Pheasants . 225

The Lingering Leaves . 226

Planning Big Shoots . . 227

Plots and Counter-Plots . 228

Indian Summer 229

Winter Sleep ... 280

A Dish of Hedgehog . . 281

^^^

v»w^

LIST OF CONTENTS

WINTER

PAG*

Rustic Wit ... 233
The Oak City ... 233
Acorns .... 234
Plump Rabbits . .236
The Stoat's Hunting . . 237
Mysteries of Scent . 238
The Axe in the Coverts . 241
The Uses of Underwood . 242
The Tipping System . . 243
Free Suppers for the Fox 245
Clues to the Thief . 246
Muzzled by a Snare 247
Cunning Rascals 248
A Hunting Argument . 249
The Clever Terrier . 261
Born Retrieving 262
Some Sporting Types . 262
Victims of Wire . 253
Stoat ot Weasel? . 253
" The Horrid Badger " . 254
Chalk-Pit Haunts . 255
When the Fox sleeps . . 255
When Ferret meets Fox . 256
February Rabbits . 257
The Moucher's Excuse 257
When Hounds come . 268
When Hounds are gone 259
Poachers' Weapons 260
Moles' Skins for Furs . . 261
Covert-shooting Problems . 262
"Cocks only" — to com-
promise . 262
What a Cat may kill . . 263
A Cockney Story . 264
Hares in Small Holdings . 265
The Sins of the Father . 266
The Pheasants' Roosting-

Trees .267

The Fox in the Storm . 268

Iron: ....

PAOB

Foxes at Pheasant Shoots . 268
Pheasants that go to Ground 269
Pheasants' Doomsday 270
The Hungry Retriever . 270
The Old Wood ... 271
Memories of Muzzle-loaders 272
Relics of the Great Bays . 273
Cleaning a Muzzle-loader 274
The Knowing Beater . . 275
Old Friends ... 276
What Shepherds enjoy . 277
Lives of Labour 277
In the Folds . .278
Shepherds' Care . 279
Winter Partridge-driving . 279
The Fear of Snow . 281
Hard- Weather Prophets . 282
Weather-wiseBeastsandBirds 282
Green Winters . .284
What Rainy Days bring . 285
Cubs at Christmas . 286
Work for Rainy Days . 287
The Old Lumber . 288
When Foxes mate . 289
A Keeper's Dreams 290
A Death-bed Vision . . 291
Christmas Sport . . 292
Cunning Cook Pheasants . 293
A Dish of Greens . 293
Christmas Shoots 294
Woodcock Talk . 295
Spare the Hens . .296
A Free-and-Easy . 297
A Keeper's Ghost-Story . 298
Old Friends in Velveteen . 300
The Converted Shepherd . 302
A Final Story . . 302
Careful Wives ... 303
" What Her was like " . 304
305

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

To fact

P*£4

A Pips of Peace Frontispiece

Spring's Looking-glass 40

Hampshire Hurdles 78

The Long Day Closes 134

Starlings Roosting on Reeds 204

From a Drawing by Frank SotUhgate, R.B.A.

Peewits in Winter 280

From a Drawing by Frank Southgate, R.B.A.

SPRING

The position of a gamekeeper in England is a
curious one. Admittedly he is among the most

skilled and highly trained workers of the
Tto country-side. His intimate knowledge of

I^t frild 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 pro-
perty 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 gentle-
men 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.

The actual wages of a first-class gamekeeper may be
no more than a pound a week. A system has sprung

2 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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
aulsltes w hom he ministers. This system has bred

in him a kind of obsequiousness — he is de-
pendent 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

PETS AT THE COTTAGE 8

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 re-
duced 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.

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,

JJSxe though ^ *** not con,ess it_ftnd ' stran « e
Cottage t° sa y» 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

rabbity 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-

4 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

ledge ; and here is " Sally/ 9 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.

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

Wood- j n summer ag i n winter, and remember-
Plgeons

ing 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

THE KEEPER'S LARDER 5

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.

Wood-pigeons are among the gamekeeper's per-
quisites. Apart from a very occasional request

from "the house" for the wherewithal
The ^ for pigeon-pie, the pigeons shot are for the
Larder 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 direc-
tions, 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.

6 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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

HOMELY MEDICINES 7

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.

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

M^eines me di c i ne-c h es t contains a varied assort-
ment. 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. Rheu-
matism, 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 —

8 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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 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 J paid
The Earth- for each fox found by hounds. And a
Feast 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

THE KEEPER'S GARDEN 9

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 pre-
serves 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 game-
keeper's life.

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

The his table, tonic foods for his pheasants, and

Kmdbf's

Garden a P ]ace wher e, *>y digging, he may bury

some of his cares. He knows no such exer-
cise 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

10 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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 cart-
ridge-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-

THE KEEPER'S GARDEN 11

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 neat-
ness 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 9 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

12 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

his roses mean so much to him that he will make some
such excuse as, "The missus, she thinks a mortal
sight of they/ 9

In February a few lucky gamekeepers may take a

voluntary holiday, many must take an involuntary

one — restful, perhaps, but not beneficial

HoMjlfs to P° c ^ et > heafth* an( * spirits. Keepers
come and keepers go in these days when
so many shoots are let for short terms. Rest-
ing 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 im-
possible 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

AN ADVANTAGE OF MARRIAGE 18

work, too, is cumulative — each item must be con-
sidered 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 advant-
age 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
oft by a brother keeper.

For the first time in many a long year a game-
keeper may find himself taking a holiday in the early

days of February — either because he has
An Advant- i e ft his place of his own free will, or has been
Marriage 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 any-
where, 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

14 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

best chance of bagging an elusive bachelor. Some-
times 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 advertise-
ment could tell strange stories of the applications

received.

¥ ¥ ¥

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
The through which he passes. You may meet

l e «»«l him, at the end of the season, setting out
New Berth 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.

¥ ¥ ¥

Many long leagues separate the moor-keeper of the
North from the keeper of South-country preserves ;

POACHERS 15

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

In North open, rolling moor to the jungle-like

^^ Vfe 4V

South 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 burn-
ing 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 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

16 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

without causing them injury ; this they do by press-
ing a bottle into hard snow, thus shaping a hole-trap
(to be baited with oats) from which the grouse can-
not 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.

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 move-
£** meats, or at 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 with-
out 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

PERFECT OBEDIENCE 17

until the danger passed. This is vouched for in an
old work, " Brown on Dogs."

Probably there would be no great difficulty in

training a dog to drop a hare, or anything else, at

the approach of somebody other than its

**«* master. Dogs are sometimes trained to
Obedienee °

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 per-
sonal 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 ex-
ample 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.

18 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

In February the gamekeeper's thoughts and energies

are turned mostly in the way of vermin and trapping.

Anywhere vermin is really plentiful it is

The Black a won( j er f u i ^id S port 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 con-
tained 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 Glen-
garry, 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, 801 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 pere-
grine falcons, 7 orange-legged falcons, 211 hobby
hawks, 75 kites, 5|marsh harriers, 68 goshawks, 285
common buzzards, 871 rough-legged buzzards, 3
honey buzzards, 462 kestrels, 78 merlin hawks, 83
hen harriers, 6 gerfalcons, 9 ash-coloured or long blue-
tailed hawks, 1481 carrion crows, 475 ravens, 85
horned owls, 71 common fern owls (nightjars), 8
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

A SOUTH-COUNTRY RECORD 19

enough, does not contain a single jay, rat, or hedge-
hog.

¥ ¥ ¥

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
A South- destruction of hawks — nearly all sparrow-
Record 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 846 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 sup-
posed 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

20 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

the sport of his master to his master's ancestors — to-
day about 800 pheasants are bagged on this estate in
the course of a big day's shooting, instead of the 80
birds that would have been a good bag in the olden

times.

¥ ¥ ¥

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
MS" 1 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 mis-
judged 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 male-
factors 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 188 stoats, 86 weasels,
62 cats, 98 rats, 115 hedgehogs, 10 hawks, 881 jack-

THE GALLOWS MARTYRS 21

daws, 82 rooks, 28 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 de-
pendants. 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.

¥ ¥ ¥

Though kestrels, unhappily, are still brought to
the gallows, with the barn-owl and other creatures

innocent of injury to game, keepers grow
The more discriminating in the matter of vermin.

Martyrs 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

22 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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."

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
Once moral at the end of their adventure, and live

Twice t° adorn the gallows. It is very seldom that
Shy a rat is trapped twice. Scores escape from

traps at the expense of a leg ; this is a com-
mon matter, but a man may trap vermin for a life-
time 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.

CUNNING TRAPPERS 28

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 catch-
ing every fox in the country.

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

SSJSw food ™ thout *"**** on the P* 11 - 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

24 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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.

¥ ¥ ¥

February is the mohth when it is fashionable for

stoats and weasels to begin courting. The keeper

finds the trapping of stoats or weasels

The Time less difficult work than usual in conse-
to Catch a TT . . . , , . ,, . . .

Weasel quence. 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.

CHANGES OF COATS 25

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.

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

of Coats ar ^ ses 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

26 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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.

* * *

•

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
The single trap anywhere on his ten thousand

Ba g 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 whole-
sale 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 exter-
minates. A record of a year's bag of vermin on one
big estate reads thus : Jays, 850 ; magpies, 160 ;
crows, 150 ; squirrels, 140 ; weasels, 80 ; cats, 70 ;
stoats, 60 ; hedgehogs, 40 ; hawks, 80 ; total, 1080.
This record says nothing of rats, rooks or owls,

THE WAYS OF SQUIRRELS 27

though no doubt numbers of rats and rooks were
sacrificed.

The gamekeeper whose bag of vermin in a year in-
cluded 140 squirrels is, we may hope, exceptional.

Squirrels are not always treated by keepers
The as vermin. Now and again a squirrel has

Squirrels ^ )een P rove d 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
titsin an apple-tree, aaione waich visited a pheasant's
nest, carrying away an egg, and once we saw a young

28 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

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.

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

The reviles squirrels bitterly, saying that they

Squirrel's . , ...

Appetite steal ^ 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 straw-
berries and apricots if they have the chance, and that
they eat mushrooms and dig up truffles. A favourite

THE DEPARTURE OF CATS 29

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 oft 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 be-
tween 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.

* * *

We suppose that more cats disappear from the
domestic hearth in February than in any other month.

The gamekeeper may or may not know
The more about this than he will admit — it is

of Cats 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

80 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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."

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
Skeletons railway is at hand he always has a ready
Cobwebs 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 pre-
sumption is always justified that the cat was slain by a
keeper who endeavoured to put the blame on an inno-
cent 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 81

Magpies will soon be exterminated in many parts
of the country unless they receive special protection.
Like sparrow-hawks, the tribe suffers collec-
Th* tively for the sins of the individual. The

Magpie 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 de-
stroyed 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

82 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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.

* V *

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,
The as those know who have tried to keep great

Tp & p 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 them-
selves, but do things only because they have always

THE RABBIT IN A SNARE 33

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.

* * *

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
The instantly ; but the majority of the rabbits

a Snare cau ght will not be thus neatly despatched.

Half a night's catch may be found dead
in the morning, some having been hanged out-
right, 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 solu-
tion 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

84 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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 gamekeeper perhaps sees more of sleeping birds
than most people ; and makes many interesting mental

notes of the resting habits of creatures in his
of BWs* wo °ds. 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
parch. 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 out-
spread wings — not on the eggs, if in a nest. The
birds' legs and feet have sinews which work an auto-

THE SLEEP OF BIRDS 85

matic 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 shel-
tered, dry-lying hollow in the fields, and a covey of

86 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

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 out-
wards. 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 under-
growth, 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 fre-
quently 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.

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

atRest *^ e * wo * ron * P*^ *h cn 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 bare forms or beds within
a few yards of each other. They may conclude that

•^v

VIGILANT PULFERS 87

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 effec-
tively 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.

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
2&S!?* 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.

* * *

There is a theory that the eyes of wild creatures
magnify things seen, so that they appear many times

88 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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

T * SL^X?* his approach — a reasonable habit if all men

of Wild ,

Creatures 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 with-
out 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

THE SEASON'S END 89

rabbits scurry and twist through masses of fern and
brambles. But where the theory of eye magnifica-
tion would seem most probably true is where tits
and goldcrests are searching for food on the under-
side of fir boughs, and finding food which no man's
eye could see unaided.

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
The from persecution, thanks, however, to the

EQ4 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 shoot-
ing 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

40 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

jingles gold and silver — his reward for success in the
contest of wit and reason against cunning and in-
stinct. 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 shoot-
ing 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."

An idea is widespread among keepers, if not among
employers, that they are privileged, by virtue of their

::• A ?: \M» '; . i ' ': S NOTE-BOOK

> r»-W!»rd for micccs? :;i '<•

' • ' : • ji-^.-i'is 1 cunnint' •• »1

* . ! ".. '. J*. Ursinrv funics f iJ«

." •• : x • *. \ *\: .\ change. N •

, x

> i i .-' u-nv awn k

i -

hundred v 1 :

• It; ?' c ^;us

.\ nvkc a h.

.-». The v

•

i»» his <i;«-

•

»:'] ]i»v*\

» i * » - .

.* U tht* i !. •'

■ •

•■:■ V th;.* \ •

. seen

• • 1 *

* ■

■ -., I. ^ *« T . *■.• i'»ir« • ; . l*r it .

: iiiiMM'lu''i I " ii\ •*.• * ■• ■*•!« «-t
• \ provti in hem ii • . il.'

• ' ! - 'II |(» ("'<! 1 'ill V * * "I'.fl

. ■ • ■■«! '.iii ? i!i<* n v. • ' ■ t!.. 'r

■ ; • '« ■•• >■ • ' t v of Si \ ':;:1 v.-ivi i-elo:**

•' > • ■ \ ■ •■•: t!:f» l< • ^cr fors , "' . he is

'•i t !':..- *•..-!:: a....! -.,!>* i «>f thc»- \; -'v.ms

;..-' ! w c!;-':i\l :i!l his ei'.-u's * . hvlirj:
ti.t :. "i. ■. 1 : :ti: ev it i* the h^und * »f I * • *i*ntv
*'.o .. « ;. ' «> [ - > iri :*:\? H'ni'n y Ii?.;: I'.-'v are

ir.r.l tin y ;in i j-rivilt ,-cd. I>y virtue of their

• 4

BEATERS* SPORT 41

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 argu-
ment 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 dis-
pose of it would be a sinful waste to throw them
away. Therefore, it will be best if I eat them
myself."

Among others whose days of sport end with the season

are those little considered sportsmen, the beaters.

While making sport for others, they

Snort 1 * ** n( * °PP or tunities for themselves, and it
would be a churlish host or keeper who
grudged the poor beaters the rabbits which occa-
sionally 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 crouch-
ing rabbits for their own bagging, instead of plying

42 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

their sticks with a will on the cover to drive forward
game. They show some skill of a rough sort, and
considerable wood-craft. 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 dis-
tinction between misses and hits — pheasant-shooting
means, they held, shooting at a pheasant with evi-
dent 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 —

TAILLESS COCKS 48

the one expiration would serve as a reminder of the
other.

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
CocS? 8 an iU-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 cub-
hood 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 super-
fluous 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,

* * *

44 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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
tJJJjjjjf **" 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 boil-
ing water — will keep their good feeding qualities for
months.

From the New Year until well on in March rabbits
are hard pressed to find food — not necessarily be-
cause the weather may be bad, but because
Rabbits so man y Adds 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 under-
wood, and so cause a price to be set on their heads ;

TO SAVE UNDERWOOD 45

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.

The secret at once of preserving a few rabbits and
saving the underwood from their attacks is judicious

To Save fcedin * Swedes or """^ «"* *>"*e
Under- tightly tied bundles of clover-hay, if thrown

wood downin the rabbits' resorts will prevent much
damage, and prove indirectly an excellent invest-
ment. 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 re-
spected — especially when foxes and game in com-
bination 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

46 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

be found, and a living is to be made with the least
exertion.

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
Studies appears to be among the most timid of
p eap 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 experi-
ence. 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

STUDIES IN FEAR 47

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 be-
fore 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 hoe-
ing in a field — but let him stop his work, and take a
look at them, and they wait for no stronger hint of
danger.

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

48 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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'

Rookery e &£ s * nto a nest ^^ at ^PP 6118 to ^ e * n ^ e
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 dis-
tant. 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 de-
spised. 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 arc the home of almost the entire
colony.

WHEN ROOKS BUILD 49

In February, the rooks pay visits to their home-trees,
wheeling and squawking round about, and demolish-
ing old nests. On fine February evenings
When th e y linger after sunset before setting off
Build t° 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.

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
Ways attention beyond a casual inspection. But
Cro WS 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 hun-
dred 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

50 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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 opportujiity 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.

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 aimed
with a much more formidable beak. A casual observer

IMPERIAL ROOKS 51

would find little difference between a rook and a crow

in the hand. If a pair of crows were pitted in a dud

against a pair of rooks, the balance

J5? of power would make the odds slightly

Crow as r B J

Terrorist * n the crows' favour no doubt. But one

imagines the rooks would still have a sporting
chance. Probably crows have a black enough repu-
tation 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 game-
keeper 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.

We have a little story of how some rooks paid a pretty

compliment to an Empress. The preceding tenant of

the Empress Eugenie's place at Farnborough

Books * 8 sa *^ to ^ aye s P ent 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 pro-
cured and given every attention — and some were even
hatched and reared artificially. But the rooks refused

52 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

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.

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, in-
Rook-Ple

deed, 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 over-
takes 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

BIRDS FOR STOCK 53

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 neigh-
bourhood have learnt the trick of sitting on the tele-
graph 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.

In February the work begins of catching up pheasants

for stocking aviaries, to supply the coming season's

eggs. In mild Februaries, keeper after

Birds keeper tells the same sad story — he " can't

iOP

Stock eatch 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

54 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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, hori-
zontal 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-catch-
ing 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

OLD HENS 55

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 direc-
tion. The pheasants are ran into captivity in a short
time, and with little trouble.

In the gamekeeper's eyes a hen pheasant becomes an
old hen when she enters upon her second nesting
season. But all code 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.

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

56 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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

A Game- sometimes until it can fly up no more. So the

keeping

Problem 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 57

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
H*e for stock is a calamity to the keeper — though

Poacher *° 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 ex-
haustion 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

58 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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.

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
gJJS the hares are waged in companies ; you may

see a score of militant, amorous hares to-
gether, 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 in-
stantly 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.

THE CUBS' BIRTHDAY 59

Fights At courting times among wild creatures are
usually due either to a local or temporary preponder-
ance of males, or to some special attraction of par-
ticular 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.

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
The short of food, and fortunately they come

Birthday * nto *he wor ld 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; (me
we have known to rear a litter of cubs on the death
of the vixen. Of course a dog fox could do little if

60 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

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 inhabit-
ing the same earth.

March brings the gallant cock pheasant to his court-
ing days. He knows that he is safe from men and

guns, and stands recklessly within easy gun-
in Pens* shot ' a figure of defiance - should he ^P

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 regu-
lated, 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 rear-
ing, they remain faithful to their rule of pairing.
Keepers have found that it is useless to try to regu-
late the partridge courtships : the birds must be
left to their own instincts in choosing mates. It

COURTIERS IN PENS ei

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 sedu-
lously together, apart from the other occupants of
the general pen. The partridge is seldom quarrel-
some : 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 un wedded. 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.

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,

62 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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

35^5 near the tree's trunk. It will return to

Hawks

N es t 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 circu-
lar 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.

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

NAMES THAT PUZZLE COCKNEYS 6»

grouse hold regular love-levees, going through ridicu-
lous antics and gestures ; ducks skim absurdly about

the water, bobbing their heads up and
Dances down as ^ bowing compliments to each

other ; and even the sober rook will perform
a kind o! 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.

The Cockney in the country is perplexed by the
countryman's names for birds and beasts ; especially
by names denoting gender. The country-
Names man seems to the townsman to be particular
£^ le in drawing his distinctions, and his precise
Cockneys way of referring to an ox or a steer, a bull-
calf or a heifer, is found very puzzling, par-
ticularly 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 —
code, cockerel, pullet, fowl, hen, or capon — are not
always understood.

64 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

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 eye-
brows 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 form-
ing a " brace and a half " or a " leash " ; but we
speak of a " couple " of woodcock, snipe, duck, or
pigeons.

>^mmBBBmBBmmmmmmmmm^mm

NAMES THAT PUZZLE COCKNEYS 65

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 com-
pany 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.

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

66 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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
Hares be sound in wind and limb to overtake it
Young * n 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 Sep-
tember. 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

STARVING BIRDS 67

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.

The old name for March, " Starvation Month/'
is usually justified, if winter, with snow, carries on

into March. Countless birds die of starva-
Birds* tion. 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 them-
selves free of their balls of leaves. A new activity
is stirring, birds are living at pressure, many animals

68 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

have young, hundreds of birds come in daily from
overseas — but supplies for all seem at the lowest ebb.

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
••J"* like . nugg* of g».d. You _ *_* .

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

PHEASANTS' EGGS 69

loses nothing in the telling! while it gains a good deal
from the envy on the brother keeper's face.

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
Uy"* 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

70 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

boiling the addled eggs for several hours in
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 71

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 trans-
Hens in formed hens give vent to a crow. But
Feathers 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.

Pheasants' eggs vary strangely in shade : they show

a much wider range of shading than partridges',

from almost white through the most delicate

About gradations of blue-green and olive-brown

JhSXits 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 distinc-
tion of shape than by colour that the keeper dis-

72 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

covers 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 dis-
tance, 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 per-
formance ; 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 unyield-
ing nature of wood, which they cannot scratch into

THE BROODY HEN 78

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 sjwt 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 wisest poultry-farmer does not understand
broody hens better than the gamekeeper. The

ways of the broody hen are at once deep,
The and stupid, and annoying. No power on

H en 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 disappoint-
ment. 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

74 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

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.

THE BROODY HEN 75

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 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.

76 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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

The as to who shall find the first partridge

men's e ^ M ™^ *** e ^ rs * ph easant ' s e 88« Not
Nests. until May will the partridges' laying

season be in full swing. English part-
ridges 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 com-
pletion 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 LAST OF THE HURDLERS 77

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 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 cen-
The Last tury ago, to-day but one or two old men
Hurdlers 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 be-
cause 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 earn-
ings 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 honour-
able trade.

78 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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
Sej*~p f 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.

9 9 9

THE WOODMAN T»

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

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.

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
jjjj" 1 * 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

80 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

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.

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
Choice by the middle of April, so that his nesting
Places 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.

HIDDEN NESTS 81

And there is no dense canopy of leaves to shut out
the sun that is so loved by the sitting birds.

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 care-
Hidden fully, 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 surround-
ings. 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.

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

82 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

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

dX* 1 ~ a smaU sum ' by wa y of encouragement,
standing usually a shilling for each nest. But the
copser, while chopping up the rows of under-
wood, 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, 9 ' he will say delightedly, "she be hatched
and gone, master. 9 '

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
Many if the spirit of justice were satisfied by
dians 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

MANY GUARDIANS 88

the firpt 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 him-
self, 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 some-
times 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

84 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

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.

¥ ¥ ¥

The twenty-fifth day of April is one of the keeper's
high days. A large number of the twenty or thirty

thousand gamekeepers in this country then
Day commit their first batches of pheasant eggs

to the care of broody hens. Some keepers
cling to this date because their fathers did
so before them, in the same way that ancestral
etiquette decrees that on a certain fair-day cabbage
seed must be sown. No decided advantage is to be
gained by very early hatching ; but by April 25
the keeper usually has a goodly collection of eggs,
taken from wild birds' nests, and their* quality does
not improve if kept, in an artificial way, longer than
a fortnight. Eyes ignorant of woodcraft would
pass a pheasant's nest which no keeper could fail
to see ; and would pass unseeingly over the brown
form of the sitting bird, heedless of the bright, dark
eyes that keenly watch the intruder's movements.
Pheasants like a little light cover, but do not care
to nest in thick and tangled undergrowth. They
love sunshine, and prefer a site where falls a shaft
of the morning sun ; if you note the position of a
sitting pheasant, you will probably find that her face
is sunwards. The mother bird is very jealous of
the sanctity of her nest ; if disturbed she does not

THE OLD, OLD STORY 85

often return. The keeper, passing by a sitting
pheasant, passes by as though he had seen nothing.

The story of pheasant-rearing begins with the collec-
tion of eggs from wild nests and from penned birds.
Then comes the collection of broody hens to

Sd Story P^y *^ c P* 1 * °' * oster-mother. Then the
lime-washing of the nest-boxes. Hundreds of
wooden boxes, each compartment measuring fifteen
inches square, are placed in lines in a shed or an
open field; the nests are roughly fashioned in the
boxes, of turf and soil, moss, meadow-hay, and straw.
And on the nests are set broody hens, beneath which,
when they have proved their worthiness, are placed
from fifteen to twenty eggs. Heaps of soaked corn
and pans of water are made ready, and once a day
the hens are lifted off their nests to be fed and watered,
and to allow fresh air to play on the eggs* A rope
runs on the ground before the boxes, and to this the
hens are tethered. The keeper lifts off and tethers
his hens at the rate of three or four to the minute.

Seventeen is the regulation number of pheasant
eggs to be put beneath each hen, and seventeen
chicks are put with each hen in the coops in the
rearing-field. The most motherly hens are selected for
service on the rearing-field. Less careful mothers are
turned out when they have hatched the eggs, or, if

86 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

they are willing, are supplied with another clutch.

A hen that will hatch several clutches is too useful

to be honoured with the task of bringing up

The Luck a brood, and must be content to play the

ant r^ar - P art °' ^ving incubator. The keeper knows
ing his hens through and through — and he can

tell when a hen has chicks without seeing
them, by the bristling of her feathers at his approach,
and her instinctive clucking.

An incubator helps the keeper to cope with the
whims and frailties of broody hens. It is always
ready to receive those unexpected eggs which may
be brought to his cottage at any moment, as when
sitting birds are disturbed by sheep or cut out in the
mowing grass. And it is ready to take charge of the
eggs abandoned by a fowl, or the chipped eggs of a
foster-mother which shows an inclination to crush the
chicks as hatched. Yet it will be long before it ousts
the broody barn-door hen from the rearing-field.

In the days before incubators, keepers who found
themselves with more eggs than hens were forced to
strange shifts. One keeper saved the situation with
the help of ducks. Wild duck nested in numbers
on an island in a lake, and one spring day he took
six hundred pheasants' eggs to the island, exchanging
them for the eggs of the sitting ducks. The ducks
proved excellent sitters, but as his hens became
available he would punt to the island to relieve the
ducks of their charge. Pheasants were more prized
in those days than wild duck. Such a sacrifice of

THE LUCK OP PHEASANT-REARING 87

duck for pheasants would be saved to-day by the ever-
ready incubator.

While pheasant-rearing is chiefly a matter of skill,
luck plays a part in success, and of course a light
warm soil, a good situation, a good supply of natural
food, and good weather make all the difference.
If eighty eggs hatch out in a hundred this is con-
sidered good ; if lesp than seventy hatch, this is bad.
A keeper may congratulate himself if he turns a
thousand pheasants into covert from fifteen hundred
eggs set ; anything below one bird turned into
covert from two eggs is considered a poor result.
Keepers believe that chicks cannot be hatched too
late in May or too early in June.

After about twenty-four days the eggs hatch,
and the little chicks are taken with the hens to coops
placed in readiness in the rearing-field ; a place so
jealously guarded by the keeper as to be in his eyes
sacred land. Four or five times daily the chicks
must be fed — at first on eggs, to which is added later
a mixture of biscuit-meal, rice, greaves, and small
bird-seed, until boiled corn becomes the staple food.
Every night the chicks must be shut carefully into
their coops — a long and tiresome task. The danger
of enteritis looms up — ten thousand chicks may be
swept off in a week. When five or six weeks old,
chicks, hens, and coops are carted away in waggons
to the woods, where the chicks must face the dangers
of vermin by night as well as by day until they learn
to go to roost.

88 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

For the keeper the days and nights spent in his
rearing-fields pass in incessant anxiety. He never

counts his pheasants before they are hatched.
I™ ? He may count them as morsels of fluff;
Larder when they begin to use their babyish wings ;

again when they fill the broad ride with
a mass of seething brown — but not until the
bracken is dead, and the trees are naked, and the game-
cart has borne away its burden, does he count them
as his own. Nor does his anxiety cease until the
long tails hang safely in his larder.

They be a good lot of eggs/' the keeper will inform

you as he reveals his store, ready to be given to the

quickening warmth of broody fowls. "I

Eggs don't know as ever I set eyes on better,"

and he will add, " and I don't expect you have

Mothers ne ^ er *" ** y° u denied this he would
not believe you. His pheasants* eggs are
like the apple blossoms : each year more beautiful
than ever. And the more plentiful the more
beautiful. Noting the keeper, as he goes out in
search of broody hens, you might mistake him for
a dealer in rags and bones. He tramps all round
the countryside with an old sack slung over his back
— one of the light, thin kind in which dog-biscuits
come ; or sometimes he drives in a gig, and poultry-
farmers welcome him gladly. He pays half a crown
or three shillings for each hen in broody mood,

THE CUB-STEALING SHEPHERD 89

and so helps to make poultry pay. His difficulty is
to find broody hens at the time when he most needs
them. The ideal is a healthy bird, not one with
pallid comb or inclined to mope ; she must be of
medium size and of light weight, with short legs,
small feet, and a wealth of downy feathers. Above
all, she must be quiet in demeanour. The fidgety,
fussy hen may have excellent intentions, but is
likely to cause disaster to her eggs and chicks. A
big hen with the sprawliest feet, but of gentle dis-
position, and slow to anger, will often prove a better
foster-mother than one a model in form, feather,
and feet, but in temperament a spitfire.

Illicit traffic in fox-cubs and partridge eggs is hard

to stamp out. So long as men will buy fox-cubs

and eggs there will be men to supply them.

The Cub- jf there were no buyers there would be no

stealing

Shepherd middlemen, and there would be fewer cubs

which bear the label, "From Germany."

Cubs, wherever they come from, fetch a

good price, giving ample profit for an hour's hard

digging — say ten shillings each. Cub-snatching is

less risky than egg-stealing. So far as we know,

even to kill cubs is not an offence against the law,

and so there can hardly be a penalty for taking them

alive. The worst that could happen to the culprit

would be a prosecution for simple trespass and

90 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

damage. A cunning, rascally cub-stealer of our
acquaintance was employed by none other than the
local M.F.H. He was a shepherd, and nothing pleased
him better than to hear that foxes were plentiful
when hounds came his way. He knew that in the
spring he would reap many pounds by cub-snatching,
and with small risk of rousing suspicion. But one
spring morning he was caught in the very act of cub-
snatching, and then he ceased to be that Master's
shepherd.

* * *

The old-fashioned professional rat-catcher is seen
as rarely as the mole-catcher, with his rude traps of

wood, wire and string, actuated by a spring
Lures f green wood from the hedgerow. And
Charms ^th the rat-catcher have passed the

secrets of his calling — how, when and where
to use oils and essences to attract rats to their doom.
He knew how to handle rats alive with his naked
hands, and the trick of squeezing the life from their
bodies. The experienced take rats by the back of
the throat, but unless the grip is made in just the
right way a dangerous bite may be received. The
safest plan for the inexperienced is to take live rats by
the tip end of their tails ; then they are helpless, since
their own weight keeps their heads down. Mice,
treated in this way, would curl up and nip their
captor's fingers in a twinkling. He was a deep
character, the old rat-catcher. If there were

LURES AND CHARMS 91

many rats he would destroy many — but if few he
would take good care to leave behind him some fine
specimens for stock. No doubt the oils and pre-
parations invented by himself, or handed down to
him by his ancestors, would not only attract rats for
his catching, but would attract others after he had
gone, so that his trade was kept alive. Thus, perhaps,
arose the old saying that if you kill one rat twelve
friends will come to its funeral. Oils are still used
as lures by the fish-poacher, and also by the game-
keeper. To draw rats into his traps the keeper
sprinkles them with the sweet-scented oil of rhodium-
wood and oil of aniseed. To attract cats he uses
tincture of valerian ; the essences in the root of that
plant having so great a charm for cats that it will
draw them from far and near. To attract stoats
and weasels he uses oil of musk. To entice a fox, a
dead cat is one of the best lures : many a fox, to our
knowledge, has owed its death to an over-keenness
in unearthing a cat that had been shot and lightly
buried. We have heard that dog-stealers induce
dogs to follow them by carrying a piece of wart
from a horse's leg — we know a simpler plan. The
keeper's woodcraft teaches him many ways to charm
wild creatures to their destruction. A common trick
to bring rabbits from their holes is to imitate the
squeal of a rabbit in fear, by applying the lips to the
back of the hand, and producing a tremulous sucking
sound. Possibly the rabbits think that a brother
is in distress, and come to see from curiosity.

92 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

The eggs of plovers in some parts are now receiving
protection all the year round, the Board of Agriculture

having given notice that peewits feed
T *d th W w ^°^y to *^ c benefit of field crops and do
Peewit no injury whatever to the interests of

farmers. The greedy and the thoughtless
have taken plovers 9 eggs in unreasonable numbers,
and total protection is to be welcomed. It may
be argued that peewits 9 eggs are a rare delicacy,
and wholesome food ; that where they may be
taken a limited number of old men may earn a few
shillings ; that a law superior to find-and-take would
be difficult to enforce ; also that taking the eggs
until about the middle of April does not materially
affect the numbers of peewits. What with the effects
of frosts and the destruction of eggs during the tillage
of fields, such as harrowing the fallows and rolling
the grass and cornfields, where peewits mostly
nest, the greater portion of the first layings cannot in
any case survive. But those allowed to take eggs
for the sake of profit will not stop at early ones, and
peewits are such useful birds that thorough pro-
tection for all the eggs would be the best policy.

The partridge and the peewit seem to lead almost
blameless lives. We could claim that the pro-
ductive value of land is improved by the
presence of partridges and peewits. There
is no end to the good work of partridges.

A FRIEND TO AGRICULTURE 93

Even when they devour grain, they are innocent
of doing harm, for they eat only such grain as is

shed on the stubbles — waste grain which none
Partridge could grudge them. They never seek out
S nd J? ie JP^ 11 newly sown, like the rooks. When

a field has been harrowed, directly the
men and horses have gone, the partridges gather
in numbers to feed, and though they may come after
the field has been sown, they come as readily before,
as it is not the grain, but the slugs, grubs, worms,
and insects they are seeking ; bits of weeds and their
seeds, aphides, earwigs, and ants' eggs are eagerly

devoured.

¥ * *

The partridge is disheartened when a broad acreage
is laid down to grass; insect food grows scarce,
and he soon takes his departure. On arable

land thrown out of cultivation the birds
Friend will thrive, because of the hosts of weeds
to Agri- that spring up, and give them food and

shelter; insect food is found on the sur-
face, and partridges multiply. But nothing suits
them better than highly cultivated arable land.
The more the soil is worked, as by harrows, the more
food they are able to find — and the more good they do
by destroying insects and grubs that injure delicate
roots. Where land is needed for partridges there
is every need also of the peasant; and partridges
bring the peasant many a shilling for nests, and,
when work is scarce, many a day's employment at

94 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

good wages (such as wages are), with a hearty lunch
into the bargain.

No doubt one reason why farmers fail to co-operate
properly with gamekeepers in keeping rats down is

because they do not see the damage which
The Rats ra ts inflict upon them. A farmer is deeply
Stacks troubled if he sees a blade of corn or grass

nibbled by a rabbit ; he will make frantic
efforts to secure that rabbit — which has a market
value. But a rat does little visible damage, and
when dead is worth nothing. Another cause of
apathy is that the farmer knows how useless it is
to deal with the rats on his own premises when the
supply is promptly renewed from his neighbours'.
In a single corn-stack he entertains cheerfully, per-
haps, 500 rats. Assuming that each rat eats three
pints of corn a week, the 500 rats in three months
eat fifty pounds' worth of corn, to say nothing of the
grain and straw they damage. In a day, ten rats
will consume enough food to keep a man. If any-
thing further were needed to impress a rat-cherishing
farmer, we might point to the statement that a female
rat may be responsible, theoretically, for between
twenty and thirty thousand descendants in the course
of twelve months. But it is left to the gamekeeper
to be the rat-catcher of the countryside. The farmer
goes cheerfully to bed, unaware that rats are enjoying
themselves in hi? stacks to the tune of two or three

THOUGHTS ON RAT-HUNTING 95

pounds a day. Many keepers destroy two or three
thousand rats in a year.

As a hunter of rats the gamekeeper has no equal,
though he could do little without the help of his

trusty ferrets and ratting terriers. He and
Thoughts his assistants are on terms of thorough
hunting understanding. We know an old keeper

whose ferrets seem to have a strong affec-
tion for him ; they are quiet to handle, and are
treated as pets, but they are the best ratting ferrets
in the world. The keeper does not care to use good
rabbiting ferrets for ratting : they may be lost and
bitten to death — a rat bite is always dangerous.
Ratting ferrets need peculiar qualities, and are not
necessarily the most ferocious of their kind.

The keeper's ferrets seldom nip him, for he knows
how to handle them. A ferret nips, and is not to
be blamed for it, when a hand suddenly makes a
grab at him without warning. The keeper's way
to attract a ferret's attention is by speaking before
touching. " Come on, Betty," or ** Come on, Jack,"
he says in soothing tones, as he boldly puts forward
his hand. His passwords of friendship are useful
for coaxing a ferret from a hole or from impenetrable
bushes. The ferrets tell him if a rat is near by the
action of their tails as they enter a burrow, working
them after the manner of a cat about to spring on a
mouse.

96 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

Why should cats and ferrets at times lash their tails
when approaching prey ? The tail-lashing suggests

suppressed excitement, also a way of gain-
Wh en ing impetus or steadiness for a spring. But
Angered we think it should be read chiefly as a sign

of hostility and ferocity. A ferret enters
a burrow, discovers that there is a rat a little
distance from him, is angered, grows excited at
the prospect of a fight, and lashes his tail. But
we have never observed a ferret to lash his tail when
approaching a rabbit — comparatively a harmless prey.
A cat gives the same storm-signal when annoyed,
as when her fur is rubbed the wrong way, or when
she is about to spring on a mouse or a rat, each
capable of retaliation. But she seems to lash her
tail chiefly when her prey has come suddenly to her
notice without warning ; when she has been lying
for a long time in wait for a mouse, her tail hardly
twitches, in spite of her excitement ; she is cool and
collected, and her spring brings certain death.

When rat-hunting, and working hard, ferrets and
dogs grow excessively thirsty. One old keeper friend

always takes the trouble to carry with him
Thirst a sma U flask °' water for his ferrets, offering it

to them at intervals in the palm of his hand.
For his dogs also he carries water and a tin dish — while
he seldom goes out ratting without a gallon jar contain-
ing what he describes as " a little summat " for himself.

LIFE-IN-DEATH 97

Now and again it happens that a ferret is killed acci-
dentally while at work. And sometimes dead ferrets

return to life, health, and strength in a way
if 6 " *° P u * even cats to shame. We recall how
Death a rat-hating keeper's wife, notorious for the

quality of her right arm, was one day help-
ing her husband to hunt rats in a wood-shed. On
the ferret suddenly popping out his head from a
wood-pile, the good woman lost her wits, and aimed
a shrewd blow with her poker at the ferret's nose.
In tears, she left the poor little beast still and stark.
A gardener was asked to bury it, and plant a carnation
over the grave. He found it in the dustbin, eating
the head of a duck.

In another case, a rat-hunter knocked a ferret
with a hurdle-stake from the eaves of a corn-stack
far out into a field, where it was picked up appa-
rently dead, and put into a bag. Some hours later
the body was tipped from the bag into a little grave,
when it startled the gravedigger by gasping for
breath. In a little while the corpse celebrated its
resurrection by slaughtering all the pheasants in a
pen, and just as they were beginning to lay. Once
we saw a ferret struck by a pellet from a gun, which
went through its head, a hair's-breadth below the eyes.
Both eyes were blinded ; yet the ferret recovered,
and lived and worked as long and well as most of its
kind. Ferrets are tougher than they look. The weak
spot, no doubt, is in the lungs.

¥ ¥ ¥

98 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

The present type of show fox-terrier is too big and

too long in the leg for ratting in hedges. Little

dogs are called for, full of sense and pluck,

Ratters w ^ w ^ e heads, stron g jaws, bully chests
and short bodies on short legs, which carry
them as quick as lightning almost anywhere among
the thorn hedges. The keeper does not care for his
ratting terriers to hunt anything but rats — and the
difference in the work of a rat specialist and a general-
purpose dog must be seen to be believed. He does
not enter his puppies to old rats, for the puppies may
be badly bitten, and perhaps their ardour and dash
will be ruined, and they will never look at a rat
again.

The general-purpose terrier develops grave faults.
If a rabbit or a hare is started, he prefers giving chase
to going on with the rat business : he attacks ferrets
as well as rats, and he prevents rats from bolting by
jumping about over the burrows and poking his nose
into them too freely. A terrier must be taught to
restrain himself until a rat has bolted. The keeper
holds him down, cuffs and rates him soundly each
time he tries to go too soon, but gives lavish praise
if he waits until the right moment. After a time,
the little terriers so well understand the necessity for
allowing rats to bolt that they will crouch as motion-
less as statues, with their noses almost touching the
edge of the hole. So crafty was one we have owned,
that she would crouch in this way, with her body
round the corner, out of sight.

IDEAL RATTERS W

All plans for the destruction of rats are welcomed
by the keeper, because rats are the most numerous of
all egg-thieves. He heartily joins the foxes, stoats,
and weasels in their war on rats, though he is for
ever at war with his co-operators. He believes that
there are now more rats than ever, and has figures
at his finger-tips to prove the growth of the rat-
plague. If, he argues, there were only one rat to
every acre in England and Wales, and if each rat
did damage only to the extent of one farthing a day,
the loss in a year would be £15,000,000. And he
quotes a report which says that a single poultry-
fancier in Dorsetshire lost £80 in a year through rats ;
that the owner of a flour-mill lost £150 in a year,
through the gnawing of sacks alone; that men
have attributed their bankruptcy chiefly to rats ; and
that the damage done by rats in this country is
greater than the damage done by the cobra and
tiger in India.

The gamekeeper holds that there ought to be com-
plete, organised co-operation against rats over wide
areas, and heavily blames the farmers for not giving
proper assistance to keepers in their rat-war. By
delaying over-long the threshing of their corn-stacks
farmers certainly give rats a grand chance to in-
crease and multiply ; and when ricks are left un-
threshed until April the rats leave them without let
or hindrance, to spread over the countryside as the
weather grows warmer, and food is to be found every-
where. The keeper argues that ricks should be

100 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE -BOOK

threshed betimes, to allow the rats to be properly
dealt with. A day or two beforehand he would
have the rats which lie in outlying burrows, in neigh-
bouring hedges, driven into the rick ; this can be
effected by tainting the burrows with paraffin — a
simple plan is to blow in smoke from paraffin-
steeped rags with a bee-smoker. Then the keeper
would have the rick surrounded by half-inch wire-
netting. At the time of the threshing he would like
to be summoned to the scene, and he would see to it
that there were six or seven smart ratting-dogs
present, and that they were constantly supplied with
drinking-water. In one case where this plan was
tried, six hundred rats were accounted for from one
rick. Even after threshing and rat-killing on these
lines, rats will be found, if sought, in hidden holes
where the rick stood — packed to suffocation to the
number perhaps of seventy or eighty.

The keeper does not always take his ferrets with
him when he goes ratting. Usually they are too

large to enter rat-holes freely, and even the
****! ng sma u rat-ferret has difficulty in turning
Ferrets round. And when a ferret has once entered

a hole a rat cannot pass him, and so may
be prevented from bolting and showing sport. The
sport takes place underground, unless the ferret
retreats while there is time. The fight ends either
in severe punishment for the ferret or in the death of

RATTING WITHOUT FERRETS 101

the rat ; when the ferret proceeds to gorge himself
on his victim — and to lie up.

Again, it is more difficult to find a lingering ferret
in a rat's hole than in a rabbit's burrow; a line-
ferret sent in to explore cannot move about in the small
rat passages as in the roomy tunnels of rabbits, and so
cannot locate the free ferret. To dig for a ferret in a
rat's run is always risky ; the diameter is so small
that the spade may cut through without any warning,
and also cut through the ferret. When the spade
breaks through the crown of a rabbit's hole, on the
floor of which is the ferret, the man with the spade
naturally eases his pressure. But the ferret fills the
rat-hole to the roof.

There is still another danger in ratting with ferrets ;
the dogs, unless very well trained, may bring about
a tragedy. Even when a dog is ferret-proof the
ferret may plunge teeth into the dog, who naturally
retaliates. On all these accounts the keeper may
prefer to go ratting with an iron bar in place of a
ferret.

By using an iron bar instead of ferrets for bolting
rats, all kinds of difficulties and delays are prevented ;
and the keeper is free to go home at any time with-
out having to wait for loitering allies. To strike an
iron bar into a rat's hole is to strike terror into the
rat's heart. One might probe a rabbit's burrow
with a bar for a month, and no rabbit would bolt —
indeed, the more one probed the tighter would the
rabbit sit. In rabbiting, a bar is used only to find

102 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

holes and save digging. But thrust a bar anywhere
near a rat's subterranean lair, and probably the rat
will bolt, as if possessed, at the first time of asking.
Such an effect does probing have on rats that they
will fly before the crowbar well knowing that enemies
await their appearance. Even with a dog at the
hole who has grabbed at the rat more than once,
the rat will fly before a shrewd thrust. The art of
thrusting is to drive the bar into the hole behind
the rat, not blocking the way by which it will bolt.

Rats seem to have a deep-rooted terror of anything
that probes and prods. Perhaps some of them
when their holes are disturbed associate the trouble
with pitchforks. For hundreds of years rats have
lived in corn-ricks, and at threshing time when the
sheaves have been lifted by pitchforks have bolted
furiously. The first thrust of the pitchfork into a
protecting sheaf puts out the rats, though well aware
of the presence of men and dogs. When the iron
bar comes crashing into the burrow, perhaps the rats
half expect the soil to be uplifted as if it were a
sheaf of corn.

SUMMER

The gamekeeper has a way of putting things to
surprising and ingenious uses. Usually he carries

a dog-lead concealed somewhere about his
A person — a yard or two of string attached to

Chorister a simple spring clip ; and this lead serves

a hundred purposes apart from restraining
dogs. One case we remember well, where a dog-
lead saved a situation. The vocal services of a
keeper had been impressed for a festival of choirs ;
but when he arrived, just before the procession was
timed to start, it was found that the one cassock
which would encircle his figure was so long that he
could walk in it only with danger of falling. Of
course there was no string anywhere to be found,
except in the shape of the dog-lead. The dog-
lead saved the day, and the robed procession started
off, lustily singing. It chanced that the keeper was
one of the two leading choirmen, and when he noticed
that his companion was rather headstrong in taking
a corner, " Heel, will yer," he was heard to mutter,
absent-mindedly, as he flicked his friend with the
snap of his dog-lead from a besurpliced arm-hole ;
*' heel, sir, heel."

103

104 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

There was something pleasing about the old familiar
name for the gamekeeper — " Velveteens " : but it has

been dropped almost completely, because
veteens no ^ on 8 er appropriate. In the old times all

gamekeepers were clad in ample coats of
velveteen. To-day, for one in velveteen you may
see a hundred in tweeds. And it is only the Cockney
who calls the keeper " Velveteens " to his face —
thereby putting him on his dignity at the least, if
not insulting him. The old-time coat was pleasant to
the eye, so long as it was kept unspotted by rain.
But its bloom departed after a few minutes' exposure
to a generous shower, and no amount of drying or
brushing would bring it back. Moreover, the shirt
of the man beneath the coat would probably suffer
also from the wetting. The best of velveteen was its
thorn-resisting qualities. Tweeds resist rain besides
the thorns — the thick, heavy, closely-woven tweeds
of the neutral brown tint that are now the fashion
for keepers' clothes. It is a long time before they
can be thoroughly wetted — and the keeper's wife will
tell you it is as long before they can be thoroughly
dried. They have two drawbacks — if made to fit
closely and well they are uncomfortable for shooting
until almost worn out ; and they are too hot and
heavy for summer wear. Employers would be
investing profitably if they allowed their keepers,
instead of the one suit a year, a summer and a winter
suit. Comfort in dress makes a wonderful difference
in the keeper's work; hence the keeper's affection

OWLS AND HAWKS 105

for his oldest things and his scorn of appearances.
His old breeches and gaiters become part of himself.
A keeper who always donned trousers on Sunday
invariably wore the old gaiters beneath them so that
his legs might feel properly encased.

Small birds, like men, misunderstand the owl —
and it is always a curious sight to watch the
Owls mobbing of a night-bird by other smaller
Hawks birds. Presumably the angered birds mistake
the owl for a hawk. At any rate, they know
him for a stranger, and no proven friend. When
the swallows are alarmed by the appearance of an
owl in day-time, they perform wonderful feats of
flight, as they dart at the great bird from every angle,
and swerve about him in every degree of curve. We
have counted fourteen swallows' nests built in a shed
against a pigeon loft wherein a pair of barn-owls
were rearing their three young ones ; we wondered
how far the swallows were aware of the owls' presence,
and what they thought about it. If they mobbed a
parent owl by day there could be little real cause
for their wrath — as little as when a missel-thrush or a
jay joins in the outcry raised in the wood against the
brown owl.

Enlightened keepers leave all hawks unmolested,
except perhaps on the rare occasions when they
catch one in the act of gamecide. Beyond question,
hawks as a rule do far more good to game interests

106 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

than harm ; and the kestrel, if he ever does any
harm, pays for it a hundred-fold by his tireless
industry in keeping down mice and voles. Onee we
carefully watched for several weeks the nests of
three pairs of sparrow-hawks ; and among the re-
mains of their feasts the legs of only one young
pheasant were discovered.

It is time, and high time, that sparrow-hawks were
placed under the protecting wing of the law. Genera-
tions of gamekeepers have persecuted them
The relentlessly : it says much for their courage,

Hawk remain to offer a target for the keeper's gun.
But they grow scarce ; they are seen far less
commonly than kestrels, whose usefulness and inno-
cence of gamecide is beginning to be a little under-
stood. If sportsmen would consider the evidence
for and against sparrow-hawks as despoilers of game —
if they would rely no longer on prejudice and crass
ignorance — we feel sure they would take steps to
stay the wanton slaughter by their gamekeepers
of these handsome, useful birds. Keepers ought
to be forbidden to destroy any sparrow-hawks, ex-
cept those which clearly prove themselves guilty of
killing game as a habit. How thoughtless, ruthless,
and mistaken is the keeper's zeal in killing them, we
could show by a hundred instances. To take one ;

THE BOLD SPARROW-HAWK 107

It chanced that part of a patch of buckwheat had
been left unharvested, so that the pheasants might
help themselves to the grain. Thousands of small
birds flocked to feed on the choice feast. A game-
keeper noticed that sparrow-hawks found this patch
of buckwheat a fine hunting-ground, and would
perch in a clump of tall trees near by. He therefore
hid himself in the trees, with a gun, and bagged four
hen sparrow-hawks, which had been well employed
in thinning the ranks of the small birds.

Countrymen will speak of the cock sparrow-hawk
as the little blue hawk, as though it were a separate
variety : not knowing that the cock bird is about
half the size of his mate. Blue hawks, pigeon hawks,
and five-barred hawks are among the sparrow-hawk's
local names, arising from the blue-grey colour of the
upper parts of their plumage, from their occasional
habit of attacking wood-pigeons, and from the five
striking bars of brownish black on their tails. Less
common than kestrels, sparrow-hawks are far less
conspicuous : while the kestrel hovers high in the
air on the lookout for prey (whether a mouse or a
grasshopper), the sparrow-hawk's way is to glide low
over the fields and along the hedges, swooping sud-
denly through gaps to pounce on unsuspecting small
birds. The size and shape of the wings, and therefore
the flights of the two birds, are very different. The
sparrow-hawk's wings are inclined to be rounded and
short ; the kestrel's are long and pointed. While the
young of the two birds have a great deal in common,

108 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

the fledged young may be distinguished readily
by the white spot on the lower part of the back of
the sparrow-hawk's head. Each bird has a fatal
way of coming to investigate the sound of a gunshot.
If a shot is fired in the direction of a hawk flying
far out of range, say a hundred yards distant, it will
instantly dart down and towards the gunner, nearly
always within easy range. We have seen this happen
many times.

¥ ¥ V

Like the kestrel, the sparrow-hawk is content with
a slovenly nest, which it builds of dead twigs on

the ruins of other nests — usually those of
Ne ^ magpies, crows, or pigeons. Or it uses a
Young squirrel's drey as a foundation, or comes

year after year to its own old home. Usually
the chosen site is not very high in a tree — larches
and oaks are favourites — and the nest will be found
near the trunk : in short oaks it may be in the cup
formed where several branches spread away. We
have found a nest within ten feet of the ground.
The nest, when you climb to it, is much larger than
it appears from below, and only a man with long
arms could encircle it. There may be five eggs,
pale white, blotched with dark chestnut-brown, the
markings of eggs in one clutch sometimes showing a
beautiful variation, while the markings of the clutches
of different birds differ considerably. The shells,
like those of the kestrel's eggs, are very thick— even

NEST AND YOUNG 109

the hawk's sharp claws would hardly puncture them
without intentional effort.

Should you hear a soft whistling in a wood — not
unlike the whistling of the farmer's wife when she
calls her chickens to meals, but much subdued —
you may know there is a sparrow-hawk's nest not
far away. A glimpse of the whistler gives rise to a
general alarm-cry among blackbirds. If the whistling
leads to the discovery of young hawks, on your
approach they will assume attitudes suggestive of
disgust and resentment. In their poses and markings
there is something owl-like about young hawks :
and, as with young owls, there is a good deal of
difference in the size of the fledglings, and in the
state of their feathering. The strongest young one
has the pick of the food, and quickly outgrows his
brothers and sisters. Should the mother bird be
killed, the cock will rear the family unaided on the
small birds on which they thrive. The preservation
of woods has meant a steady increase in the hosts of
small birds, and hawks in consequence are under no
necessity to prey on game-birds. Some sparrow-
hawks will acquire the game-feeding habit : others
will pounce by chance on a small game-bird ; but
sparrow-hawks are in no way dependent on game,
living for the most part on finches and the like,
thereby helping to preserve the balance of scales
of which the gamekeeper and his master take little
heed.

V V V

110 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

One evening we were passing through a large, old-
fashioned wood, when we came upon a keeper feed-
ing his pheasants — many hundreds of them :
The and the talk went round to the question of
Jut?*' sparrow-hawks and game. We suggested
witted that it was a wise keeper who spared the
sparrow-hawk — that this hawk did not
kill game for a tithe of its food — and that the
time only came to kill it after it had been proved
to attack game as a habit. But the keeper would
not hear of this ; and he thanked his stars, he said,
that not a sparrow-hawk remained alive in his woods.
Just as he said these words we chanced to see before
us on the ride, in the middle of the long rank of
pheasant coops, a dead blackbird. The feathers lay-
scattered about the bird in a circle ; there was
every sign of a sparrow-hawk's work. We called
the keeper's attention to that blackbird's body.
He agreed that a hawk had killed it, and then we
drew from him the confession that he had not lost a
single pheasant from a sparrow- or any other hawk.
The keeper told us a story of how a brood of sparrow-
hawks had been reared in a tree at the back of the
very hut in which the pheasants' food was mixed.
Though the hut was also a sort of watch-tower, yet
the man who spent his days thereabouts had failed
to notice the hawks until the young birds left the
nest. This is not to say that the powerful old hen
sparrow-hawk did not raid the pheasants ; but it
is certain that she outwitted the under-keeper who

A JACKDAW NURSERY 111

worked daily at the hut, and it proves that an under-
keeper may not know all that is to be known about
sparrow-hawks and their ways.

9 9 *

Among the birds not loved by keepers are jackdaws.
One old keeper friend of ours has brought hundreds

of jackdaws to a bad end. One evening,
^ . . years ago, when walking through a park,
Nursery his keen eyes noticed a hole high up in the

stem of an ash-tree ; and as he looked, out
flew a jackdaw — never to return. Passing that way
again, another jackdaw flew out, and paid the penalty
of living in that keeper's preserves. He found the
hole to be a favourite place for these birds, for it
made an excellent nursery for the young. Season
after season, the keeper kept his eye on the hole.
As he went by, he would make a peculiar squeaking
noise, which would call out any birds that might
be at home. The stem of the tree about the hole
became riddled with shot with such curious effect
that when the tree fell the keeper cut out the section
containing the hole; and it may be seen in his
parlour, among other treasures, to this day.

The gamekeeper is a trained detective. He is for
ever setting a trap to catch a poacher. Across a
ride where poachers may come at night, he will
stretch a piece of invisible twine or wire, and he

112 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

is at pains to place it just so far from a sharp stump

that any one tripping will probably break a nose.

Anxious for a good night's rest, he keeps a

Wort**™ **** ^ un " n K m one °* *" s cottage windows,
so that the poachers may think he is out
and about ; or when he goes out he pulls down a
blind in his bedroom, as if he were sleeping within.
Meeting workmen in the lanes near his preserves,
he sends his dog for a sniff at their dinner-baskets —
the dog soon tells him if there is game inside where
should be bread and cheese.

A dreadful idea to the keeper is the thought of cattle
in his coverts. The worst that a mad bull could do

in a china shop would make a faint picture
i^ttJ 6 °' destruction beside the havoc wrought by
Woods cattle in well-stocked preserves. Happy

the keeper whose coverts are guarded by
good fences in the days when flies torture cattle,
and colts are most mischievous. If in hot weather
a breach has once been made in a fence by cattle or
horses, they will persist in trying to find their way
into the woods. One can only pity the pheasant
who sits on her eggs, on some sunny bank of a covert
fence, while a herd of unbroken cart-colts go lumber-
ing round the field, each shouldering each in an ill-
judged swerve from the fence. Even in their calm
moments colts are inquisitive, and leave nothing

CATTLE IN THE WOODS 118

alone that is living and within their reach. We
remember a case where a pheasant nested on the
outside bank of a wood, and the colts in the field,
pushing into the living fence, actually nosed her
from her nest, and there was good evidence that they
then chawed every one of her eggs. Most difficult
of all creatures to keep out of woods are roaming
swine. The strongest of live fences offers only a
temporary check to their boring ability. And pigs
have good noses, and few rabbit-stops and nests of eggs
on the ground escape them. If a keeper's woods are
infested by pigs he can scarcely be blamed for shooting
his own bacon.

The keeper has an eye for the trim and pleasing
appearance of his woods. He takes a genuine pleasure
in their beauty. Jealous of the untrodden appear-
ance of his secret paths, his annoyance is ill-concealed
when the hunt cuts up his green rides. He would
cheerfully forego the reward for the finding of a fox
if he could preserve his rabbit-shorn sward — green
and as smooth as velvet. And in his soul is a secret
hatred of the traffic of the woodmen's waggons. Their
great wheels crush and destroy the promising young
underwood ; woodmen, removing tree-trunks, ruth*
lessly plough up lawn-like turf ; they have no care
and no eye for the young growths of hazel, ash, maple,
thorn or brier, to say nothing of bramble and bracken ;
and their waggons, carts and horses' hoofs spread a
desolation which brings curses to the keeper's lips.

(W (W Qar

114 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

We know a wood near the Hampshire Highlands
that was once famous for its ash, and would be as
famous now if the wood's owner had his
Tragedy keeper's fine feeling. The keeper's heart
of the was cut if frost blackened the leaves ;

lands *k* s was a 8™ 1 * ra 8 e dy* And there were
larches of gun-barrel straightness. An order

was given that the wood should be laid low. The

woodmen came with saw and axe, beetle and wedges,

they cut all the trees, and sent them to the guillotine

of the travelling steam-saw, which spoiled as fair a

meadow as any in Hampshire. Next the woodland

was thrown open to cattle, horses, and sheep. Then

the keeper was dismissed : and glad he was to go.

When shooting parties begin again strange stories
are repeated about pheasants and partridges. We

remember hearing a learned disquisition on
PartrSse*^ subject of the fox and the hen partridge ;

the argument was that the fox is only
occasionally successful when he makes a grab
at a hen partridge sitting on her eggs, and that the
hen, after fluttering from the jaws of death, will
return unconcernedly to her duties. Further, even
if the fox were so lucky as to capture the hen, the
cock partridge would most obligingly take up the
sitting and hatch the eggs. But no case was cited
where a fox had been known to attempt to catch a

A STUDY IN PERSEVERANCE 115

sitting- cock partridge — from which the inference
might be drawn that the fox has a special aversion to
the sitting cock.

Much nonsense of this sort is swallowed with good
faith by those not closely in touch with foxes and
game. We have an old book called " The Life of a
Fox : Written by Himself." In this we read that a
sitting bird acquires a thinness and flavour which are
abhorrent to the taste of a fox ; nonsense guised as
sense could hardly go further. It would be grossly
disparaging to the fox's skill to say that he fails
once in a hundred times when making a grab at a
sitting bird ; and we are sure that a cock partridge
does not take up the duties of his wife as often even
as a fox fails to bring off a catch. We have never
known a cock partridge to take the place of his mur-
dered mate on the nest, but every gamekeeper knows
he will rear the brood when the hen is killed after
hatching.

* * 9

We have a pretty story to tell ourselves about the
perseverance of partridges. In a district where

few were found, a pair had left the fields
A Study aDL< i nested within a stone's-throw of the
verance keeper's cottage. It stood in a green glade,

sheltered on all sides by rambling old woods.
For four successive seasons this partridge pair nested
within a few yards of the same spot : and year after
year something upset their plans, and spoiled all

116 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

prospects of their hope of a covey — a hedgehog,
rooks, inquisitive children, but, luckily, not a fox.
The fifth season found the persevering birds trying
again ; their nest contained seventeen eggs. The
site was an obvious one, but now the birds 9 luck
turned. Just when it seemed that nothing could
keep the nest from the eyes of any curious passers-by,
a fine plant of hemlock sprang up to provide a screen
and shelter. Every egg was then hatched, and every
chick was reared to the flying stage. True, by Sep-
tember the young birds had been reduced until only
nine were left. But as the keeper said, that was
better than that a fox should have killed the old
hen on her nest ; and a family of nine was very
creditable to a pair of five-year-old birds.

Your gamekeeper is a skilled cook, and his open-air
kitchen is a place of curious interest. For the first

five or six weeks of their lives young pheasants
The Hut are regaled several times daily with meals
Woods °' hard-boiled eggs, custard, biscuit-meal,

oatmeal, canary-seed, greaves and rice —
seasoned with spices. Look into the keeper's hut
in the woods, and you will see quite a collection
of sacks filled with choice foods — cracked maize,
dari-seed, groats, rice, preparations of dried meat,
and finely dressed meals of wheat and barley. When
the birds have learned to go to roost only one meal

PHEASANT CHICKS 117

a day is provided. In his kitchen the keeper pre-
pares a thin meat soup, sometimes of sheeps' heads ;
this is boiled, then cooled, chopped lettuce and onion,
and barley and other meals are added, and then the
rations of the pudding-like mass are rolled into small
pellets. Over the keeper's kitchen the keeper's wife
has no jurisdiction. In some sheltered corner from
which he can keep an eye on his birds he builds him*
self a fireplace of two parallel rows of bricks open at
each end, so that he may burn long sticks and save
himself the labour of chopping wood if pressed for
time. Sometimes he will get the village blacksmith
to fashion a sort of iron gallows from which to hang
his great cooking-pots, each containing eight or nine
gallons, and of no small weight. By November
many keepers have cooked the last meal for their
pheasants — others may be preparing a final supper,
whistling till their jaws ache to call the birds to
the meal — on the morrow to do their utmost to
send the long-tails to destruction.

9 * 9

" Mothering " is the factor which makes all the
difference between a moderately good and a very

good season for young pheasants. A hen
CM^ra 11 * pheasant, when her chicks are quite small,

can easily give warmth and shelter to a
dozen or more ; after the first week or so some have
to go without, and unless the weather is fine and

118 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

warm, they perish before they are covered by body
feathers. Weather conditions that have had a bad
/effect on partridges may have little effect on
pheasants. Many suppose that if partridges have
suffered from drought, pheasants, especially wild
ones, must have suffered also. But wild pheasants
have an advantage in several ways. The period
during which they lay and hatch their eggs and rear
their young is much longer than with partridges.
If the last ten days of June be days of cold, heavy,
ceaseless rain, they may practically annihilate the
partridge chicks. But at that time a great number
of young pheasants are old enough to withstand a
considerable rainfall. Nor are the pheasants of tender
age — only a section of the pheasant crop — so much
at the mercy of bad weather as are tender partridges,
for their haunts are chiefly in and about the woods
and hedgerows, which afford shelter from cold and
wet. In times of drought, the pheasants have the
best chance of finding, among the shaded herbage, and
beneath the masses of decaying leaves, enough moist
insect food to carry them over to better days. It is
on account of the better insect-supply in moist places
that in very thin partridge seasons, where birds have
suffered heavily from drought in open places, a few
fine coveys may often be found on the fringes of
woods. And in very wet seasons, the shelter and
warmth of underwood also explain the survival of
strong coveys. The end of September marks the time
of the breaking-up of the pheasant broods. The

THE ROOSTING HABIT 119

young birds no longer remain with their mothers ;
the young cocks begin to feel self-conscious and
gallant in their fine feathers, growing richer daily,
and duels are fought as by way of practice for the
fierce struggles of their first spring. You may hear
at the roosting-time of the birds the crude efforts of
the young cocks to say " cock-up " instead of " peep-
peep." Their utterances are an inharmonious blend-
ing of treble and bass ; indeed old pheasant cocks and
the birds of the year are as different in voice as
grown men and choir-boys, old rooks and young.

* * 9

If one thing annoys a keeper more than another, it
is to have foxes turned down on his beat without

warning. It is bad enough that foxes
The should be turned down at all — especially

Habit before the young pheasants have learned

the trick of going into the trees to roost.
Most of the pheasants living in and about the
woods should go to roost by the middle of August,
and only late birds may be excused if they have not
acquired the roosting habit by the First. In the
past the keeper was relieved of a load of anxiety
if all his hand-reared birds went to tree by the First
— for with the long days spent in the partridge fields
he was unable to watch over his pheasants at night.
But in these days, when there is so little partridge
shooting in early September, the keeper has more
time to give to his pheasants, and his anxieties are

120 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

less, though he is always glad when his birds take
to roosting out of the reach of vermin, especially
of foxes — tame or wild.

Given a fair chance young pheasants soon learn
to go to a perch to sleep. Where one sets a good
example, others quickly follow. We remember a
partridge that was reared with pheasants, and learned
to go with them regularly to roost. Five- weeks-old
pheasants will flutter up to roost on the first night
after removal to covert. It is less difficult to induce
them to seek a perch than to break them of the habit
of sleeping on the ground. Pheasants have an eye
rather for comfortable sleeping quarters than safe
ones. Many a keeper has suffered heavy loss from
putting his birds in a covert with a thick grassy
undergrowth, or within reach of a field of rough grass,
or a young plantation with a thick growth of rank
herbage and attractive weeds. There the fox is
most likely to come.

Ideal quarters for the birds, when the time comes
to shift them from the rearing-field to the coverts, is
ground bare of brambles, fern, and grass, where oak
saplings throw out horizontal branches — not too
thick — a few feet from the ground. With his young
birds in such a place, the keeper may lie on his bed
in peace and thankfulness — to dream of the harvest
of his toil, a harvest which needs but a fine November
day and straight powder to be garnered in abundance.
Where the ground is unfavourable the keeper will
try to teach his birds the roosting habit ; one plan

THE BADGER'S STEALTH 121

is to put the hen and her coop on a raised platform.
This lessens any risk the hen may have to run from
vermin, and encourages her brood to fly to the
roost.

* 9 9

A badger may come to a neighbourhood and stay
for a long while unnoticed. He prowls at night,

unseen and unsuspected, and people may
?mj suppose there is no badger within miles.

Stealth In the same way otters are at home in many

a stream where nobody dreams there is
an otter in the neighbourhood. But let the badger's
presence be discovered, and he will be persecuted
to the end. The wise badger shifts his tent at once
if a human nose is poked into it ; all badgers would
profit if they went to the fox for a few wrinkles.
The foxes have a maxim : Never be at home to callers
who may come again. A visiting-card, in the shape of
a particle of scent, is more than enough acquaintance
for a fox with a human being.

Even the gamekeeper often harbours a badger
unknowingly. What he does not suspect he does
not look for. And if he were to look for a month
for signs of a badger he might never find one. Again
and again he might pass within sight of a badger's
holt, and think it to be the retreat of a fox. But
by chance he might come upon a clear imprint of
a badger's tracks, and after that it would not take
him long to discover the badger's lair. While not

122 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

a friend of the badger, he has no such bitter resent-
ment against him as he feels for the fox. If it were
not that the badger every now and then commits an
outrage that brings disgrace on himself and all his
kith and kin, the record of his life might be written
down as fairly harmless. In these days the badger
can make small claim as a provider of sport, which
might mitigate the sentence most keepers pass upon
him.

We knew of a badger who lived in peace, his
presence unsuspected, for many long months. Then
a series of mysterious poultry massacres began to
disturb the district, and sometimes a dozen chickens
and ducklings would be slain in one night. Some
said fox, others dog ; strange stories of ghosts spread
abroad ; it was even hinted that a wolf had been
imported by mistake with foreign foxes. But one
day tracks were seen that were not the tracks of
fox, dog, or wolf, and a trail of feathers led to the
discovery of a hidden draw-out. The badger was
evicted and summarily shot.

* * 9

The bullfinch is not always made welcome when he
comes to gardens at the time of fruit-buds. And
there are seasons and places in which he would be
welcomed — but comes not. We know a way to
attract bullfinches, even to gardens in towns.
You should take from a hedge-side a few plants of

BIRD WARNINGS 128

the wild geranium, and set them in your town garden
— bullfinches are wonderfully fond of their seeds.
T We have known the birds to find out the

Attract geranium plants in a town garden where
J^" bullfinches had never been seen before.
To this garden they would come regularly,
but always in the early morning. They are cheerful
feeders — they live on insects and larvae, as well as on
many kinds of seeds and berries, in the spring feeding
their young on seeds which have been carefully
softened.

* * *

Prominent among the birds that mob the barn-owl
when he flies forth by day are jays and blackbirds.

They are the noisiest, and to the gamekeeper
j**** the most useful of all the sentinels of the
ings wood. A sudden hubbub from blackbirds

and jays always has a meaning. If the birds
are flying high it is a sign that the barn-owl is on the
move — if low, the gamekeeper's thoughts fly to a
poaching cat. A cat can hardly move a yard in a
wood without a blackbird crying the alarm. His
excited notes, suggesting the sound of the words
" Flint, flint," are taken up by all the blackbirds
within call, and soon the cat is besieged by a throng,
and so closely that the keeper can follow pussy's
direction, though she remains unseen. And the
blackbirds give warning of the movements of stoats
and weasels. The wren, too, is a lively and vigilant

124 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

sentinel, and from its movements one may determine
within a yard where the stoat is lurking. Jays, by
their screams, give prompt warning that a fox is on
the prowl, and no human trespasser, in pursuit of
game or otherwise, can hope to escape their attentions.
A lively reception awaits the fox moving in a wood
by day, and his progress may be marked through
the length of a big covert by the agitated way in
which the cock pheasants mount the trees, with
warning " cock-up." In the open the peewits
will gather to swoop and swerve in anger and
defiance above the fox's head.

9 9 *

There was a small rabbit in our woods who might
have congratulated himself on two wonderful escapes

from death. We first made his acquaint-
A 9 ance in a quiet by-lane, and just in time to
Fates drive away a stoat that was loping swiftly

along on his trail. A little rabbit is pathetic
in fear, and instinctively one is angered against the
stoat which would take its life — though the stoat's teeth
represent the natural weapon of rabbit destruction.
The rabbit fled on his way — directly towards a motor-
car coming at speed round a corner. He darted to
one side, escaping the wheels by the fur of his tail,
then foolishly turned across the road, and again
escaped the wheels by a miracle. We wondered
whether the fate thus avoided would have been easier

GAME-BIRDS AND MOTORS 125

than the one delayed — no doubt soon after the stoat's
teeth bit home in the tender neck.

V * V

We have seen a motor-car drive right over a covey

of young partridges as they dusted themselves on a

road, leaving half a dozen victims behind

° w? e ~ h *'• ^ ut motors are not ^tirety opposed
Motors to g ame interests. The dust they scatter
on roadside hedges greatly helps the hiding
of precious nests. Then the frequent passing of
cars along country roads is certainly a deterrent
to the poacher ; the shooting man in his car takes
note of doubtful-looking tramps and gipsies, and
can spread a swift warning to keepers or police.
Even the smells of the car are a disguised blessing,
overpowering the scent of the sitting bird, and so,
no doubt, often preventing a dog from finding a
roadside nest. The motor has sent up the value of
many inaccessible shooting properties by eliminating
distance. It may be useful to a shooting party when
cartridges have come to an end, or at the close of a
day for transporting game speedily to the station,
or at any time for bringing a doctor when the bag has
been enriched by the addition of a gamekeeper.

9 V *

On a midsummer night, in an old wood, the crooning
of the nightjar, with its whirring, vibrant, monoto-
nous notes, now rising, now falling in key, seems

126 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

the ideal of lullaby. The beautiful night-flying
swallow suffers for an evil reputation. It is a bird

of mystery.
Mysteries The nightjar is the last of our summer
Nightjar visitors, eoming about the middle of May

to stay until September. It is known
almost the world over, but few understand its
ways ; birds of the night suggest evil doings and
inspire superstition. The plumage has the rich, quiet
beauty of the woodcock and the hen pheasant, and
the feathers have the softness of the owl's. In build
the bird comes between a large swift and a small
hawk, and is suggestive of swift or swallow when
seen close at hand, with its miniature, hawk-like
bill and a mouth surprisingly capacious when
open. The eggs, like the swift's, are rounded at
the ends.

It is commonly called night-hawk, or dor-hawk,,
because it preys on dor-beetles, and it is fern-owl,
because it haunts the bracken fern. It is night-crow,,
because when on the wing it cries a crowing note,.
" crow-ic," and it is jar-owl, because of its owl-like
love of night and its jarring or churring song. Wheel-
bird is a name derived from the wheeling flight.
Other names are churn-owl, eve-chunv and night-
churr ; but the oldest and one of the most familiar
names is goat-sucker, derived from the legend that the
bird sucks milk from goats, thereby poisoning them
and causing blindness. Probably some one saw the
bird near a goat, did not know what it was, or

THE RAZOR-GRINDER 127

anything about it, and invented the goat-sucking
myth.

V * V

Another bit of folk-lore about the nightjar is that

it gave calves a disease called puckeridge ; and

on this account country folk still call this

Th e innocent but unfortunate bird the pucker-

A&ZOP

grinder Mge« ^ e disease, in fact, was caused by
an insect which laid eggs on the backs of
cattle, whence emerged grubs to cause the skin to
pucker. The nightjar may often be seen wheeling
about cattle, for the reason, no doubt, that the animals
attract insects and disturb moths. Possibly for the
same reason the nightjar, instead of flying away from
human beings, will flit near about, keeping just in
front of a walking man* Among other curious names
is "razor-grinder." We met a countryman who
only knew the nightjar by this name, derived from
the noise made by itinerant razor-grinders at work.

Perched lengthwise on a low branch or rail, the
nightjar gives to its churring a ventriloquial effect by

turning its head while it croons. Though
trlloouist *k e crooning is monotonous, it varies in

key, loudness, and duration; while the
occasional cry, "crow-ic, crow-ic," reminds one
of the cry of moorhens and tawny owls. A& the
bird flies, the snapping of the beak may be heard as a

128 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

sharp click, whether it is snapped over a moth, or
by way of showing resentment at one's presence —
young wood-pigeons and doves snap in the same way
if disturbed in the nest. The bird has marvellous
control of its flight, and has a way of poising itself
in the air with the wings meeting above the back, like
the wings of the dove in a Scripture-book picture. The
serrated claw on the middle toe is probably used for
catching prey, and for clearing away fragments that
cling round the gaping mouth ; while the long bristles
that grow from the jaws entangle moths as in a net,
as the bird flies with mouth wide open. It finds good
hunting among oak-trees, and is especially fond of
several of the many insects that chiefly haunt the
oaks.

The nightjar is among the nestless birds, and is
content to lay its two eggs on the ground. When
hatched the young are covered with down like young
peewits, and they grow at an amazing rate. An old
nightjar, when disturbed from its young, will go
through a despairing performance, flitting to a low
branch near by, and flapping or wringing its wings in
a disconsolate manner, as though to say, " Please go
away — please do go away ! " The old bird seems
to know how helpless is the position of the young ones
if once discovered by a foe. But it is never easy to
pick out the young birds from their surroundings,
while the mother bird on her nest is as good as
invisible.

V 9 V

THE COCK AND THE HEN 129

Not all familiar with partridges know how to dis-
tinguish the cocks from the hens by the few minute
differences in plumage. In flight the birds

The Cock are go a m e i n g^ that it is impossible to

and the „ . _

Hen **" them apart — unless, perhaps, they are

in pairs, and one goes away ahead of the
other on being put up, when the cock may be the
hindmost bird. The usual test of sex is the chestnut
horseshoe of the breast. The cocks display a fine
bright horseshoe badge, while the hens have a
few chestnut spots on a whitish ground. However,
some insist that this test is not always infallible.
One to be trusted absolutely, so far as we know, is
the striking difference in the lesser and median wing
coverts. In each case there is a light buff stripe
down the shaft ; but the cock's feathers have a
chestnut stain which is lacking in the hen's feathers,
while the hen's feathers have zigzag buff cross-bars
(of the same hue as the shaft stripe), which are lack-
ing in the cock's feathers. There are other differences
which the experienced eye sees at once ; and there are
differences also in the neck feathers. In the adult
cock they are grey, with no shaft stripe ; in the hen
they are brown, with a light shaft stripe. The age
of birds is to be determined to a certain extent quite
simply. Those with bright yellow legs are birds of the
year. Those with their first pen-feathers rounded
are more than a year old, for in the young birds these
feathers are pointed at the tip.

* V *

180 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

To be able to name the different sorts oi feathers

to be picked up on any woodland walk is an interest

like that of the knowledge of flowers, which

2? -.. allows one to give each wayside blossom its

Finding .__ .

Feathers name « The gamekeeper may put by the

more beautiful feathers he finds for presents

to his friends. The jay is killed for an egg-thief,

but his blue and black wing is borne afterwards

to church on the hat of a village maiden* The

keeper has an appreciative eye for the burnished

metallic hues of the feathers of cock pheasants of

every kind* What greatly pleases him is to point

out to the ignorant the existence of those two peculiar

feathers in the wings of woodcock — the tiny, stiff,

pointed feathers, growing close against the base of

the first flight feather's shaft in each wing. These

he could pick out in the dark by sense of touch. They

are to be found in snipe's wings — in which they are

lighter in colour, and even more minute — and in other

birds, but it would be difficult to say what particular

purpose they serve beyond a finish or covering for the

exposed edge of the first flight feather. An unwritten

law entitles the shooter of a woodcock to these

particular feathers, and formerly the etiquette of

sport allowed him to wear them in reasonable numbers

in his hat. To-day one may sometimes see them in

the hard hat of the poulterer. Painters in olden times

appreciated the stiff points of the feathers for delicate

work. And there was an agent on a Scotch shoot

whereon woodcock are plentiful who maintained the

WHEN THE DOG'S ASLEEP 181

national reputation for thrift by using the feathers
as nibs for writing. But we suspeet he did more
woodcock shooting than quill-driving.

Rats are marvellously cunning, they never fail to

seize an opportunity and make the best of it. They

are as bold as cunning, and take desperate

When the risks ; but no doubt they know their own

Doer's

Asleep powers. The cunning and the boldness of

rats are made evident when one is seen
eating the crumbs of a biscuit beside a sleep-
ing dog. Rats soon find out that where there is
a dog in a kennel there will be food — not crumbs
only, but an assortment of bones, and many a tit-
bit, despised by a fastidious dog, from that com-
prehensive dish, household scraps. It is strange to
watch a rat stealing a feast within a few inches of a
sleeping terrier — the very rat for whose blood the
terrier has wearied himself by scratching at a hole
for the greater part of the day. Should the dog
wake up and dash for his enemy, the rat coolly
darts beneath the kennel. It is a thousand to one
against the dog catching the thief.

9 * V

Keepers as a class have no love for rats ; but there
is one keeper who regards all rats with the deadliest
loathing, on account of a little experience. He had
taken a new berth, and arrived at the cottage which

182 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

was to be his home some days in advance of

his wife, taking bread, a ten-pound cheese, and a

cask of beer, on which to subsist until the

tltS more luxurious day* o* Ws ™te ,s eo™ 1 *-
Having found that the outgoing keeper had

carried off the front-door key, he brought his most
valuable possessions into his bedroom, including
the bread, cheese, and beer. Thoroughly tired with
his journey and his unpacking, he slept so well
through the first night that some mysterious sounds,
as in a dream, failed to rouse him. On awakening,
he discovered that rats had paid a call, and had eaten
every particle of the bread and of the ten-pound
cheese. They had even assaulted the bung of the
beer-barrel, happily for them and for the keeper
without success. During the first three months of
his residence this keeper killed no fewer than 600
rats in and about his old-fashioned cottage.

Thinking of the rats who assaulted the beer-
barrel reminds us of the story of a clever rat that
drank from a wine-bottle by first inserting, then
licking, his tail. Rats are so cunning that one can
believe almost anything told of them. They suffer,
at times, terribly from thirst. There is no doubt
that a dry breeding season means a small crop of rats,
which seems to support the theory that when hard
pressed by thirst larger rats kill the little ones for
the sake of their blood. When feeding on corn, in
ricks or barns, a spell of rainless weather means
much suffering, even if dews compensate in some

BLOOD AND WATER 188

measure for the absence of water. If you would
see rats at their merriest, watch a corn-stack on a
summer evening when a shower has come after
scorching days. In a little while a rustling will be
heard, and the rats steal out to gulp the raindrops on
the thatch and the herbage near by. We have seen
a rat so thirsty that in spite of being driven back
to his hole each time he appeared, every half -minute
he would again attempt to reach a farm-yard puddle.
A farmer who shot at one rat killed no fewer than seven,
which had crowded to drink from a wayside pool.

We have a cat which, when thirsty, sometimes drinks

from an open tub, balancing herself on the edge.

When the water is too low for lapping she

Blood ^n ^p j n a front paw and lick off the

Water water in delicate and dainty fashion.
Bloodthirsty creatures require deep drinks :
stoats and weasels go often to water. But
creatures which feed on green-stuffs seldom drink
water directly, but in the shape of dew, or the moisture
of their food. Sheep, when feeding off root-crops in
autumn and winter, have little need of water, and
rabbits and hares are not great drinkers. Partridges
are among many birds that may drink only of rain-
drops or dew, or quench their thirst with juicy seeds
or insects. Dry summers always mean plenty of
partridges — yet one hears, each dry summer, that
partridges are dying in numbers from drought. It

184 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

is rather the absence of moisture-supplying insects

that is fatal to the birds.

Midsummer Day might be marked as the partridge's
birthday, since the majority of birds are hatched

about that time — a month later than the
Th* majority of pheasants break their shells.

Opening People are sometimes puzzled when they

realise that pheasants are preserved for
two months longer than partridges. The reason,
of course, is that pheasants mature slowly, and par-
tridges quickly. But are partridges given fair grace ?
We think not — and would advocate a later opening
day for partridge-shooting. Not a partridge of the
year is matured on September 1, in size, or strength
of flight, or endurance. The young birds are still in
the drab-feather stage ; their legs are bright yellow,
an infallible token of youthfulness ; and it is rare,
before October, to find one with the horse-shoe
chestnut feathers on its breast, or with rufous head —
the signs of maturity. The heavy toll taken on
small shoots during the first fortnight of September
is not only unfair, but unwise, and often fatal to the
good prospects of future seasons. Another mistake
commonly made is the shooting of too many hares
in September. Many of the does are still suckling
leverets ; and does, that breed for the most part in
the fields, form a large proportion of the hares met
with in September partridge shooting.

'WARE WIRE 185

Wire netting is the cause of many a tragedy to young

pheasants. One may see it stretching for miles on

the fringe of woods as a fence against rabbits.
'Ware
Wire Suppose a hen pheasant, with her brood,

has been making an excursion to the fields.

She comes to the wire and finds her return passage

barred. Seeing that most of her little ones have

wriggled through the meshes, the mother flies over,

and goes on. But as often as not she leaves behind

her one or two chicks, and these the flower of her

flock — for they are the ones so well grown as to be

just too large to pass through the meshes. Sooner or

later, after fluttering to find a loophole, the little

necks become caught, and after a few frantic struggles

the chicks hang themselves. Or night comes on,

and some prowling vermin saves them from a slow

death by exhaustion through their vain efforts.

Pheasants, beside partridges, are stupid mothers :

nor have young pheasants anything like the common

sense of young partridges. The mother

Witlfiss

peasants partridge is the most careful mother, and

by example soon teaches her young ones

to use their wings. One hears the old partridges

calling all through the day to their young ; but the

little pheasants must fight their own battles with

less encouragement, and look after themselves. One

may see a hen pheasant leading her brood towards a

dike, over which it is obvious they are not strong

186 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

enough to pass. But without a look to see if they
follow her or not, she flits across ; then, finding that
a few are with her, having managed the passage, she
hurries on, as if she had not a thought for those left
behind. They do their best to follow, only to fall
into the water, in which they are drowned, or, if the
dike is dry, to become exhausted in their vain efforts
to scale the steep sides.

V V *

Yet it is hardly fair to compare pheasants to par-
tridges. The difference in their habits of life makes

it necessary that partridges should learn to
Laws use their wings more quickly than pheasants.

They will fly when no larger than starlings,
but pheasants grow as big as full-grown partridges
before making much use of their wings. Partridges
mature the more quickly : hatched in mid- June they
are nearly full grown by September, while pheasants,
born in May, are still in their baby stage in October.
Then the habit of the partridges to roost in coveys
on the ground fosters the instinct to spring into the
air and fly on the first sign of danger, all in a covey
acting as one bird for mutual protection. There
is some little excuse for the young pheasants that
butt into wire with such foolish persistency — they
are so near to the wire that their legs have no chance
to launch them fairly into the air. While the desire
of a pheasant, on meeting wire outside a wood, is
to pass through into the covert, the idea of the par*

THE PARTRIDGE JUNE 187

tridge is to turn about, and fly back to the fields
whence it came. The effect of a line of wire-netting
on wild creatures seems to be that they imagine they
are enclosed on all sides. A half-grown leveret can-
tered before us for quite two miles alongside netting
to the left of him ; only after covering this distance
did it seem to dawn upon him that by turning to the
right he might go his way to freedom.

7 V *

What are the ideal conditions for partridges ? First,
an old-fashioned April — growing weather. Then an

old-fashioned May, with blue skies and
£h e genial sunshine, to be followed by a June

June without a drop of rain that would hurt a

fly by day, with occasional warm sprayings
of rain by night, to help on the insect-supply for the
chicks, and to keep the soil just as partridges like
it when scratching for insects, but not wet enough
to clog their feet. The ideal June — the partridge
June — has warm nights and fine sunny days, without
too much scorching sunshine. The fine weather
must go on during the first part of July in the
interests of the later-hatched chicks ; and if August
can behave as it should, so much the better — but
the most important thing is a partridge June.
Nothing can make amends to the partridges for
a wet, cold June ; for nothing can bring their dead
chicks to life.

7 7 7

188 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

We need not think of the effect of frost on partridge

eggs, for the birds cover their eggs when they leave

them, until they are well on their way to-

Pheasants war ^ s k** *" 11 ^ w ^ wonderful care, regu-
larity, and thoroughness ; and here they
have the advantage of pheasants, which rarely cover
their eggs when off the nest. Another advantage of
the partridge is the hen's faithful mate — to help
to shelter the brood from the weather and keep
them warm. One bird might be able to manage
this for fifteen little ones during their first week of
life ; but afterwards she could not possibly give
the vital warmth to more than half her offspring.
To the chicks of the pheasant hen a risky time is
between the shedding of the soft fluffy down of
infancy and the growth of feathers proof against
cold and wet. Where pheasants have the advantage
is that their hatching-time is spread over many
weeks ; so that whereas partridges may have their
hopes ruined by a week or by a few days, or even a few
hours of bad weather, the pheasants' hopes are never
blighted while summer lasts.

It may be urged that if there are few young par-
tridges there must be few young pheasants, and
this to some extent is true. Though the breeding
conditions of pheasant and partridge are very differ-
ent, a bad season for one can hardly be a good season
for the other. With partridges, the great trouble
is that nearly all of them nest about the same time :
where one brood suffers from bad weather, thousands

FAVOURED PHEASANTS 189

must suffer. For ten days after hatching, partridges
are at the mercy of the weather. Let one of those
marble-sized drops of rain strike a newly hatched
chick, and its day is done. As one sharp frost destroys
all the apple-crop of a countryside, if it comes when
the trees are in full bloom, so a deluge in mid- June is
fatal to all young partridges. Even a day's thunder-
rain, between the fifteenth and thirtieth of June,
would almost excuse a partridge keeper if he com-
mitted suicide — though we have never heard of such a
thing.

Heavy warm rain is bad enough — heavy cold
rain is simply disastrous when it falls day after day,
for weeks, from the time when most partridge eggs
begin to hatch, until all except the second clutches
cure hatched — or flooded out. It is hardly worth
considering whether the wet or the cold claims most
victims : enough that if wet fails to bring about a
tragedy, cold finishes the work. The sunless days,
the everlasting rain, the drenching herbage, and the
sodden soil wipe out most broods to a bird. It is
not, as many suppose, a question of a good hatch
that controls the supply for September, but it is
simply a question of the weather for the first fortnight
after hatching. Usually, if any eggs in a nest hatch,
all the eggs hatch ; but we may say that if only half
the eggs in each nest hatched, and a fine fortnight
followed, more birds would be reared than if every
egg in each nest produced two chicks, and a drench-
ing fortnight th$n set in,

140 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

In a wretched hatching season, the best luck is
often with the intermediate early broods. They fare
least badly. As to second nests, it never makes
much difference to September's sport whether they
prosper or not. A covey of a dozen, in a September
following a wet June, is a good covey. The most
general coveys are coveys of old birds — or coveys
consisting of one young bird ! There is no more
reliable sign of a poor partridge crop than a good year
for roots.

¥ ¥ ¥

We remember how an experienced keeper was quite
at sea in his judgment of a particular covey. It

had been a bad season, and after the corn
A Covey h a d been cut he knew of only one good
Ancients covey; it numbered nine birds, and fine

forward birds they were. On this covey
he set great store against the coming of September.
It happened that he was bidden to shoot a couple of
brace of young birds for dinner at " the house " on
the First. With his first shot at the covey he bagged
the old cock. He pursued the rest of the covey,
bagged another bird, also an old cock. Disappointed
but still hopeful, again he pursued the covey, again
he bagged another bird, and again it was an old cock
that fell to his gun. He went on until he bagged the
ninth and last bird, and the ninth was no better than
all the others. It was a sad keeper who went home
that day with his nine old birds. Ever since he has

KEEPERS' WOE 141

been sceptical about coveys of forward birds. But
he always says now that foxes at least show gallantry
in the matter of " ladies first/'

If June proves wet, despair reigns in the partridge
keeper's breast. With hopeless eyes he looks for-
ward to the coming season. One keeper of
yf^ our acquaintance, one wet midsummer, a
time when, in a promising season, he would
have had no moment to spare from the care of his
young birds, married, and went for a honeymoon.
" Lor' love ye," said another, weary of June rain,
" I might just as well 've bin in bed for a month past."
A common remark made by keepers in a rainy June
is the mournful plaint, " Ye don't see no feetmarks
on the roads, but old un's."

The more we see of red-legged partridges the more

we appreciate their powers of running. They are

„ _ _ wonderful birds for eluding the tactics of
Red-Legs

walking-up parties ; even where the birds are

plentiful it is rare to walk-up one within gunshot.

The red-leg also suffers by comparison with the

English birds on the table. But he is a grand bird

for driving (when he is headed and forced to fly),

seldom coming in coveys — so that a dozen red-legs

may afford as many shots as a dozen unbroken

142 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

English coveys. And they come straight, more in
the style of grouse than of the brown partridges.
The two types seldom intermingle, being of differ-
ent species and different genera. In some places
an ill-feeling is still harboured against the bigger
and handsomer red-legs, and it is thought that they
drive away the English birds.

It is a lucky keeper whose shoot is watered by springs
and brooks which never fail in time of drought, for a

continuous supply of water means much to
Water forthe success of game-breeding. But streams
Birds have their dangers : birds will be attracted

to the banks at nesting-time, and if heavy
rains follow, their nests may be destroyed by the
floods. A greater danger lies in the streams which
are winter water-courses only and dry up in the
spring. Herbage will grow luxuriantly at the stream-
side, and birds will be enticed to nest in places where,
after a heavy rainfall, there will rush a raging torrent,
to carry away birds, nests, eggs and all. Some say
that nesting birds can foretell the weather, and choose
their nesting-places accordingly — building on the
banks and higher ground if the season will be wet,
but in the hollows if dry. No doubt their choice is
influenced only by prevailing weather, and the posi-
tion of suitable cover. In a cold, late spring, grass-
fields offer poor shelter, and so the birds choose the

WATER FOR GAME-BIRDS 148

hedges and dikes, where the wild, weedy growth
finds moisture for its roots and protection for
its top-growth. When birds are sitting, the less
they have to do with water the better for their
hopes.

Perhaps it is better for birds to be drowned than
to suffer from drought. A long spell of hot weather
is not in itself harmful to the broods, for sunshine is
the essence of life in their early days ; but while
drought does not cause suffering through lack of
water, it means lack of juicy food, and that is fatal.
Succulent weed-seeds and grubs and insects are not
to be found ; the milkiness is dried out of the seeds,
and grubs and worms go deeply into the soil, beyond
scratching distance. But food enough of sorts
could be found during the severest drought if a little
water were also available. Ponds are useful only
to a small proportion of the broods, and become
waterless when drought is long enough to threaten
serious loss. Heavy thunder-rain after drought
completes the work of destruction. If it comes
within a fortnight of Midsummer Day, it means
calamity to hosts of young partridges, who may be
overwhelmed before they can reach their parents, or,
gaining that shelter, are drowned when the ground is
swamped.

Many keepers never give their young pheasants
water until they have been removed from the rearing-
field to covert — but their food is made dry or moist
according to the weather. This plan answers well

144 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

enough until there comes a hot, dry spell which ends
suddenly in rain, and then the chicks drink im-
moderately, and suffer the penalty. That chicks
take the first chance to drink the raindrops from the
herbage shows that water is good for them ; and the
best plan is to provide them with a continuous supply
of clean water from the beginning, so that they
never become thirsty and drink themselves to
death.

¥ ¥ ¥

A continuous supply prevents the straying of pheas-
ants as they grow up, and feel inclined to see the

world, especially when they have been
JR*,, weaned from food more or less pappy to a

diet of hard corn. Another benefit is felt
by the gamekeeper : where there is no constant
supply, he must trudge many weary miles carrying
heavy buckets of water, and he knows all the time
that his labour is almost in vain — so much of the
precious water is wasted by evaporation, and fouled
by the birds washing themselves, and by the drifting
of leaves. If artificial supplies are relied upon, it is
always difficult to supply enough ; if rain is relied
upon, there is usually far too much. For game-
birds, the ideal covert is one with never-failing brooks,
and the ideal weather is the ideal weather of April
— days of warm sunshine with occasional light,
warm showers by day to supplement the dews of
night.

THE THIRST OF RABBITS 145

Nothing keeps down rabbits more thoroughly than a
soaking wet summer ; while heavy rains drown the

partridge and pheasant broods above ground,
The they also drown the little rabbits in their

Babbits foray nests below. Yet in times of drought,

when herbage is parched and sapless, the
keeper who supplies water for the rabbits to drink
in arid, sandy warrens does much for the prosperity
of the does and their young. Rabbits eat their
young when in want of water, and a dry summer puts
a check on the increase of rats, since the old ones
kill the young for their blood. With rabbits, a
favourite place is always a dry spot by the side of
water, although the ground is likely to be favoured by
stoats. Rabbits found in such places are always extra
fine and fat.

* ¥ *

" Please drive cautiously. Hound puppies are at
walk in the village." We came upon this notice

nailed to the trunk of an ash on the road
Puppies outside a village in Hampshire. The in-
Walk ference suggested itself that so long as those

who might drive furiously through the
village touched no hair of a hound puppy's head
nothing else mattered. Usually, it is the old-fashioned
notices that bring a smile to the passer-by's face :
" Beware of Man-traps," " Spring Guns," " Dog-
spears set here." Walking along the River Stort
we have been startled by a notice beside some of the

146 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

locks, " The Punishment for Tampering with these
Works is Transportation." "Trespassers will be
Punished by Transportation " would be a suitable
legend for a board in a strictly preserved wood,
hinting that if you do not go quietly on request the
keeper will carry you. Reading the new caution to
drivers outside the Hampshire village, we were tempted
to simplify it thus : " Beware of hound puppies."
It is pleasant to see young hounds basking in the sun
in the farmyard ; but when they are at walk in the
charge of the village butcher they may be more than
a general nuisance ; they may terrorise the place.
People who walk hounds do not always undertake
the honour because they like it, but because they
cannot well refuse. The hounds are turned out into
the streets to prowl at large — they slaughter poultry,
spread havoc in many a garden plot, knock down
children, and roam in through open cottage doors,
to steal the labourer's dinner from off his very table.
A pack of hounds under the control of a firm hunts-
man and his whips is one thing — but hounds at walk,
allowed to wander at their will, are a peril to the
community, " Beware of hound puppies " — when
they come up treacherously behind you.

Retriever pups born about the end of January are
old enough, by August or September, to begin their
careers of usefulness. If given light work, during
the second half of their first year they may be ready

!9W!PW!HHfMPpma -. . jmm^^E^m _| . ■ '■ . ' '. v- - ■„

SCHOOLING THE PUPPIES 147

to take an important part in the next shooting

season, when eighteen months old. Spring puppies

are certainly easier to rear than autumn

Schooling p U ppj es — they g row faster, and are likely to

Puppies become finer specimens than the others,
which must endure long months of trying
weather during puppyhood. But there is this in
favour of autumn puppies— they come to their first
shooting season at a more mature age, and intellec-
tually are readier to learn than the six months old
puppies of spring. At the age of twelve months a
puppy begins to put away puppyish things.

It is only possible to gain perfection in the educa-
tion of a puppy by beginning so soon as it is weaned.
From that time the puppy should be taken in hand
by its future master, whom alone it should know
and understand. One can hardly begin too early
to teach the meaning of the word " No," which, to the
puppy, is that it must not do something that it had
thought desirable to do — whether to chase a cat or
rabbit, to be excited at the rising of a lark, or to hunt
a road-side hedge. Another important early lesson
is teaching the puppy its name. For stud-book
and show purposes the name may be, if you please,
" Beelzebub of Babylon," or any other high-flown
title, but for common use it should be distinct in sound,
and preferably of not more than one syllable. Puppies
may be taught their names and obedience at the
same time ; in classes perhaps more quickly and
more thoroughly than individually. It is a good

148 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

plan at feeding-time to have the puppies together,
and put food outside an opening in their kennel ;
then to call out each puppy by name, and on no
account allow any other to come than the one
called. In a surprisingly short time it will be possible
to set open the door and call out each puppy by
name, without forcibly keeping back the uninvited.
In this way a good grounding might be given to the
favourite fox-terriers in obedience, of which so many
have not the slightest notion.

* * *

The power of scent varies much with different dogs :
usually a slow dog makes better use of its scenting

nerves than the fast galloper. It is pretty
Noses to watc k a good retriever following a wounded

bird over ground alive with unwounded
game, yet never turning aside from the one trail.
A dog could hardly distinguish one partridge from
another — probably it is by the scent of blood that
the one line can be followed so accurately. Sports-
men do not always give the dogs fair chances ; they
throw them cheese at lunch-time, or perhaps allow
bagged game or themselves to taint the wind, so
foiling other trails. In one case a sportsman blamed
a new retriever for not finding a bird which was
actually lying beneath his own boots. And even a
first-rate retriever will sometimes tread on the very
bird he is seeking, without finding it.

¥ ¥ ¥

THE THIEF OF THE WORLD 149

Gamekeepers, we know, have little love for foxes —
for the sufficient reason that they are at one with

foxes in their love of pheasants. Keepers
*r th™ 6 * ** ave also some of that craftiness and worldly
World wisdom so developed in foxes ; they know

it is not always policy to say with their
lips what they believe in their hearts. There are
good people who tell keepers every now and again
that foxes do no harm to game. Keepers have
heard stories in favour of foxes ; they know the rights
of them. Dark and mysterious are the ways of the
fox ; but darker still and more mysterious are the
ways of the keeper with " the thief of the world."
This alone he will admit in favour of the fox : he adds
to the keeper's work an uncertainty which makes
success the sweeter. The fox is a favourite of For-
tune, his needs are fulfilled exactly ; all things seem
arranged in his favour to a nicety. Other creatures
may die of starvation in time of snow ; but the fox
then finds his prey with greatest ease. Cubs are
weaned about the middle of May, and must be fed
on flesh, when a majority of pheasants are sitting.
And when a sitting pheasant is scented or seen by a
vixen in search of food for her cubs, that pheasant,
you may say, is dead. The keeper, though his blood
boils afresh at each nesting tragedy — at the sight
of the strewn feathers of the hen pheasant and at the
cold touch of the lifeless eggs — appreciates the deft-
ness of the marauder's work. He reconstructs each
scene of the plundering — the silent passage of the

160 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

prowling fox, the pause of a moment to sniff and sniff
again the scent that taints the air, the swift thrust
of long jaws between bramble, brier, and bracken,
the grab of gleaming teeth, the stifled cry of the dying
bird, the floating of brown feathers on the wind of
night, and the joy of the cubs at the sight of the
dead bird and the scent of her welling blood. And
then the carnival of feasting at the mouth of the
earth, by the old tree of the cubs' playground, while
the white owl screeches his protest as he passes over-
head, and the mother fox, sitting on her haunches,
licks her chops and watches. The work of a vixen
among sitting birds differs from that of the dog fox.
While she always carries her booty to her cubs, he
kills in wanton waste, leaving the birds' bodies,
often headless, near their nests. Some or all of the
eggs may be eaten, or they may be left untouched,
still as neatly arranged in the nest as the mother bird
left them when she stole off to feed and take a bath
in dust. The keeper may recognise the excuse of
the mother fox's necessity, but for the wanton
slaughter by her idle mate he sees no reason, and
finds no forgiveness.

Only those who have seen the remains of game
scattered round the earth of a litter of cubs — the
cubs of an experienced mother — can realise what it
costs in game to entertain foxes. Where rabbits are
plentiful, pheasants and partridges suffer less from
foxes than where rabbits are scarce, and the keeper
may help a vixen to cater for her cubs by shooting

THE CUBS' PLAYGROUND 151

and snaring rabbits in her favour. He leaves their
bodies, but scattered at a fair distance from the
earth, so that the vixen must spend some time in
fetching and carrying, and has the less time for
making a mixed bag of her own selection.

Unseeing eyes pass blindly over the home of a litter

of cubs ; but the keeper's never overpass the place.

Long furrows through the dog's-mercury and

The Cubs* grasses tell their tale. Primroses are torn

Play-

ground anc * crushed, the great leaves of the burdock

are bruised and broken, the moss is rubbed

from the underwood stumps and from the boles of

trees where the cubs have been gambolling and rubbing

their coats, the excavated soil near the earth is smooth

from the pattering of their feet, beaten hard and

polished — and in all directions there are scattered

wings, feathers and bones. If the keeper calls, and

sees signs of recent rollicking play and fresh-killed

food, and fresh-drawn soil where the cubs amuse

themselves at earth-making and enlarging the burrows

of rabbits, he knows the family to be in residence.

Should the soil near the entrance to the earth have

a green look, he knows the family has gone away.

Who would believe that a full-grown fox could
pass through the mesh of ordinary sheep-netting ? —
four-inch mesh, if memory serves. We know of one

152 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

case where a vixen was actually seen to accomplish

this wonderful feat. With her cubs, she had been

dug out from her earth, carried to a distant

Feat* S P* 1 * °' ^ e country, and imprisoned. The
four-inch mesh must have been a tight
fit for her body; but perhaps she had worried
and fretted at her imprisonment, until she had worn
herself to a shadow. Her cubs, which were un weaned,
may have helped to weaken her strength, and reduce
her waist until it could squeeze through the netting.

The story has a sequel. A town doctor saw the
vixen a few moments after her escape ; and happened
to find himself sitting next to a M.F.H. at dinner.
The doctor remarked, with a well-meant attempt at
affability, " Foxes seem to be plentiful in your
neighbourhood this year." " What makes you think
so ? " asked the M.F.H., with encouraging eagerness.
" Why, only the other day, passing your place about
noon, I saw a vixen with cubs trotting across your
lawn." The doctor swiftly perceived that he had
let the fox out of the bag, so black was the look
that came over the Master's face. But it was months
before he solved the full riddle of the black look,
when he learned that the fox he had seen on the lawn
in broad daylight had only just escaped from her
wire-net prison, so saving herself from the ignominy
of being turned down with her cubs.

The keeper finds his game-nests with his eyes,
the fox with his nose. The keeper who must
preserve game and preserves foxes takes steps to

DOG-WASHING DAYS 158

overcome the scent of his birds. He sprinkles the
neighbourhood of all the nests he can find with some
strong-smelling fluid. But the foulest or strongest
scent will not save a bird when a fox has once seen her.
Fortunately he is not clever enough to know a new
trap from an old one, nor a sound from a broken one,
and the keeper finds at nesting-time a good use for
his disused traps, placing them about birds sitting in
dangerous spots. Anything in the shape of scrap-
iron the fox suspects ; anything unusual about a
nest, such as a piece of newspaper on a bush near by,
will arouse his fears, and possibly save a bird's life.
But as rooks learn to treat scarecrows with con-
tempt, so foxes learn to have no fear for harmless
terrors, and the keeper rings the changes on all the
fox-alarming devices which experience and ingenuity
can suggest.

¥ ¥ ¥

Two or tree times a year, the gamekeeper gives all

his dogs a grand washing ; and his methods should

be marked by other dog-owners, for there

5?*',_, are few who understand dogs better. He

Iflfashincr

Days knows that a dog's coat, like a woman's

hair, is spoiled by too much washing, which

destroys the satiny gloss imparted by the natural

oils. He knows, too, that a dip in a pond or a splash

in a stream only wets the surface of a coat, and

does not cleanse the skin. His method is thorough,

and designed not only to cleanse the hair and skin,

154 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

but to rid the dogs of all the unwelcome guests they
may harbour. Choosing a warm, sunny day, the
keeper gets to work betimes, so that he may have his
dogs washed and out to dry by midday ; they must
be perfectly dry before nightfall. He sets up a
wooden tub on an old box, for his own convenience,
and brings forth his pails and cans of water — water
of just that tepid temperature which a dog likes.
He wants his dogs to enjoy their bath, and knows
that if he scalds or otherwise frightens them they
will be shy of the wash-tub for ever afterwards. To
pitch a dog unawares into a tub of water is as foolish
as to throw him into a pond. He must be coaxed
to his bath with words of encouragement, so that
he will see there is nothing to be frightened about.
Properly treated, dogs soon learn to appreciate the
wash-tub, and there may be trouble in making them
come out.

Having brought the dog to the tub, the next work
is to put him in and thoroughly wet his skin — not
an easy matter with a retriever, who may lie in water
for ten minutes and yet keep his skin dry. So the
keeper works in the water by hand, rubbing the
hair the wrong way, and gently persuading the dog
to lie down. Once comfortably settled in the tub,
a happy look comes over the dog's face. This, by
the way, may not be true of the face of the keeper's
wife, should she come to her door to watch pro-
ceedings, and find that her good man has borrowed
her new wash-tub. To make the best of a bad busi-

SHAMEFACED COCKS 155

ness, she may decide to give her pet goose a good
tubbing ; and this will be one of the grandest treats
in the goose's life.

One old keeper of our acquaintance has a curious
recipe for a dog-wash, and swears that in more than
fifty years he has not found its equal. You must
uproot, he will tell you, an armful of foxglove plants,
and boil them in a copper of water. When the in-
fusion is cool enough, rub it well into your dog's coat,
and lather him with a little soft soap. " And I'll
lay," says the old chap, " that you don't see nothing
about a dog after that, and his coat will look fit to
go to a wedd'n." The keeper's plan is to leave the
lather in his dogs' coats for some little time after
they have left the tub. Every lathery dog is tied up
in turn in a sunny spot, free from draughts ; then
all are rinsed in the order of washing, and are taken
for a long gambol in a field of grass, the keeper taking
care not to let a dog free in a dusty place, for his first
act is to have a good roll, regardless of a clean coat.

At harvest-time the old cock pheasants begin to show

themselves in the woods again. In April one grew

almost weary of the insistent, boasting crows

Shame- f the vainglorious dandies. Then for

faced

Coeks months they seemed quite to drop out of

woodland society. They like to take things

easily through the summer, leaving all family cares

to the members of their harems. And no doubt

156 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

they feel out of sorts, and have no desire to be seen
— for they have to pass through the strain of the
moulting season.

As the last acre of the cornfield is cut, a hundred
young pheasants rise, with self-important splutterings,
before the binders, each bird clearly betraying its
sex by the growing feathers of maturity. But the
cunning old cocks seldom advertise their presence.
They slink stealthily out of the field while the machines
are making their first rounds, and in a couple of yards
from the corn reach the shelter of the hedge. They
steal away with lowered heads, as though to hide
their faces behind each blade of stubble. A dissipated,
dishevelled old ruffian the cock pheasant appears
while moulting — with half a tail, many flight feathers
missing from the wings (corresponding feathers drop
out together from each wing, so that he is not de-
prived of power of flight), and lacking all the metallic
gloss of plumage, burnished gold and bronze. To
come suddenly on a moulting cock pheasant — as
when he is enjoying a quiet dust-bath — is to pity
him. And the way he blunders off suggests that he is
heartily ashamed of himself.

In May the turtle-doves were skimming low across the
fields, after their arrival in this country. During the
last week of August we saw them gathering into little
parties of dozens or scores against the hour of their
departure. The doves leave before the end of

THE LAGGING LANDRAIL 157

harvest — the first chillness of autumn bids them go.
The pigeons remain to continue their feasts of corn.

Their cooing from the recesses of the
Turtle- beeches suggests a well -fed laziness. Great
Dove's feeders as they are, they stuff their crops to

bursting-point, and nothing vegetarian or
fruitarian se^ms to come amiss to them — whether
the greens of root-crops, acorns, beech-mast, clover,
the sown peas, dandelion leaves, sainfoin, anemone
roots, charlock, beech buds, the seeds of bluebells, wild
strawberries, oak-galls, or corn in all its stages. Turtle-
doves pay little attention to corn till harvest-time ;
the seeds of charlock and of other noxious plants are
a greater attraction. Though they fly with wood-
pigeons a great deal, their diet is different, and they
seem to come to ponds to drink more often than the
pigeons, perhaps because some of their favourite
foods, such as charlock seeds, are hot and thirst-
producing. They are among the farmer's best
friends.

* ¥ ¥

Whenever we flush a landrail we wonder that so
slovenly a bird should be able to cross seas in migra-
tion. One doubts its ability to cross a
The wide river. Those who for the first time

LwdraU see a l an ^ ra ^ ™ e might be excused for

supposing it to be wounded — the long

legs trail at full length, hardly clearing the

heads of the clover which forms its favourite

158 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

cover. Few birds are so slow in flight, certainly
no other game-birds — if it is entitled to be classed
with them, because, as for woodcock and snipe,
a game licence is required before it may be taken.
Beaters have surprised themselves by bagging
landrails with sticks and partridge carriers, and we
have known a clever retriever to catch a landrail
in the air. In spite of her wide experience, the
dog mistook the landrail for a wounded bird when
it rose, in its heavy way, some twenty yards before
her, while she quested for a partridge. As if in revenge
for having been fooled, she gave furious chase, and
retrieved it. Flushed in a gale of wind, a landrail will
make some progress, though its flight at first is rather
suggestive of a wind-driven leaf. But after a time the
flight grows stronger, as though the wings had worked
off some stiffness. No bird seems less willing to be
seen than the landrail. Yet it will make itself heard
almost continuously from the first streak of dawn
until darkness. Its harsh-toned " Crake, crake,
crake," seems close at hand at one moment, then
far away, suggesting that the bird is swift enough
on its legs, if slow in flight. It does not travel far,
having arrived from its over-sea journey, haunting,
as a rule, one chosen field, where it is seen only by
the mower, who may accidentally wound the close-
crouching bird with his scythe. Landrails seem to
become more scarce every year, and this is often put
down to the mowing machine, which it is claimed is
more fatal to sitting birds than the scythe. But birds

TRUCE ENDS 159

usually run from their nests before the approach of
the noisy, whirring machines, and, if they are caught,
seldom suffer more than a cut leg ; whereas the scythe
comes upon them almost unawares, and strikes fatally.
Probably some influences bearing upon the migration
of landrails have more to do with their scarcity than
unnatural destruction. Hiding so closely in the grass
or the corn, landrails seem to have every chance of
long life in this country.

The first day of August is the most important of the
gamekeeper's minor festivals, for the close time under

the Wild Birds Protection Act has come to
The an end ; duck-shooting begins to be a legal

Endg if not a difficult pastime, and hares, which,

unfortunately, may be harassed all the year
round, can now be sold openly. The time has come
for the cutting of the first cornfields ; and this is ever
an important event to the keeper, for it allows him
to make a shrewd estimate of the quantity of game.
The opening of the duck-shooting season finds the
early broods of wild duck strong on the wing ; happily,
the old practice of shooting the immature birds is
dying out. In the barley-fields where the wild duck
resort at dusk, the cool passing of an August day
makes requital for the heat of noon. Sport, if an
object, will at least be unsullied by the modern taint
of wholesale slaughtering; apart from shooting,

160 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

there is the quiet of the fields to be enjoyed, the cool
breeze that sets the barley rippling, the perfumes of
corn crops, charlock, clover, turnips, and swedes.
In a duck country, barley-fields, left standing as
they are until dead ripe and after wheat and oats
have been harvested, may suffer severely from
their nocturnal visitors.

At this time of year jays will make long excursions

from their thickets in the heart of the woods to

sample the wheat crops. They go stealthily

Th* to their stolen feasts in the early morning,

Thieving oo ^ oihs . ' *„™; *

Jay so soon as the ears snow signs of turning,

nipping off whole ears, and carrying them
to some thick hedge for leisurely consumption.
If there is a case against jays, there is much in
favour of these handsome birds. They do far less
harm to game than rooks and other egg-stealers ;
they may be almost blameless in the matter of game
eggs, although when a pair of jays acquire the egg-
stealing habit they may clear off three or four hun-
dred eggs in a few days. Their most useful work is
the destruction of pigeons' eggs. Of course pigeons
do no harm to game, except by clearing off beech-
masts and acorns, and the corn sprinkled in the
wood ; but the damage they sometimes do in the
cornfields is enormous, going far to destroy perhaps
two out of ten acres of wheat. Still, one must

THE OLDEST WRITING 161

remember that charlock buds, served up with pigeon's
milk, form the pigeons' favourite food for their
nestlings.

¥ ¥ V

Day after day the keeper, going his rounds, reads

stories of life and death. Here a bent leaf gives the

clue : there a stray feather : the snout of

Jjff _ a rat tells of a poaching cat that killed the

Oldest i

Writing rat > but left the head with its sharp front

teeth and strong and long jaw-bone un-
touched. A shrew's body is seen, snapped up by a cat,
but left uneaten on account of the bad taste. The
remains of a feast are found, carelessly covered by
only a few leaves ; another sign of cats' work. A
determined cat will kill almost anything that a fox
might take ; but whereas a cat leaves all the feathers
of an old bird, and the skin and fur of old furred
creatures, the fox swallows feathers, fur, skin, bones,
and all but the wings of birds, and the stomach and
clawed feet of ground game. Feathers in a circle by
a field hedge tell of a hawk's killing. Feet of little
pheasants, and bits of downy skin by the coops in the
ride, speak of murdering rooks. A dead rabbit is
seen, and four tiny holes are discovered beneath the
damp, mouthed fur of the pole — a weasel has sucked

the life-blood.

¥ ¥ ¥

All through the long, anxious months of spring and
early summer the keeper has been sifting and weighing

162 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

the points of evidence upon which he will be able to
base a final judgment of the season's prospects. In
June there are many signs which go to make
up a long story ; thus, nest after nest may
be found to contain egg-shells, all broken in the same
way — nearer the round than the pointed end — telling
of the successful hatching of partridges. Then the
keeper becomes so accustomed to encountering
parent partridges who threaten to bar his way, while
their downy chicks magically vanish, that he grows
almost indifferent to their agitation. But in July,
to judge the welfare of game is extremely difficult.
Hedges and woodlands are in the prime of their
growth ; and in midsummer days luxuriant vegetation
hides nearly all birds on the ground. By chance a
keeper may happen on a brood ; he notes that sixteen
have dwindled to ten, and wonders whether the heavy
shower three weeks ago come Sunday, or the old
vixen he knows too well, or the widow's tortoiseshell
cat, must bear the responsibility. But most game-
birds seen are old ones — birds perhaps whose nests
have been destroyed too late for a second nesting, or
birds whose young ones have met with an untimely
fate. Wary old birds with families are specially
cautious to keep well out of sight. Distressing, then,
as it is continually to see barren birds, there is con-
solation in the knowledge that naturally they are more
in evidence than parents with thriving young ones*
With July the days pass that are most risky to young
game — safe days lie ahead ; and with the cutting

USEFUL WORK BY GAME-BIRDS 168

of the first harvest fields the most valuable of all
evidence is gained as to the numbers of birds. Later
on, as fields of standing corn become fewer, birds of
all sorts flock to them, and estimates of quantity
are likely to be misleading. But if it can be proved
that three different coveys have been seen during
the cutting of a piece of forward corn, it is to err on the
moderate side to reckon that there are three others,
though unseen. To all interested in the numbers of
game-birds these are fateful days.

* * *

A dry summer is bad for swedes — among other things.

Many grow disfigured by wart-like excrescences

about the size of a pea. Therein lurk grubs,

Useful as partridges and pheasants know. They

Game-*** ^P °ff*k e warts > a 11 ^ one may see the rusty-
Birds looking hole in the centre of each one whence
the grub has been taken. All round the
swedes these detached warts may be seen, lying
face uppermost, and proving the usefulness of game-
birds, particularly partridges.

¥ ¥ ¥

All through the year the cornfield gives food and
shelter to a host unnumbered — from seed-time to
harvest, in the days of stubble and of fallow. To all
manner of creatures in fur and feather, insects as the
grain in number, grubs below ground, butterflies
above, to rank weeds and flowers, the cornfield gives

164 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

more freely than it yields bread to man. Seagulls
come from the coast. Peewits make the field their

home in the spring. There are congregations
life of f sparrows and finches. Hosts of starlings
Cornfield that go to roost in the reeds. Wood-pigeons

stuff their crops to bursting; turtle-doves
come and go. Yellow-hammers sing in the hedges
through the midsummer days. The corn-crake runs
swiftly through the stems where the partridge has her
young brood. Rooks follow the plough, with wag-
tails that run and dart over the furrows as if gliding
on ice. Overhead are larks ; and the corn-bunting
flies heavily from field to field, his legs trailing as if
broken. And birds of prey take their toll of the
feeding multitudes. All through the year animal life
finds sanctuary in the cornfield. Underground are
the moles ; the harvest mouse weaves its nest in the
corn-stems ; the rabbit makes a stop in the field near
the hedge, and eats the green blades. To the ripening
corn the fox brings her cubs to play. In the ditches are
hedgehogs ; everywhere are rats, mice, and shrew-
mice. The hare follows secret paths, and there are
stoats and weasels seeking prey, and finding it on
every side. But nowadays there is little or no work
for our mills, as wheat-field after wheat-field is
turned into grass. The miller is only one among
ten thousand sufferers.

The days spent in the cornfield must pass pleasantly
for the little foxes in a fine summer. In cornfields,
unlike hayfields, there is room between the stems for

THE KEEPER'S HOPES 165

free movement, there is some chance to look about,
there is air and light, cover and shade. Corn-stems
are firm and dry, but grass-stems hold the soaking
moisture of rain and dew, which saturates the skin
even through fur and feather, and quite beyond the
remedy of dog-like shakings. Wheat, as we have
said, is the corn most favoured of all creatures — where
not planted too thickly, and growing on ground not
over clean, but dotted plentifully with bunches of
knapweed, thistles, and bindweed, and intersected by
furrows where the corn has grown poorly, and with
open spaces bare to the wind and sun. Winged
game, in case prompt flight is necessary, find it easier
to start up into the air through the straight, stiff ears
of wheat than through the ears of oats and barley.
Barley that shares the ground with a rank plant of
grass -seeds finds small favour among those many
creatures that forsake the airless woods in summer.

¥ ¥ ¥

Numbers of hares live all the summer in the cornfields.
But while many rabbits are born in the corn, when

there is a wood at hand most of them retire
Th© by day, returning to the corn to feed at

Hopes night. No rabbit, in sleekness of fur, is

comparable to the rabbit that has lived for
a few fine weeks among the corn-stems, for the con-
stant brushing of the stems grooms his coat to a state
of wonderful fineness. At any moment rabbits in the

166 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

corn may meet death from the teeth of stoats or
weasels ; which in turn run a risk, if a slight one,
from the fox's teeth ; there are plenty of mole-runs
into which they may dive in times of danger. In
dry weather, the hedgehogs leave the ditches for the
corn; and the cornfield, in real summer weather,
when there are no foxes about, is a paradise for
pheasants and partridges. The gamekeeper, what-
ever the weather, clings to the faith that the corn hides
most of his birds from his sight. There is comfort in
the thought that if the birds live he will see them,
but if they are killed, nothing will ever tell him the
story of his losses.

Man ploughs and sows, but for every man who eats
the bread of the fields a million other mouths have
been fed. There is no such perfect sanctuary to wild
life as a field of corn. What the corn hides nobody
knows ; though many would gladly know, and seek
eagerly to find. The gamekeeper guesses shrewdly
what the corn may hide ; later he will find what has
been hidden, and it is as well for his peace of mind that
he can only speculate, at this season, on the game in
the field, for he is powerless to interfere. The com-
munity of the cornfield is almost safe from man, while
the corn stands. If any creature moves in the corn,
the stems, bowing to the breeze, cover its progress.

Many a fox family spends the entire summer in the
cornfield, and no man is the wiser ; but if any should

HARVEST SPORT 167

discover the secret, it will be the gamekeeper.
Only a giant could see, from the ground, the spot

where, in a level cornfield, a family of cubs
the Fox * s taking shelter ; the keeper's plan is to

climb into a tree, so that his eyes may
sweep over acre upon acre at a glance, and spy out the
foxes. Even if the nearest tree be a mile or more
distant from the playground and refectory of the cubs,
his trusty " spy-glass " will reveal the secret — and
while he keeps his place in the look-out tree he may
signal to a companion, and point the way to the
family's eviction. From the top of a tree on the edge
of a wood we have found the secret place of a vixen
in a field of rank rye ; and when we came to the spot,
where a large patch of the rye had been rolled flat, we
could have filled a wheelbarrow with the remains
of partridges, pheasants, rabbits, and hares.

¥ * *

With the harvest comes the great sporting festival
of the countryman, in whom alone survives the

instinct to hunt for food — though the days
gfj^ 68 have gone when every man killed his own

game. This sport of the harvest-field is
the countryman's by custom, courtesy, tolerance,
favour, and not by law. It is sport for the sake
of food, and not for the sake of sport. jThe
quarry is rabbit. Only two people have a real right
to rabbits, and that a concurrent right — the farmer
in occupation of the land, and the holder for the time

108 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

being of the sporting rights. But during the cutting
of the corn few farmers or sportsmen deny their local
workers the privilege and pleasure of catching rabbits.
Where permission is withheld it is usually by a small
farmer, who looks to the rabbits to help with the
rent. The keeper is the last to make objection to the
catching of the rabbits, provided that the hares and
the winged game are not only spared, but given a
chance to escape. He even finds it a profitable policy
to help catch the rabbits, and hand over what he
catches to be shared out to those who have failed in
the scurry and scramble of the sport. If there is
any rule or custom about possession of the spoil it is
that he who kills a rabbit keeps it. This may be a
good rule for those who are lucky — those whose work
brings them into each field as it is cut, who excel with
stick and stone, or are better runners than their fellows.
But it is a bad rule for those who are unlucky ; while
a carter who sits on a binder from daylight to
dark for a month has perhaps the best chance,
another who must spend his time drilling turnips, or
ploughing a distant field, will never so much as see a
rabbit.

V V V

The self-binder has favoured the chance of escape for
those rabbits that camp out in the corn. In these
days of neatly tied sheaves the rabbit that makes a
dash, with a little dodping and jumping, may find

THE LUCK OF THE GAME 169

a fair course, and can see ahead ; and it is almost
impossible to run down a rabbit that sets its faee

from the corn to some other known shelter,
The unless the distance is very great. In olden

of the days, when the corn was not tied as it was
Game cut, but was thrown out loosely by the rakes

of the reaper, then the chances of escape
were all against the rabbit. He could not run through
the corn, or jump over it, nor could he even see where
he was going. All that the harvester had to do was
to hurl himself on the corn where he suspected the
rabbit to lurk, and pin it down. Sometimes, while he
was feeling for the rabbit, it would bolt unseen through
his legs, to fall an easy prey to another harvester,
perhaps some fat old dame who had never been
known to run. The sport is full of luck. A man may
run until he and the rabbit are at the point of ex-
haustion ; the man falls, but the rabbit struggles
on for a yard or two farther, and another catches the
prize. We have known a man, in falling exhausted,
to actually fall on the rabbit he was chasing. Once
let a rabbit get clear away from the standing corn,
the speediest runner can do no more than keep an
eye on its bobbing tail during the first hundred yards
of its dash for freedom. But by ruthlessly following
the tail, in a large field a man may walk it down ;
for a rabbit will soon run itself to a standstill, or in
despair will creep to hide beneath the cut corn. The
rabbit is faint-hearted ; if he once loses his bearings,

170 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

he loses his senses also ; but it is surprising with what
perseverance he will run when he can see a haven of
safety ahead.

9 9 9

The man of experience, who knows his rabbits, does
not unduly exert himself. Taking things calmly,

he may catch more rabbits than others who
Rabbit- ^ are better runners but more excitable. He
Craft knows that the great thing is to stand still,

rather waiting for the rabbits to come to him
than going after them. As a binder works round a
field, he moves quietly in the opposite way ; then,
catching sight of a rabbit crouching beneath a piece
of knapweed, some tangled bindweed, or a thistle,
his upraised stick falls with certain aim, and instantly
he puts into force the rustic law of possession. Or,
moving quietly along, he will hold in his right hand
a heavy stone, while several others are held in the
other hand behind his back ; when he sees a rabbit
far within the corn, his stones fly with crushing force,
and the rabbit's day is done. Sometimes towards the
finish of the cutting he will take up his position far
from the frenzied throng around the binder, at some
quiet spot at the edge of the haven wood ; here*
watching the rabbits that have escaped the sticks
and stones of the main body, he tries to turn them
as they run the last few yards of their course. If he
succeeds, the rabbit, already worn by a long run,
makes a last desperate spurt, but can go no more

RABBIT-CATCHERS' CRAFT 171

than a few score yards. Should the rabbit run past
him, its course unchecked by his frantic yells and
flourishes, he troubles himself no further, and saves
his breath.

It is when the binder is going on its last few rounds
and only a small patch of corn is left standing in the
middle of the field that excitement reaches its height.
Hitherto no one has been allowed to enter the stand-
ing corn ; but now all sense of decency and restric-
tion is thrown to the winds, and the end is simply a
mad scramble for the rabbits that lurk to the last
moment. Sharp eyes have followed the movements
of the rabbits by the slight swaying to and fro of the
ears of the corn ; but now the corn is alive with
rabbits, and among them are hurled the frenzied
bodies of men, women, and children, who hit wildly
and blindly with their sticks. Sticks and stones rain
on rabbits, corn, and men. And on the edge of the
fray stands the quiet figure of the man who will not
exert himself, who watches for the few rabbits who
come alive from the corn. One other quiet and calm
figure is in the heart of the turmoil — the gamekeeper,
who bestirs himself only in the interests of game.
With ever-watchful eye and warning voice he sternly
represses those who, overcome by the lust of killing,
would recklessly slaughter, besides rabbits, the young
pheasants or the crouching leverets. Great is the
relief of the keeper when the last corn is cut and the
harvest festival of the countryman is over for the
year.

172 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

This free and easy sport which the cutting of the corn

provides for a mixed and excited crowd makes a

scene very familiar in any English country -

P 1 ® side. The driver of the binder, as he is

Last to

Leave carried round and round the cornfield, in

ever-narrowing circles, gains a good view of

the rabbits and the game, stealing about in their

fear; and now and again he may be observed to

dismount to club a rabbit with his whip-handle.

On farms where the rabbits are considered the

natural rights of the harvesters, old hands grow

very cunning at making the most of their chance

when the last few yards of standing corn remain

to be cut, and the rabbits, with which the little strip

of cover is seething, at last bolt out, to be fallen upon

by the men in waiting, and to be slain as fast as sticks

can rain blows. Rabbits remain in their sanctuary

of corn long after the fox has stolen away, and the

pheasants, rats, stoats, and weasels have followed

after.

V V *

It is a matter of importance that the woodland rides
shall be trimmed before harvest-time, so that the

woods may be sanctuaries to the corn's
Woods cvfctail creatures. On many shoots this

trimming is left to a woodman ; he may be
responsible for all such work over a large estate
let to various tenants. As a consequence, the rides
of some of the woods are likely to remain untrimmed

WEASEL FAMILIES 178

until just before the time of covert-shooting, when
the work will seriously disturb game. Keepers
prefer to trim the rides on their beats themselves,
at such odd moments as between the feeding of hand-
reared pheasants, and with the help of labourers who
are glad enough to earn a few extra shillings during
the long evenings of July. The work in this way is
done betimes, and all the better for shooting pur-
poses. The harvest migration of game to the woods
tells many a story to the keeper. Foxes who have
spent a happy summer entirely in the game-stocked
cornfields do not come in unnoticed. Fresh-made
runs in the fences leading to the coverts tell of the
passage of stoats. Hedgehogs work their way in from
the fields ; they are more numerous than most people
imagine, and the keeper holds them responsible for
many a ruined game-nest.

V * *

As the summer wanes, families of stoats and weasels
break up, and parents cease to have any dealings

with their offspring. This severance of the
p~?S?i s family ties throws a light upon wild creatures

and their young. Having given their young
ones a good start in life, many seem to dismiss
them, from their minds. One grove will not
nurture two robins, and the day comes when Cock
Robin will drive his young hopeful into the world,
and will attack him fiercely if he dare again approach
his presence. The wild rabbit that on one day, in

174 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

defence of her young ones, faces and drives away
a stoat, her deadliest foe, on the next day leaves
them to the mercy of fate — a new family having
arrived. The mother stoat stays with her young
ones for a long while, sometimes until they are much
larger than herself ; but sooner or later comes the
day of parting.

V V *

She is an admirable mother. Her litters are large

ones — numbering as a rule from five to eight, though

occasionally as many as twelve are found —

Stoirt an( * *^ c k^ing °' *h ese hungry mouths
can only be a work of desperate energy in
the weaning days. It is a fine sight to see the mother
foraging at the head of her grown-up family. A
long time passes before the young stoats can cater
for themselves. The mother does not leave them
until they are perfectly qualified to hunt on their
own accord — which their innate blood-thirstiness at
last prompts them to do in preference to eating food
which their mother has captured. In the young
stoat's natural love of hunting lies the cause of the
final severance of family ties. With many animals
it appears that motherly solicitude continues relatively
to the relief obtained through the young taking their
mother's milk. Yet in the stoat there appears to be a
scrap of the human mother's reasoning love for her
children. We have known a stoat whose young
had been destroyed, when as large as herself, to seek

MOTHER STOAT 175

them out, and with diligent care and labour remove
their bodies to a distant resting-place, where she
stayed by them for days, though she appeared no
longer to bring them their former abundant supplies
of food. When a stoat, the mother of a family, is
killed, her young do not fail to come to her — but in
this case there is no disinterested love. The apparent
affection springs chiefly from desire of food. No
food forthcoming, the young stoats quickly begin
to devour their unfortunate mother. The game-
keeper knows that having once caught a mother
stoat, he will have little difficulty in catching her
family also ; but having captured the family, it is
by no means easy to secure the mother.

When June comes, litters of young stoats, each one
as big as the mother, are strong enough to travel
about, but for many weeks they remain together,
and depend for food on what their mother catches.
Like fox cubs, they spend their days eating, sleeping,
and playing. Without the aid of a trained dog the
keeper is unlikely to discover the lodging of a litter
unless he chances to see the mother going to her
young. He may see her entering a burrow, a bavin-
pile, a pile of hurdle-rods, or of hurdles, or he may
chance to see the young stoats out at play. Should
he come upon their playground his sharp eyes in-
stantly note the runs and the signs of rollings in the
herbage — the playground is as the playground of fox
cubs in miniature. The comings and goings of a
mother stoat are cunning and silent. Once we found a

176 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

place where a litter had been lodging for weeks within
a few yards of a man who had been making hurdles
day after day, and his report was that he had not
seen " ne'er a sign of a s too- at." The family had
gone when we found their lodging, and it was evident
that the old stoat had moved her young ones at night
just before they were old enough to proclaim their
presence by coming out from their wood-pile to play.

The keeper's eyes are always open for stoats. They
are fond of prying about the base of a gate-post,

where a trap is often set to good purpose.
£22e? g " Then they delight in frisking along the

middle of a ride, especially after rain.
There the keeper sets a tunnel trap, covering it with
bundles of brushwood ; and every stoat that comes
along will explore so likely a lurking-place for a
rabbit, and each naturally enters by the fatal passage.
Those heaps of corn-rakings placed in the woods
for pheasants form a favourite stoat-haunt. Here
they find a warm, dry lair, and good hunting, for the
corn attracts a crowd of small birds. Chancing once
to right an overturned sheep-trough which had been
lying inverted for some weeks, we disturbed the
peace of a couple of stoats which had made the trough
their home. They were gone like flashes of lightning,
and though we overturned the trough again for their
benefit, they had the good sense not to be caught
napping a second time.

STUDIES IN STOAT WAYS 177

Not half the stoats that are caught are trapped
by bait ; for the only bait which is a certain charm
is something which the stoat has caught itseh, from
the enjoyment of which it has been newly disturbed.
Many stoats are shot. They pursue young black-
birds and thrushes which hover about the sides of
country lanes ; and when intent on dragging a black-
bird up a bank they give the keeper the easiest of
marks. Should his coming drive a feeding stoat
to cover, he has only to wait within range for a few
minutes for a chance to pull the avenging trigger.
Stoats would soon be exterminated if they were
attracted to baited traps for the sake of food. It
would seem that they come chiefly from curiosity ; for
though they live on warm flesh and blood, when they
fall victims to traps it is usually in those with the bait
stale and strong in scent.

V V V

We heard a gamekeeper say that he would be better
pleased to harbour a litter of cubs on his beat than a
litter of stoats. But this was too flattering
Studies a compliment to the stealthiest of the
^ ays keeper's foes : foxes would smile at a com-
parison between the havoc they play with
game interests and all the robber-work of stoats and
weasels combined. No doubt the gamekeeper's idea
was that while foxes may be found and dealt with
according to their deserts without difficulty, stoats
may be on the ground and do endless damage before

178 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

they are detected. With a litter of cubs on his
ground the keeper, if minded, may promptly put an
end to the nuisance. But he may never congratulate
himself that there are no stoats. Where there is
game, there stoats must be also. Just where they
lurk the keeper may never know; and every art
may fail to catch these sly thieves.

The keeper does not wait to see a stoat before
he sets his traps ; usually when a stoat is caught he
sees it for the first time. During the mating season,
in the early spring, stoats are trapped most easily.
When one has been caught it serves as a lure to
attract others. The body is suspended just out of
the reach of curious relatives and friends, and a
neatly hidden trap is set beneath it. Since rabbits
supply the staple food of stoats, they serve as bait :
anything that suggests newly done rabbit work is
almost sure to attract the attention of any passing
stoat. So after setting a trap just inside a hole in the
track of stoats, the keeper with his stick scratches
up a little fresh soil on each visit to the trap, to
imitate what he calls the " ferricking " of a rabbit. A
hollow underwood stump is always a likely place for
a stoat. Rabbits love to sit in such stumps, and a
stoat never misses a chance to investigate them, sur-
prising the rabbit before he can scoot away, and then
himself lodging in a recess of the stump, on a cosy
couch made from the fur of his victim.

* * V

THE FIRST 179

Nowadays, the First on a large shoot passes much

as other days, for October has usurped the prestige

of September, and the big partridge drives

First QTe Teserve ^ until that month. But when
the keeper goes home to his tea on the First,
his wife, with ever-ready sympathy, is likely enough
to notice " summat's up." There is a scowl on the
tanned face, and a vindictive look in the keen eyes,
and the way in which the thirsty throat is flushed
with a pint or so of tea suggests a forlorn attempt
to drown trouble. At last the murder is out : " They
pot-hunters," growls the keeper, " they has bin and
wiped out half my birds." Shots have been heard
all day near his boundary ; on the neighbouring small
shoot the First has not been allowed to go by un-
honoured.

* V V

With the First come poachers, anxious to win the
big rewards paid for the earliest birds to reach the

market. Netting is not so prevalent as of
Birds °^' ^ ut more of it is done than most people

imagine, since netting is practised in the
dark, and in fields easily entered from public roads.
The best preventive is to dress the fields in which
the birds chiefly jug — stubbles, pastures, and fallows
— with small pieces of tangled wire-netting, and small
bushes, left lying on the ground, so that they may
roll with the net, and entangle it the more hope-
lessly. A sneaking method of poaching is to set

180 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

gins in the partridges 9 dusting-places, such as ash-
heaps, the remains of burnt couch — the keeper forms
a habit of probing such dust-baths with his stick.
As dawn breaks on September 1, the poacher con-
ceals himself in a ditch commanding a fallow where
the coveys jug. Then he sends his dog or his son
to stroll casually and slowly to and fro across the field
at the far end. The birds, not hard-pressed enough
to take wing, make for a furrow, and run in a solid
bunch towards the ambush, to be greeted by a
heavy charge of shot, calculated to account for
several brace. One shot — a rush for the fallen birds
— and the poacher has flown.

7 7 7

One hears a great deal of praise lavished on the old-
fashioned style of walking-up partridges, to the

detriment of driving. True, where birds
Walking- and coyer m nQt abundantj a bag of

fifteen brace or so made by two or three
guns will often represent much clever sports-
manship — besides a hard day's tramping and some
shots not to be despised. Yet there is a way of
walking-up birds which is nothing more nor less
than butchery. In September, the partridges are
mobbed and worn out by men whose duty it is to
drive them from the barer fields into thick roots,
there to be walked up — and snuffed out like so many
candles at short range. This may be magnificent for
the bag, but it is not sport. Again, partridges on

THOUGHTS ON CUBBING 181

occasion may even be walked up in standing corn.
That is a moral crime, and ought to be a legal one.

V V V

With September, cubbing begins — and the young of
the thief of the world must justify their existence
by making sport. Many sudden and be-
Thoughts wildering shocks the cubs receive. Hitherto
Cubbing their lives have been peaceful enough.
No wolf has found them out in the corn-
fields where they have been learning to hunt their
own game ; no wild dog has dug a way into the
nursery earth. To be hunted is quite a new experi-
ence. The cubs are spared at least the dread of
anticipation as in the early hours of a September
morning they settle to sleep in their soft warm
kennel, canopied by bracken and brambles. Dream-
ing, it may be, of their own night's sport, the cheer-
ful voice of the huntsman, as he urges on his newly
entered puppies to draw with their elders, means no
more than a general alarm to the cubs' drowsy ears.
Again and again the hunt may come, yet a cub may
have no thought of a game, with life or death as the
stake. Not until the attentions of the hounds become
pressing and particular can he awake fully to what
cub-hunting means. Then perhaps it is too late.
But an old fox is quick enough to hear the first sound
of the hunt ; he breaks away at an unguarded corner,
and is allowed to go.
There is little chance for the cub when, fat from

182 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

long ease, he is pushed at last from the home-wood,
with the pack in cry a few short chains behind his
apology for a brush. A fox-hound, if often cowardly,
is a foe of terribly unequal size and strength, one
carefully fed, thoroughly schooled to hunting, and
trained to great staying power. But a young hound
is as indifferent to the business of hunting as is a cub
when disturbed for the first time in its life. Lacka-
daisical is the word for the attitude of each. It is
an unfortunate cub that slinks aside to avoid a too-
inquisitive puppy and walks into the jaws of an old
hound.

A cub is to be known from an old fox by its lanki-
ness and legginess. Full growth is not attained until
late November; from Christmas-time is the season
when the amorous barking of the foxes of the year
may be heard, as they run through the woods in the
night, seeking their mates. In early autumn the
cub's brush is lacking in bushiness, and is obviously
pointed at the tip. By Christmas — if Christmas is
to come for him — the brush will be in full-blown glory.
A popular superstition among countrymen is that a
white tip to a fox's brush denotes a dog-fox, while
its absence is a sure sign of vixenhood. Another old
fallacy that dies hard is that a fox will fascinate a
roosting pheasant by gazing steadfastly into its eyes —
hypnotising it so completely that the bird drops at last
into the waiting jaws. But a fox's tricks need no
bush. He will hoax rabbits by rolling as if in inno-
cent frolic, rolling his way nearer and nearer until,

WINES OF THE COUNTRY 188

with a perfectly calculated spring, he may make sure
of his supper. And he will feign death so well as
to deceive a wary old huntsman. Many a fox's
body has been dug out of a hole and thrown aside as a
carcass, only to come miraculously to life, and to fly
at the first chance.

V ¥ *

Country folk brew wine from numberless things —

and the marvel is how they survive the drinking. Yet

some of the simple wines are excellent — as

Vines parsnip wine and sloe gin. Beside all care

Country * n the making, the secret of parsnip wine is

to brew it at the right time, which is just

after fresh top growth begins in roots left in the

ground, when the spine of the parsnips themselves

turns as tough as wood. A good recipe from a

keeper's note-book is this : Take three pounds of

parsnips, a quarter of an ounce of hops, three pounds

Df lump sugar, and one gallon of water. Wash,

clean, slice and boil the parsnips until tender. Add

the hops, boil for five minutes, strain on to the sugar,

and stir until the sugar dissolves. When the liquor

is lukewarm add yeast, and when the working is

done, barrel, bung, bottle and drink in due season.

We would give a word of warning to the inex-
perienced : Do not sample home-brewed wines too
freely, however freely offered. Country folk put
quantity before quality, and seldom offer their wines
in anything but tumblers — and if you manage to

184 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK
empty one tumbler, you will need will-power, if not
willingness, to avoid taking another glassful. To
leave a drop of home-brewed wine, when onee you
have tasted it, is an insult to the maker. We re-
member how the wife of a keeper was unjustly blamed
for the power of her rhubarb wine, of which a caller
had partaken freely. He went his way smacking his
lips ; lighting his pipe, he strolled happily along a
path of rabbit-mown turf, through a fine old pari.
But in a little while he felt a desire to lie down, and
soon his groans were spreading panic among the pan
deer. He cursed the gamekeeper's wife and har
rhubarb wine ; but it turned out that he had borrowel
from the keeper a little flowers of sulphur, which
escaping from its packet, had found a way into hit
pipe : hence his pain and sickness.

AUTUMN

To find out how the wild birds have fared is always

difficult : one never sees them properly until the

days of shooting are at hand — and not

The always then, when a sight of them rather

or the unc ^ er t * lan over forty yards distant might be
Season welcome. We may pass by a wood outside
which many pheasants may be feeding, as a
flock of fowls, or sitting lazily about on the fences,
some perhaps indolently stretching a wing in the
pleasant wallow of a dust-bath ; but this does not
prove that pheasants have done well — merely that
there are so many pheasants at a certain place ; it
does not even prove that they will be there the
next day. Such a spot may be a place where large
numbers of pheasants are reared. One may count
a hundred birds in the corner of a field — perhaps
there should have been a hundred and fifty. Or
perhaps the hundred to be seen means better luck
than usual in the breeding season in that particular
part. A man who sees pheasants where he does not
know how many were bred may think a dozen a
large number, or he may view with scorn the sight of

several hundreds if he has been accustomed to see

185

186 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

thousands. We know places where so many pheasants
may be seen at any time as to suggest that they
swarm there regardless of the season. But the birds
seen casually may have been bought from a game-
farm and turned down, to make up a supply that
failed. However, it always delights the sportsman's
eye to see many pheasants about a wood— especially
if he has the shooting.

From a just standpoint, it is the comparison of
what might have been with what is that settles the
verdict on the pheasant season. The season cannot
be judged by the birds of one preserve. Allowance
must be made for many points. The number of wild
broods to wild hens left to manage their own affairs,
and the number of eggs set under fowls and how they
hatched must be considered. Then the quality of
the rearing-ground makes one district much better
than another — whether heavy or light, low-lying or
high, and rich or poor in natural food. The question
of foxes must be weighed, and one would like to
know before judging a season from any one case how
many birds were turned into covert at five to seven
weeks old, and how many fell victims to foxes — to
say nothing of gapes.

The keeper may control the supply of hand-reared
birds : he may make up for the spoiling of an egg,
or the loss of a chick, which would otherwise mean
a pheasant the less; but he has no control over

AFTER THE OPENING 187

the season as it affects wild birds. What he prays
for is a showery April, with a sun to shine between the
storms. And he wants fair weather after the
Weather middle of May, the longer the better. A
for bright warm summer is good for all pheas-

ants, whether it be their fate to start life
beneath a fowl in a stuffy, if cosy, coop, or to be
gathered beneath the breast and wings of their real
mother in the wood, or among the corn. A fine
summer means more to birds than to man, for to
them it is a matter of life or death.

Walking home through the woods on the evening
of an October First, we came to a standstill
before a low tree-branch on which an old
After cock pheasant was going to roost. We were
Opening within a yard of him ; yet he sat stock-
still, and stared at us fearlessly with un-
blinking eyes. The minutes passed, and after we
had stood there for some little time, staring back
at the old pheasant, it really seemed that we had
established a bond of communication. And this
is what we understood the old cock to be saying :

" Here I am, you see, and not afraid of you ; and
none the worse for an opening day that has been, I
must admit, a trifle lively. And I may inform you
that before I went to roost I made careful inquiries
among my very numerous progeny, and not one is a
feather the worse for all the banging that has been

188 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

going on. All are in good condition, in fine plumage,
and strong on the wing as usual, and, I may add, on
the leg. By the way, I myself, in the course of the
day, from a secure retreat, watched more than one
sportsman critically examining the bodies of several
unfortunate birds — needless to say, there was no
son or daughter of mine among them. Good night."

Here is the gamekeeper's idea of what constitutes a

pleasantly flavoured October 1 : The day should break

with a misty dawn, grey dewy cobwebs every-

toberDay w ^ 3Lere » betokening a visible if tardy sun.
There should be a brace of spaniels whose
occasional lapses after fur are atoned for by their
untiring energy among the blind tangles of hedgerows
and dells. There should be three guns whose object is
to enjoy sport and to make a mixed bag, including inci-
dentally the first pheasants — without the formality
of the so-called battue. There should be a couple of
experienced beaters, and a keeper whose soul is set on
circumventing certain wary old cocks that are known
to him as leaders astray of youthful birds. The
killing of pheasants should not be the main thing ;
if the charm of the First of October lay only in this
it would quickly fade. Next to the potting of young
rooks with a shot-gun as they sit stoically near their
nests, few phases of shooting call for less skill than
pheasant-shooting in early October.

LOW FLIGHT AND HIGH 189

Grouse, partridges, and pheasants are low-flying
birds, unlike wood-pigeons and rooks ; it is their

habit to skim along near to earth. And
Low pheasants might be truly described as
ajjf ground birds* Only on occasions do they

High fly high, and then usually for one of three

definite causes. Flushed on high ground
they may maintain a high elevation as they cross a
valley. Rising on low ground, the direction of their
flight may necessitate an upward line, as when trees
or hills lie before them. Forced to rise suddenly,
having lain low while danger has approached, on
finding men in full sight between themselves and the
place they have determined to reach they then
rocket instinctively. Rooks and wood-pigeons natu-
rally fly at a height well out of gun-shot ; and the
cynical critic of British shooting methods might
observe with truth that the bagging of a dozen
ordinary wood-pigeons involves a higher order of
sportsmanship than the bagging of fifty ordinary
pheasants.

¥ ¥ ¥

As with partridges, a great benefit has followed the

fashion of driving grouse, instead of walking them

up, with setters and pointers : for the

Wily familiar reason that the old birds come first

Coeks to th e J? 1 " 18 eLn ^ are ^ e f* rst *° b* shot. If
not shot, these old birds would not allow

the young ones to nest near them, and would drive

190 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

them fax afield : and another advantage is that the
young birds which are spared are the most productive.
Moorland keepers at the end of the season are at
pains to kill off old cocks, which are such enemies
to the peaceful nesting of the young birds ; and many
are their devices for stalking and calling them to their
doom. Except when feeding, the wary old birds
like to be able to look all about them, and perch on
walls and hillocks, whence, holding their heads high,
their eyes may sweep afar for foes. Unlike par-
tridges, they are not content with the grain in the
stubble, but will perch on the stooks at harvest-time,
to attack the sheaves.

Until the last field of corn is cut, cubs are spared
their introduction to the joys and sorrows of hunt-
ing ; but at the end of harvest their time

forCubs k a * ^ an< ^* ^ ew keepers look forward to
the coming of hounds for cubbing. When
hounds do come there is nothing more disappointing
to the keeper than that they should not find the cubs,
of whose dark deeds he has been complaining all the
summer. Not only does he lose the prospect of a
sovereign reward, but the cubs are still at large to
carry on their havoc, while he may appear to have
been crying wolf where there were no wolves ; the
loss of the sovereign is much less to him than the
loss of his credit and the prospective loss of his birds.
Different hunts have different methods of rewarding

" VARIOUS "— THE LANDRAIL 191

keepers whose cubs are found by hounds. One
hunt works on the irrational plan of giving a keeper
a sovereign for each litter found, and ten shillings
extra if a cub is killed. This is almost as much as to
ask the keeper to take steps towards handicapping
the cubs when the pack presses. The keeper knows
how important it is that the young entry shall taste
blood at this time, and he knows that if scent fails,
the best way to ensure a kill is to allow the cub to
run to ground. Instead of completely stopping an
earth, he arranges a slight barricade of twigs ; and
then he may know, by whether the cub has broken
the barricade or not, if it has run to ground. He
takes care to have a spade and a pick-axe close at
hand. The well-intentioned reward really ends in
spoiling sport.

V V V

In the bag of September partridge-shooting, the

landrail is often the only bird booked under the

heading " Various," save for an occasional

"Various" W ood -pigeon . a t any rate, many look to

Landrail the l an draU to fill the " Various " column,
if they often look in vain. On a calm day,
the landrail is a weird mark, with its heavy, laboured
flight, and its dangling legs ; the bird hardly suggests
a sporting shot. But few who have shot landrails
have not also missed them. Landrails will even put
to shame the sportsman who has been bagging his
brace of partridges with wearisome monotony. So

192 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

slow, as a rule, is the landrail in heading away,
after its silent rising from sainfoin or clover,
that we have seen one bagged by a thrown stick,
another knocked down by a keeper's partridge-
carrier, as he held it in his hand, and another caught
on the wing by a dog ; of course this is nothing un-
common. We have even seen a terrier point and
pounce on a landrail that was crouching beneath its
nose. But when a fair wind is blowing, the slow
landrail becomes as difficult a mark to hit as a snipe
or a woodcock. And a landrail has a disappointing
habit of dropping when it comes to a hedge, for all
the world like a dead bird, though very much alive.

Sportsmen may find partridge-shooting among
shocks of unearned corn more interesting than shoot-
ing over a bare expanse of barren stubble.
Sport The shocks or stooks help to mark the birds,
fj™ alive or dead ; and they cause them to rise

Shocks to a convenient height, so that they show
sharp and clear against the sky, instead of
skimming away low against the baffling tints of the
autumn fields. And birds seem to lie better among
stooks than on bare stubble. They cannot see well
or far among the stooks, and they like to linger in the
dusting-places that they make in sheltered, sunny
spots. Another point worth mentioning is less
obvious but none the less true — the stooks help the
eye in aiming. It always seems easier to hit a

"MARK" 198

pheasant flying high between the tops of trees, as
down an avenue open to the sky, than in the open.
So in the cornfields before the harvest is garnered.
And there is still another point which adds to the
charm found in shooting among the corn-sheaves :
when a covey bustles up, the birds spread out and
scatter, for they cannot see all the party at the same
time ; and so they may give each gunner a mild
taste of what the days of driving will bring.

Some men have a special gift for marking a bird

that is down, while others never know where the

bird fell within half an acre. But marking
"Mark"

is only a matter of training the eyes, and

anybody may learn the trick : in time the eyes accu-
rately note what they see almost unconsciously.
The sportsman cannot be too accurate in marking
the fall of a bird. The great thing is to take a good
line — an imaginary line drawn from the eye to the
place where the bird fell : if at a far distance, the
actual spot will be nearer in reality than it seems.
The accustomed eye finds points which mark the line,
if not the very spot, where the bird has fallen — a spray
of charlock flower, a thistle-stem, or a tinted leaf. When
a bird falls at a distance it is helpful to take some
prominent object in front and behind to mark the
line — such as a gap and a sapling in opposite hedges.

A sportsman who is a master of the art of marking
knows where to come upon each bird he shoots

104 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

singly; and when he scores a brace he knows all
about the second bird. Often he knows much more
about the first bird than those who have nothing
else to do but to mark. The usual rule is for the
attendant to mark the first bird that falls and the
shooter the second. With two men to mark one bird
it should be quite easy to find the place. The bird
will be within a yard of where the two imaginary
lines intersect. A common mistake made by sports-
men is to suppose that because they have fired at a
bird coming towards them it must have fallen in
front of them : more probably it has fallen several
yards behind, especially if it be a bird brought down
by the second barrel. It is not easy to mark the
place where a covey pitches. On seeing the birds
suddenly lower their line of flight, a sportsman may
suppose they have alighted, unless he still keeps a
watchful eye on them, for birds often lower their
flight when they have crossed a hollow or a valley,
and then skim on low over the crest of the hill. How-
ever, when birds lower their line of flight, after fly-
ing some distance, it is a sign that they contemplate
settling.

V * V

Among the many clever things that a gamekeeper's
retriever learns is how to mark a partridge which
flies a long way and then towers. When once he
has grasped what is meant by the rising of a covey,
the firing of a shot, and the sight of a bird soaring

THE KEEPER'S DOGS 195

away from the rest and falling like a stone, he soon

begins to watch for the bird that towers, even without

the exhortation, " Mark that bird ! " A

The clever retriever will mark the distant fall of

K66D6F^S

Dogs a bird se€n by no one but himself, and either
will dash off for the spot or show strong
symptoms of wanting to go. The well-trained dog
finds the bird that he has not seen fall. On being
ordered to " go on " he gallops in the direction
indicated by a wave of his master's hand, and when
he hears the word " Halt," or sees a hand-signal, then
he begins to cast, and seldom in vain. A retriever
will retrace his steps for a couple of miles or more to
bring home a dead rabbit or bird which his master has
left behind in mistake. One fine retriever had been
trained never to give up game except to her master ;
and it happened that as she was picking up a dead
hare another was wounded and ran away before her.
She set off in pursuit, carrying the dead hare, and
though every man in a long line of beaters, keepers,
and guns attempted to relieve her of her burden, she
refused to give it up. On catching the wounded
hare, she calmly held it down with one paw and waited
until her master came to her assistance. Keepers, of
all men, have least doubt about the reasoning powers
of their dogs.

¥ ¥ ¥

Autumn brings with woodcock the woodcock owls
— as the short-eared owls are called, because their

196 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

flight is like a woodcock's, or because they come

at the same time. We would make the strongest

plea for the preservation of these most useful

Wrodeoek ow | s> Wh cn an unusual number appeared

in parts of the South of England, they
made themselves very busy among the rats that had
taken lodgings in the root-fields. Yet a party of town
shooters, out after partridges, gloated more over the
bagging of one of these owls than over all the rest of
their spoil. The owl was wounded only enough to
be caught — and his wound had cost the party eleven
cartridges. Perhaps if the short-eared owl bred here
he might be tempted to prey on young game ; but
very few remain to breed in the north, and the young
game is grown when the autumn migration begins.
Rats and mice with occasioned small birds and some
beetles form the staple diet.

The difference in the tastes of dogs is curious,

and often strongly marked. Two terriers, boon

companions at home, were taken to the

Dogs that Hebrides ; in their home haunts they hunted

Wood^ 6 *^ e 8amc 8 ame together — rats, rabbits,
cock hares, partridges, and pheasants — but in the
north the chief sport was among woodcock,
though there were thousands of rabbits. Yet neither
dog flushed a single woodcock, save by accident, nor
would take the slightest interest in any but rabbit
sport. They showed that marked aversion to

DOGS THAT DESPISE WOODCOCK 197

woodcock common to many dogs not used to them.
Sometimes dogs will acquire a taste for hunting and
retrieving woodcock, and then make this a speciality.
A curious point in the case of the two terriers was
that one suddenly became very fond of the remains
of cooked woodcock, whether hungry or not, while the
other refused ever to look at them, even when pur-
posely kept on short commons by way of experiment.
It was a strange sight to see the appreciative dog
crunch up the frame of a woodcock, winding up
the performance by stowing away the head, bill
and all.

The best retrievers usually refuse to pick up and
carry a woodcock, unless specially schooled to carry
anything from puppyhood. To train puppies to
fetch and carry things objectionable alike to their
sense of smell and touch, perhaps the best plan is
to teach them to retrieve well-filled tobacco-pouches.
They may be thrown long distances, and a dog will
never bite them — at least, twice — and so acquires a
perfect mouth. A retriever not trained in this way
will probably refuse to touch a woodcock, in spite of
every coaxing — one, induced at last to pick up a wood-
cock, has been known to spit it out, turning up his lip
in contempt, and otherwise showing his intense scorn.
Now and again a young and obedient retriever may
bring in woodcock at the first trial — but with a look
of anything but relish.

198 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

One hardly thinks of pigs as possible pets ; yet those
who have brought them up and acted the part of

foster-mother, agree that they make charm-
pi " ing pets, energetic and entertaining. They

soon know the step of their master, and
rush furiously to greet him with every sign of
delight. If properly kept no pet could be more cleanly
in habit.

We know a village pig-butcher who, by the irony
of fate, made a pet of two little pigs, and was very
proud of his black and white twins, as he called them.
He reared them by hand, and nothing could be more
entertaining than their way of taking their meals of
milk and water ; they had been trained to rest their
front trotters on a box, with the idea of saving their
foster-parent's garments, and would greet the sight
of their bottle with joyous grunts. These piglets, at
weaning-time, had cost their master in food the sum of
7s. 9d. Had he cared to sell them they would have
brought him in about £4 each ; or supposing he were
to kill them himself and convert them into bacon, his
bacon would cost him about S^d. a pound. That
this was his intention we gathered from his remark :
" I'll see as I don't pay no more 'levenpences a pound
for bacon." The pigs in the first place had cost him
nothing ; they were the " darls " or last-born pigs
of their litters, which are generally inferior to their
numerous brothers and sisters, and are often given
away. Clearly a darl may make a profitable pet.

¥ ¥ ¥

SOME DEALS IN DOGS 199

The gamekeeper, as a rule, is an old hand at dog-
dealing. All keepers have an eye for a dog, and are

tempted to buy for a song any sort of sport-
Some ing dog, in the hope of making a few shillings
Does or P OUI1 ds by a quick sale. We knew a keeper

who would buy almost anything that could
be described as a dog, but his stock price was " A bob
and a pot " — a shilling, that is to say, with a quart of
beer. When a shoot is let, and the keeper's services
go with it, he often has a good chance to make money
over dog-deals. Outgoing tenants commonly make
him a present of a useful, general-purpose retriever,
or spaniel — a dog that has done a good deal of all-
round work on the shoot. A dog may be a good dog
only on one shoot, or he may obey only one keeper ;
so when the tenant goes away he leaves his dog where
it can do the most good in the world, kennel, chain,
collar and all. Then a new tenant comes in, to whom
the keeper offers the dog with its outfit — the whole
being, as he declares, " honestly worth five pounds to
the shoot." But he will take three pounds, and it is
clear profit. And the new tenant makes a good
bargain.

¥ ¥ ¥

A white or a pied bird, whether rook, blackbird,
starling, finch, or sparrow, never fails to hold the eye,
and may become a character of public interest in
a neighbourhood. Its usual fate is to be shot — the
fate of any rare wild creature. The sportsman sees

200 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

no special reason for sparing a pied pheasant that has
come to his coverts — he shoots it at the first chance

for the sake of the few seconds' pleasure
Birds SP ven by the curious plumage before it is

tossed with the rest on the game-cart.
But the keeper silently mourns for the death of the
pied bird. If he voices his lament, he receives a
stock answer : " Well, it is too late now." Happy
the keeper who succeeds in catching up a bird that
he treasures, so that he may give it safe shelter
until the rattle of guns is silenced.

" Once a pied bird always a pied bird " is the expres-
sion of a common fallacy. A pheasant may be almost

white for months, then change colour, and
Colour- become hardly different from other birds.
Changes ^ pied bird tends to become more pied as
Feathers the time of moulting approaches. A homely

illustration of this increasing lightness of
colour is seen when a black cat is about to change
its coat ; then the fur turns a rusty brown. When
this is shed the new growth seems blacker than ever.
A black cat or dog with white marks nearly always
has young with similar markings. And if you have
a white or pied hen pheasant, in spite of the fact that
after a moult her new feathers may come of the
ordinary brown shade, you may expect, perhaps,
half the chicks from her eggs to wear their mother's

NATURE'S HEALING 201

pretty white or pied dress. Birds that have been pied
in their youth, then have put on sober apparel, again
put on the showy shade of feathers in their old age,
though it is a lucky pheasant that reaches anything
like old age, whether pied or not.

Nature is a kindly doctor — and though any accident

to the flying or running powers of a wild creature

probably means death, miraculous recoveries

Heaji Pe S are to ^ no * e d' Rabbits commonly suffer
from broken legs, whether from gun-shot,
trap, or other cause ; but limbs often heal and
become serviceable members again. Nor is a broken
wing always enough to cause the death of a game-bird.
Should the bird escape its foes while the broken
bone is setting, it may live to fly, if not quite as well
as ever. We noticed once that one bird in a covey of
partridges flew more slowly than the others ; it was
shot, and when picked up we found that there had
been an old wing fracture, and that the broken ends
had crossed and overlapped in setting. A curious
case was that of a partridge which was shot in the
wing, and ran when followed through the turnips
by a retriever. Several times the bird sprang above
the turnips, attempting, but in vain, to fly ; then,
when the dog seemed about to catch it, the bird gave
a final spring, and this time flew straight away.
But after fifty yards or so it dropped to earth, falling

202 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

almost perpendicularly. The explanation seemed to
be that the fractured bone-ends had joined, and
kept their place accidentally, for the few moments
of the flight.

* ¥ *

A sporting old gentleman, who was very deaf, always
took a small boy with him shooting, whose duty

seemed to be to stand behind his master and
A do nothing. He never carried cartridges,

Story and looked incapable of loading a gun. One

day we asked the boy to explain his mission
in life. " *Tis this way/' said he. " In each hand I
holds a pin, and I gives the master a prick behind to
let him know when game be a-coming — if on this side
or on t'other."

* * ¥

More than once, descending the steep face of the

Downs, we have set foot upon hares in their forms —

crouching so closely as to be unseen until

toHares ' e ^ » an< ^ onee we ^ utve witnessed a curious
fatal accident which befell a half -grown hare
through the habit of lying low. Partridge-shooting
was going on in a field of sainfoin, and as the guns lined
out from the fence we saw this hare dancing, as it
were, on her head. It was a dance of death, and
before we could reach her puss was lying still. One
of the guns had actually trodden on her head, and had
passed on unknowingly. Half-grown and under-

HARES NO LONGER SPEEDY 208

sized hares seen in autumn have small chance of
enduring through the winter ; with the setting in of
cold weather their fate is sealed ; they are unable to
thrive on the rough frosted food, and are claimed by
a lingering death. In the wet days of autumn, when
showers of leaves and rain are falling, hares change
their quarters in the woods for the open fields, pre-
ferring of all places a stubble-field free of grasses
that hold the moisture. The fall of rain and moist
leaves has an opposite effect upon the rabbits —
driving them to the shelter of their newly renovated
burrows, where they lie all day, snug, warm, and
dry.

¥ ¥ ¥

We have heard of terriers who have chased hares

and caught them after a burst of less than a field's-

breadth ; but we have never seen a terrier

Hares no catch a sound hare in a fair run, though we

lonsrep

Speedy have known a clever little dog to flash up a

ditch and seize a loitering hare, and we

have often known a hare to be caught napping in her

seat. The hares that terriers catch after short runs

have been in some trap or snare, or have been shot,

or otherwise wounded, or probably they are diseased.

The wonder is that hares can run so fast and long

as they do in a state of advanced disease. Hares

suffer each year in some places from a disease of a

typhous nature, aggravated by feeding on frosted

clover. Parting the white fur on the underside of

204 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

such a hare the skin is found to be green. There is
good cause to be suspicious of disease whenever a
thin hare is seen in autumn or winter.

Too many starlings in a given place are likely to be a

serious trouble — in fact they make a place almost

impossible for other inhabitants. Starlings

Starling j iaun t man y kinds of roosting-places — the

high reeds, the woods, and the shrubs about
a house. The keeper finds small pleasure in the
thunderous noise of their wings in his coverts. To-
wards the end of October the sales of underwood take
place ; thereafter the underwood is cut, and this often
drives the starlings from an old roosting-haunt to
fresh woods, where their presence is far from desirable,
in view of the approaching covert-shooting. Natu-
rally, people hesitate to take preventive measures,
such as shooting or lighting fires of green wood, for
the shots or the smoke would drive away pheasants
as well as starlings. Yet it is wiser thus to drive away
one season's pheasants than to have the wood made
impossible for many years — to all save starlings.

V * *

While we have never met any one who actually hated
honeysuckle, if there is a man who curses it occasion-
ally it is the copse-worker chopping underwood. A
honeysuckle trail will turn a well-aimed blow from its
true direction, and so may cause the copser to cut

•*»,

'< V.

^^v

V i-

'\ *

y-f

r. •■

f ? *

•I. ^

■3

z
o

I-
(I)

«
X

A CAMKKKLPKIt S XOTE-HOOK

: » ■•* hij'c the skin is found to be iirecn. Th* re i%

I raiis** tn he M2M»it ions of disease whenever
hare is seen in autumn or winter.

..*

Too irrun stutlii.-jv in a fjivtn plaee are hkelv to 1* :.

virions iioulA -in Lie* they make a p!aee almo ".

m.p«» ^ihle for other udni!>itams. Starling

\" l ' T '^ haunt num\ Kinds of roost h. "-places — the
i.e.- .s ^ x

hi/h iced 1 *, he woods, and the •shrubs alout
a, honj-o. The K" per imd* small pleasure in the
thin.ilerous m»i«- ■»!' tlieir wintfs in his eoverts. To-
>\anK the end •■!' t;cioi.»er the sales of underwood tak*
place: thereafVr the underwood is out, and this often
d'«-ts the ? l :i ,, lin^s from an old roosting -haunt *•>
r i \\o(»! where their p"esenee is iar from doirabie,
»■• v « * .** approachmir eovei I -shooting. Nutvi*

- . ; h m! oe to take preventive measure*. .

• ' ii-'itini^ fires of grten wood. h>r

?! • ..',-. vivo world drive away phet^.nts

a-* Yet It is wim r thus to diive aw.*v

oik t ' • . :ii«is than to have the wood made

imp*.)!- . ' • ; i iny Near** -to all save starlings.

» < —

V .*.!*. ve have never met any one who aetuallv hated

'» ' \ sue! !e, if the;e is a man who curses it oe« ason-

it ';*» ihe copse-worker chopping underwootl. A

• • -nekle trail will turn a well-aimed blow from its

• n'ri.on. and so may eausc the copstr to ent

WILD BIRDS IN CAGES 205

himself very badly — even a slight blow from his

sharp bill-hook is a serious matter. The copser's

hand and arm have received the order to

Trials swing outwards to gather force for a quick

or a

Copser stroke — honeysuckle arrests the bill-hook and

turns its direction, while the hand and arm
disastrously go on with the reflex part of the order.
And though we do not suppose there is a copse-
worker in the whole world who does not appreciate
rabbits to eat, probably most of them speak at times
as harshly of rabbits as of honeysuckle. For rabbits
gnaw the underwood, and when the butt of a stem
has been gnawed by rabbits' teeth, part of the wood
dies, and is far harder to cut than a clean stem.

We have heard from several people that owls are
among the birds that cannot be tamed and kept as

pets ; but this idea is a fallacy. Barn-owls
Wild taken from the nest, and properly handled,
In Cages w *^ grow i n *o attractive pets, and we know

a pair of them, about four months old, who
sit on their master's shoulders, and seem to return his
affection. We dislike the idea of rearing wild birds in
captivity — especially such useful birds as barn-owls,
who are better employed in catching mice than in
doing tricks. But nearly all birds are susceptible to
a taming treatment, even such shy creatures as the
redshanks of the marshes, the wariest of birds in their
wild state. There are people who seem to possess a

206 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

natural instinct for understanding birds, as others for
handling dogs, horses, or snakes.

The truffle-hunter, roaming with his little dogs over

park lands and other pleasant places, seems to lead a

fine, independent life. And he confesses
Truffles . . . TT .

to making money on no mean scale. His

professional fee is a pound a day, with all expenses

to be paid. The truffles are sold at 8s. the pound ;

but each truffle may cost the consumer fully half a

guinea, stewed, as it should be, in rich wine. The

truffle-hunter may tell you that his dogs are of the

original truffle-hunting breed. Yet we have no doubt

that any dog with a good nose could be trained to find

truffles as easily as a retriever can be broken to

hedgehogs.

* * *

The gamekeeper's retriever will learn to discover the

whereabouts of every hedgehog in a ditch. A clever

dog will find in a few hours as many hedge-

Retrie- hogs as a week of trapping will secure —

ver'sUse-

fulness mite 8 ot hedges may be cleared in a day in

the summer. The dog must be kept under
absolute control, lest he disturb sitting birds, thereby,
perhaps, doing as much damage as might the hedge-
hogs. Almost any dog may be trained to a particular
work, such as playing the bloodhound's part, and
following the trail of men, whether friends or stranger

NUTS AND MICE 207

wen terriers may become useful trackers. The
night-dogs used by gamekeepers — crosses between
mastiffs and bulldogs — will follow poachers through
the woods during the blackest hours of night.

A retriever is wonderfully useful for many purposes
besides recovering game. A dog, which had never
seen a cricket ball, was with us when we chanced to
be crossing a field, at dusk, where a ball had been lost
in thick cow-parsley in the shade of trees. The
cricketers appealed for our help ; we cleared the
course, and set on the dog. She took the wind,
trotted along, turned suddenly, ran straight for a
score of yards, and came back, the lost ball in her
mouth. Perhaps she worked it out in her own mind
that as no shot had been fired there was no game to
follow, and the ball-scent must therefore be the one
she was required to track. No doubt she would have
left the line of the ball if the scent of anything in the
shape of dead game had reached her sensitive nose.

The gamekeeper classes the nutters among "the
reg'lar plagues " of his life. Not that he begrudges

them their nuts, but that they stand for an
Nuts old, old story of innocent pleasures and
Mice game disturbance. As primrose-pickers

are to the nesting pheasants of April, so
are nutters to the young birds of October, and the
final result is always an angry keeper. His young
birds at this season are ever ready to avail themselves

208 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

of an excuse to stray to fresh woods. The nutter who
would avoid the keeper should avoid paths, and lie
very low and still when the keeper comes his way.
This lesson in woodcraft had been mastered so
thoroughly by one young nutter of our acquaintance
that when a keeper chanced to pass along the ride
near which he was picking, he still lay low when the
keeper's words were almost in his ear : " Where be ye?
Ah, I sees ye. Come out on it, then ! " And he was
duly rewarded by the knowledge that these remarks
were merely an exhortation to pheasants to feed.

Dormice are the chief of all lovers of hazel-nuts.
They are found very often at work by human nutters ;
and their nest is seen sheltered by hazel leaves —
a neat round structure, built of dry grass, beautifully
woven. One autumn we came upon a nest contain-
ing six young dormice, about half-grown and ready
to run, and three of them, wonderful to relate, were
wholly white. Autumnal litters are common, and,
as though by a beautiful piece of foresight on the
part of Nature, the favourite nut food is most abund-
ant just when the little mice are ready to give up a
milk diet. Though called " the mouse of the hazel,"
he seems as partial to acorns as to hazel-nuts,
and he is insectivorous, and feeds heartily on nut-
weevil grubs. With November he will be as fat
as nuts can make him, and before the month is out
he will have fallen into his long winter trance. The
little reddish brown harvest-mouse seems to have
almost disappeared in the north of Hampshire and

THE HAND OF TIME 209

other parts, and for years we have not seen a single
specimen. The nest ol the harvest-mouse — cunningly
woven amid the corn-stalks — used to be one of the
prettiest of things seen in the cornfields, especially
when the mouse was seen also, nibbling in his dainty
way at the grain. To go round an oat-stack and
poke it with a stick was to disturb these gregarious
little creatures by the score. The common mouse
remains as plentiful as ever, and thousands are seen
during the threshing of a single stack ; but the
harvest-mouse has gone. So much the better, no
doubt, for the stacks. Their population of furred
foes is always too large — as some idea may be gained
from the fact that in one season, and from a group
of three ricks, no fewer than 1800 rats were taken.
It is a proof of the barn-owls' value to farmers that
they are often caught in rat-traps set by holes at
the base of stacks. The stack is a favourite if some-
times a fatal hunting-place.

The keeper looks his best in autumn. To many the

sight of him then is most welcome, especially if the

prospect of sport be fair, and the day of fine

The promise. People who go to shoot season

Hand of %. r * . ,

Time &fter season on one estate are greeted year

by year by the same friendly faces, nearly

all of them a little the worse for time's passage.

The host is seen to have aged between this October

and last, with his butlers and his beaters and bailiffs.

210 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

The foreheads of the familiar old horses seem to
have sunk a little above the eyes. The dogs are
remembered as playful puppies ; the headstrong
creatures now grow grey about the muzzles. Boys
employed of old as " stops," when their height was
less than the length of the hares they dangled proudly
over their backs, have now qualified for the army of
beaters ; they have long since learnt the wisdom of
not leaving their "stopping" places to forage for
hazel-nuts. All these have grown older, and perhaps
the visitor himself heaves a sigh as he looks down on
his own once trim and slender figure.

To the keeper alone of the time-honoured gathering
seen on the lawn before the house on an early October

morning have the years been kind. Over
The his face the winds have swept lightly ;

JJgf hardly an impression has been made on his
Old complexion by the sun, moon, and stars,

and the hail, snow, frosts, and mists of the
year. On his forehead half a century of life has
ploughed no furrows. His cheeks are free of wrinkles ;
there are no crow's-feet about the outside corners of
his eyes. He holds the secret of youth. His cheeks
might be a girl's ; there is a smoothness and supple-
ness about the skin of his face. Still the muscles
of his arms stand out with proud fulness. And his
eyes remain the keenest spy-glasses of the party.
His limbs are supple and free ; a gamekeeper hardly

RABBIT WAYS IN AUTUMN 211

knows the meaning of stiffness. But you may notice
now that he straddles mightily over the gate which
of old he vaulted with the glide of the fallow bucks
in the park. And if you were with him when, at
the end of a long day, he goes home to his tea, by
chance you might hear the remark made to his good-
wife, " Well, mother, I bain't sorry to sit down."

He looks his best in autumn ; and he feels his best.
He is ready for the test of his labours. He has had
worries enough ; the rearing season has been a " shock-
ing bad one," and he has had many late nights,
watching his birds. Perhaps he has had toothache ;
that is not unknown to keepers. Often he has been
soaked by rain, and more often by the dews of night
and morning. But he has lived all the year in the
open and in the country, and there is the secret of his
youth.

* 9 9

In the cool autumn days rabbits grow in attraction

to the poacher. They now have a habit of lying

within their burrows by day, after the

Rabbit worryings, bufferings, and evictions of

Ways in

Autumn harvest-time, waiting for things to quieten

down — until the sounds of binder and

harvester are no more heard across the stubbles.

Two people know this — the keeper and the poacher.

Often it is a race as to who shall be first to take

tribute from out-lying dells, with ferret and nets.

The ferreting season proper now sets in in earnest,

212 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

and at first the rabbits bolt freely, rumbling and
rushing along their subterranean passages, and with
blind force launching themselves into the nets.
A single ferret put into a burrow may send out a
dozen rabbits in quick succession ; or nothing may
happen when the ferrets disappear, hours of digging
follow, and then a bunch of ferrets and rabbits crowded
together are at last revealed. In autumn days there is
exciting sport with the gun at the expense of rabbits if
open burrows can be found, or burrows in dells where
the bare-stemmed elder is the only undergrowth.

In late autumn rabbits are very busy about their
burrows, making them fit for winter habitation.

Through the summer, while many of the
The rabbits have been lying out, the burrows

Hot£bT ' Lave l°°ked d eserte d and untidy. Warned
cleaning by the chilly nights that a subterranean

refuge will soon be useful, the rabbits do
up their premises, enlarging them, clearing away
the remains of old nests, and of relatives that have
died underground, and making fresh chambers where
they may lie snug and warm in place of those dug out
during last season's ferreting operations. Judging
by the amount of soil excavated in a single night,
rabbits at this season seem to rival ants in energy
— one might think there had been a wholesale
invasion of new-comers. At work, they kick the
soil sideways, forming a furrow perhaps six or ten

THE GUILELESS COUNTRYMAN 218

feet in length. Few have watched them while
engaged in this toil, usually undertaken at night-
time ; but we have seen them at work once or twice
by day, and once caught a rabbit by the leg — so
intent was he on his digging — while he was in the
act of kicking the soil aside.

The countryman is not always the guileless simple-
ton that he sometimes looks ; nor, as we can show,
is the Cockney sportsman. A holiday-
The making Londoner was shooting one day in a

S?n££ field te^ 1 " 1 the «* ta « e of a Oilier, who
man came out to watch the sport. Suddenly a

cry broke from him : he leaped into the air ;
then bellowed to the sportsman, waving a red hand-
kerchief in signal. Up to the cottage rushed the
sportsman, thinking that at the least the country-
man had been stung by a hornet or bitten by a
mad dog. "Look what ye've bin an' done," said
the countryman, advancing. " 'Tis a wonder I be
alive ; look what ye've bin an' done ; look at my
door, and look at these here shots." Saying which,
he pointed to his newly painted door (the sports-
man saw it was pitted with such holes as a rusty nail
might make). He held out his hand and showed
a good two ounces of shot (the sportsman saw they
had never been fired from a gun). " These here
shots/ 9 said the countryman, " they buzzed about me
like a swarm of bees : 'tis a wonder I be alive." The

214 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

sportsman agreed in the marvel of the escape, adding
to its wonder by pointing out that his shot had been
fired at a distance of five hundred yards from the
cottage — and in the opposite direction. " Allow
me/ 9 he said, " to buy back these wonderful pellets
at a fair market price " — and he handed the country-
man twopence.

¥ V ¥

In rural villages, keen sportsmen are often found
beneath the uniforms of the policeman and the post-
man. No one knows better than the keeper

PoUeemdn ^ ow usc ^ ** * s to "* on fondly terms
with the policeman — and no one knows

better how to manage it. Often policeman and post-
man may be found doing duty as beaters, especially
during September partridge shooting, when the
harvest is late and out-of-work labourers are few.
If you see through his disguise of plain clothes, the
policeman will remark how he just thought he would
have a walk for an hour or two, just to oblige Mr.
Keeper. Upholding the law and delivering the post
mean much walking : and country policemen and
postmen, when passing along the roads early and
late, find the haunt of many a fine covey. Being
good sportsmen, they take note of the customary
line of flight ; and if you own some of the land of
the covey's haunting they can tell you almost to a
minute when the birds leave the turnips beyond the
boundary for your stubble.

THE WOODCRAFT OF GIPSIES 215

If a policeman is on duty during the early days of
partridge shooting, he will manage to fall in with
shooting parties ; then he makes it known that he
heard shots, and was impelled to take a look round,
"to see that there weren't nothing wrong." The
policeman's favourite time for making known his
presence is soon after the bagging of a good, broad-
backed hare. Even policemen become spoiled with
Favours. On a sportsman telling his keeper to give
a hare to a polite and zealous officer of the law,
44 Excuse me, sir," said he, " but the party over the
hedge have just given me a hare, so might I have a
brace of birds ? Thank ye kindly, I'm sure ; a hare
will do nicely next time, sir." The sporting police-
man can do much to help the luckless sportsman.

Gipsies and gamekeepers have enough in common
to make them deadly foes. They share an intimate

knowledge of the ways of wild creatures.
The They are skilled trackers~and crafty trappers.

OTjjJtQf They are hedgerow men ; born to the
Gipsies hedgerow, trained to know the meaning of

every hole, and hollow, and run. Their eyes
read the story of the hedge as the scholar's the printed
page ; hedge-lore is their second nature, and it is as
though an instinct tells them where the partridge
has built, where the hedgehog has buried himself,
or where the rabbits are crouching. In their know-
ledge of the ways of rabbits and hares keepers and

■*W**r"

216 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

gipsies stand alone ; and it often happens that all the
knowledge and craft of the one class is pitted against
the cunning and knowledge of the other. Between
keepers and gipsies it is always war.

The keeper detests nothing more than a gipsies'
camp. His eyes take no more pleasure in their red
rags spread on the bushes than might the eyes of a
bull. A gipsy camp means to the keeper so much
dirt, so much thieving, so many lies, so much the
more trouble, and so many the fewer rabbits in hie
preserves. The gipsies' cauldron, steaming at dusk
over a fragrant fire of wood, brings only the bitter
knowledge that some of the birds or beasts he is
paid to preserve are stewing in the pot. Speak to
him of gipsies, and scorn flashes in his eyes, anger
flushes on his face. " They be always a-shirking about
wi' a dog or two, perkin' into everything," an old
keeper once said to us. " They can't let nothing
bide."

A gipsy brought to trial for larceny made oath
that his law allowed him to take as much from others
every day as sufficed for his maintenance. That
was more than three hundred years ago ; and gipsies
still faithfully believe in and take advantage of that
law. In our experience, we have known one gipsy
who was honest ; he was famous for his honesty.
His blameless character was so much appreciated
that he was allowed to pitch his tent in an old ox-
drove, where it ran past a sheltering wood. Within
the wood the keeper had buried four-dozen traps;

GIPSY LIES 217

and it chanced that the leaves drifted over his traps,
so that when he came to find them he hunted the
ground in vain. One day the gipsy's boy came to
the keeper's cottage. He said that while picking wood
for his father's fire he had trodden on something
hard, which turned out to be a heap of traps, and
that his father, thinking they must belong to the
keeper, had sent him to tell the story. Where is
another gipsy in England who would throw away
such a chance ?

* * *

Gipsies are certainly good sportsmen, after their own

fashion. But one seldom hears of a gipsy shooting

with a gun ; the gun speaks too loudly.

Lies^ "* e CTP s y mft kes sport with dogs, ferrets,
and nets. He takes no open risks ; he
holds it to be a disgraceful thing to be caught red-
handed. And if caught he never makes confession.
No matter how red his hands, there is always an
excuse. His horse is found feeding, perhaps, on
the farmer's crops. Then the horse must have
broken loose unbeknown. Or his dog crosses the
road, leveret in mouth. Then, " He picked un up
dead, killed by a stoat what I seed a-sniffin' about."
His dog has snapped up a sitting partridge. " It
must be one as they beggarin' foxes 'ave killed." Or the
gipsy himself, hunting a rabbit in a hedge, is taken
in the act of knocking over the rabbit with his stick.
All was done in mistake for a rat. The keeper

218 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

remarks that he has lost a fine clutch of eggs— olive-
brown eggs : he hints that the gipsy knows something
about it. Innocently comes the question : " They
sart o 9 eggs be pison, bain't they ? " If caught with
nets and ferrets on a rabbit burrow, a fine tale he has
to tell of poachers who ran away at his approach,
leaving all their tackle.

A keeper, who had strict orders to allow no gipsies
to stop on his ground, one day came across a strong
swarm, and saw clearly that they intended to stay
the night. But in reply to his marching orders, they
pleaded that they wished to stay only long enough to
make some tea ; they promised they would be gone
by the time the keeper returned, in a couple of hours.
So he went away, but went no farther than behind
the nearest hedge : whence he heard himself de-
scribed in a picturesque and blood-curdling fashion,
and heard the declaration also that the gipsies had
no intention of budging an inch for such a blue-
livered, red-nosed piece of pulp as he. Thereupon
the keeper took a run and a jump, and landed his
eighteen stone self and his leaded stick in the gipsies'
midst, sending their pots and pans far-flying. The
gipsies snatched burning sticks from the fire, and a
desperate fight began, but they soon had enough of
that eighteen stone of angry keeper.

In autumn, rabbits receive special attention from
the long-net poachers. On a night not too dark

TRAINING RABBITS 219

or windy, yet windy and dark enough, the long-

netters find all omens propitious. To begin with, the

rabbits are now in prime condition. Then

netters ^ere * s no ' ear °* a k^ ' rost *° ma ^ e *^ e
fixing of net-pegs a difficulty, or to allow

the sound of footfalls to be carried far through the
silence of night. And rabbits are plentiful ; as yet
their ranks have been thinned by no serious covert
shooting. To crown all, the market is ready and ex-
pectant, for the chance of a sale of stolen rabbits has
not been spoilt by the large surplus bags of genuine
sportsmen. A warm night best suits the poachers 9
object, with the wind blowing towards the side of
the selected wood — enough wind to prevent a panic
among the rabbits through sound or scent of danger
while the gear is fixed, yet not enough to deter them
from turning out in goodly numbers, and journeying
some distance from the wood to feed. The nets are
set up all along the side of the wood, then poachers
with dogs or drag-lines make a circuit and drive
the feeding rabbits home, and to their doom.

Keepers have found it more or less possible to train
rabbits to a mode of life which shall baffle the long-
net poachers. By giving them regular

Rabbits* courses °' driving-in at night they will take

to feeding chiefly by day, and will grow

very suspicious of the sound of a footfall after dark.

Where there are not enough rabbits to justify special

220 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

precautions and continual watching, long-netting
may be made difficult by turning cattle at night into
the grass fields bordering the woods. Not only will
the cattle be sure to take an inquisitive interest in
the long-netting, but they will have something to say
to the dogs used for driving in, and will quite upset
their work. In one place some poachers were baffled
after a curious fashion. A local gang had set
up some seven hundred yards of new netting, worth
about ten guineas, and had gone off to round up the
rabbits, when another gang from a distant part of
the county arrived on the scene. The curses they
heaped on their luck soon gave way to blessings —
at any rate, they were quick to see the chance of
poaching something more valuable than rabbits.
They rolled up the new nets and fled. Then the men
of the first gang returned in the wake of the rabbits,
which had found nothing to impede their rush to
cover. Curses were deeper and stronger than those
breathed before. The men decided in the end to
put their case and themselves unreservedly into the
hands of the police, who telephoned to the nearest
railway station, and captured the poachers with
their poaching brethren's gear and their own rolled
up in blankets.

* ¥ *

Why birds and beasts flock, no doubt, is for mutual
protection from natural foes. One has heard of
swallows nesting on a cliff beneath an eagle's eyrie, yet

WHY BIRDS FLOCK 221

having nothing to fear from the eagle's attack because
of their combination ; and every one knows how a

party of small birds will defy a hawk, or will
Why mob and rout a cuckoo or a day-flying owl.
Flock Possibly the reason for the great congregation

of sparrows in one chosen tree in a London
square is mutual protection from cats. Food is a
most important factor in flocking ; the keeper knows
that the scarcer the food of partridges the greater is
their tendency to pack. Birds may pack at night for
mutual warmth — as when titmice snuggle on branches,
and wrens, to the number of ten or twenty, crowd a hole
in the thatch. Partridges gain something in warmth in
snowy weather by their habit of jugging at night —
a good covey on a yard of ground. But examination
of the spot where they have passed the night shows
that the main pack has been divided into compara-
tively small parties, in the same way as there were
small parties among the great herds of buffalo that
travelled as one column across the plains of America.
Sheltered hollows are naturally chosen for jugging,
where the keen edge of the wind passes over the
birds' heads. There is not always safety or benefit
in numbers ; a flock may attract foes where in-
dividuals would pass unnoticed, or may make short
work of food which would keep an individual for
many days. With insects, great congregations may
be harmful, if an advantage to their bird enemies.
Presumably, flocking is a matter of general con-
venience.

222 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

During the first fortnight of October little parties
of fieldfares from Scandinavia drift over the fields,
chuckling in their throaty way, redwings are seen,
our wood-pigeons are reinforced by countless thou-
sands from overseas, snipe come in, woodcock will
soon be here, parties of goldcrests, newly arrived,
cry their sharp notes among the larches, and the
winter flocks of tits, with goldcrests, tree-creepers,
and nuthatches busily move in the woods. Every-
where birds are in flocks. Chaffinches, greenfinches,
and sparrows move in vast congregations, plovers
circle in clouds above the fallows, flocks of rooks unite
in the evening and thousands upon thousands of
starlings rise, fall, and circle in perfect unison, filling
the air with the rushing noise of wings.

Many animals snuggle together for warmth in bitter
weather — as the squirrels and the rats. Those who
go ratting in hedges and dells in the winter
The Com- know they may try a dozen freshly used
gate burrows without finding a rat — when sud-
denly from a single hole the rats will come
pouring out in a stream of fur. Twenty or more rats
will lie together in one hole. They are clever enough
to block up a hole on the windward side to keep out
the draught — so that a rat-hole newly stopped with
soil, turnip leaves, or grass, is almost certain in-
dication that rats are within. They store food for
winter, and the keeper may find it more difficult to

THE FALL 228

secure his potatoes from frost than from the attack
of the most numerous of his furred foes.

With the fall of the leaf we find the things we sought

diligently in the summer in vain. Within a foot

of the path we trod almost daily, we see,

Fan * or ^ e ^ n * ** me > w h ere a pheasant brought

off her brood; in the fork of a slender
birch-pole is that jay's nest for which we long hunted
— appearing now as a thick, deep wood-pigeon's nest ;
and where the bracken has died down are the whiten-
ing bones of a rabbit which, though his death-place
was marked by the keeper's eyes, was not to be found.
A single leaf of June may hide a bird's secret from
prying eyes. By noting the things seen in the fall
of the leaf we learn best how to find summer's
treasuries.

V ¥ ¥

A man of grumbles, equal to the farmers, yet the
gamekeeper is prepared to admit that a late autumn

brings him one blessing. The leaves so
Late and screen his roosting pheasants that there is
Autumns little fear of night-shooting in his coverts.

Accordingly, he sleeps peacefully during
many hours which he would have to devote
to watching in a wet early season. Deep in his
heart, all the same, he has a certain liking for the
hours passed in watching over his birds at night.

224 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

They bring him rheumatism ; but also an excite-
ment that adds much to the savour of existence.
Not to know from moment to moment when his head
may be smashed in is a stimulating change from
dealing with small game whose worst powers of
resistance are limited to a dig from the spurs of a
winged cock, or a scratch from the claws of a netted
rabbit.

* * *

As winter sets in, hares and rabbits are tempted to
pay casual nocturnal visits to the garden. To fence

the garden securely may be inconvenient —
Hares an d unless the work is done thoroughly,
Garden not forgetting the bottoms of gates, it is

almost useless. And possibly only a few
plants are in danger, such as carnations or parsley,
the special garden favourites of hares and rabbits.
So the simplest plan may be to wire in the few plants
or flower-beds that are threatened. Or a string may
be fixed at about eight inches off the ground, after
being saturated with one of the fluids used for taint-
ing rabbits from their burrows. This is useful when
isolated carnations are dotted about in herbaceous
borders, or when there are several rows of Brussels
sprouts in different parts of the garden ; hares are
very fond of Brussels sprouts.

A mysterious affair occurred in a garden, which a
gamekeeper was called in to investigate. It appeared
that the inhabitants of the house had been awakened

FOOD FOR PHEASANTS 225

in the night by a din as if the roof of a tin church
had fallen off, a din proved to be associated with a
piece of corrugated iron in the garden, used as a
stand for pots and pans. The mystery to be ex-
plained was what had upset the stand and the pots.
A tuft of the fur of a hare on the tin gave the clue,
with a nibbled patch of parsley a few yards away.
It was determined that a cat had come suddenly
round a corner on a hare enjoying an unlawful feast,
and that the hare in her fear had dashed headlong
into the corrugated iron, thus raising pandemonium ;
one effect was the hare came no more to that garden.

The cost of feeding pheasants is a question of some

interest at this season — to those who must foot the

bill. The keeper is commonly blamed for

Pheasants nmnin K U P to ° bi K a bm '> a happy medium
between his maximum and his employer's

minimum is probably the correct amount of

money required for food. The object of supplying

corn to pheasants is not always understood. It is

less to feed the pheasants — for they can usually exist

on natural food, if not very thick on the ground —

than to keep them from straying, by giving them a

pleasing and profitable employment. That keeper

makes a mistake and is extravagant who strews

maize on a clean-swept ride. His pheasants in a few

minutes will swallow a cropful and will be free during

the rest of the day to seek and find mischief. They

226 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

explore foreign woods, and if they like them, stay
away from home. But they may be kept where they
should be if pleasantly engaged in feeding. Straw-
corn — such as rough rakings and damaged sheaves
from the tops of ricks which are being threshed —
not only serves to feed pheasants, but forces them to
spend the greater part of their time, which otherwise
would be spare time, in searching for each mouthful.
One plan is to tie bundles of straw-corn round the
trunks of trees so that the pheasants must jump to
peck the ears. The empty straw is piled up again and
again for the birds to scratch down ; it is only neces-
sary to throw in a little loose grain. Such a minia-
ture stack will amuse the birds for hours at a time,
and helps to keep them at home.

Leaves may still cling to the newest growths of under-
wood long after the older underwood is gaunt and

bare. The sap, perhaps, is fresher and
Th* more vigorous in the younger wood — pro-

Leaves longing the period of ripening — and the

new buds have not pushed out far enough
to dislodge the leaves. In coppices that have been
thinned one sees how unusually big, and how strong
and enduring, are the leaves on the shoots of tree-
stumps — as though the whole energy of what was
once a tree is concentrated in the few shoots and
leaves. Where hedges are clipped, dead leaves re-
main in place far into the winter, possibly because,

PLANNING BIG SHOOTS 227

owing to injury, the growth is retarded of those
layers of cork which form to assist the buds in dis-
lodging the worn-out leaves. On the sides of rides
trimmed annually the leaves form quite a screen in
late autumn — to which one sportsman put down
his many misses at rabbits, and ordered his keepers
to walk along every ride and pick off all the leaves
that remained. The shoots of underwood that has
been cut always grow more luxuriantly in a hot,
dry summer than in a rainy one ; every copse-worker
will tell you this is the case, though we have not come
across one who could solve the riddle.

In early November many keepers are putting the
perfecting-touches to plans that have been maturing

all through the year. From the second
Planning day of February the keeper whose work is
Shoots n °t mere ty work, but the most absorbing

interest the world has to offer, has been
weighing continuously a thousand details — studying
each in its relation to others — scheming to arrange
all so that in combination they shall bring the best
possible results when the big days of the shooting
season come to pass. Few shooting men realise the
immense importance of apparently trivial details.
Let a single one — such as the exact placing of a
" stop " — be forgotten or disregarded, and the whole
of a day's sport by modern methods may be ruined.
Many good beats, many good days, have been brought

228 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

to naught by a sportsman coolly and without per-
mission despatching an important " stop " on an
errand. And afterwards he will protest in all good
faith that he commandeered the " stop " only because
he seemed to be standing idly at a corner, as if waiting
for something to do*

* * *

On the shoulders of the head keeper falls the
responsibility of all the mistakes that mar a day's

sport. His position is unfortunate, for
Plots and though he may perfect every arrangement,
Plots the success of the day must depend on good

shooting and the perfect carrying out of
orders. His plans must be set in motion amid every
kind of distraction — a general in command on a
battlefield is not more harassed by questions, plots,
and counter-plots than the commander of a shoot.
Guns are no sooner told where to go than they inquire
the way— one is asking querulously where he will
find his cartridges, another is sure his position is
hopeless, while the beaters require constant atten-
tion, for if they are left alone to move on to the next
beat they will lose themselves as a matter of course.
In partridge-driving the keeper's nerves are stretched
to breaking-point. Half a drive is finished, and not
a bird has shown itself; the suspense grows almost
unendurable before the swirling clouds of birds at last
suddenly rise, and go on beautifully in twos and tens
and twenties — in a stream that no man can count. The

INDIAN SUMMER 229

great art is to give even shooting through the day,
and to distribute sport evenly among the guns, with-
out favouritism — unless, indeed, orders are that the
cream of the sport must pass the way of an important
personage. If a keeper, for reasons of his own,
should wish the bulk of the game to go to one quarter,
he can manage this by retarding one end of the line
of beaters, or by ordering certain beaters to tap with
their staves more vigorously than the others — and
by this stratagem his partiality is hidden completely
from the sportsmen.

* * *

A late spell of midsummer heat makes it seem as

though summer indeed has lingered in the woods.

With the oak-trees still heavily canopied

Indian ^^ g reen leaves, the season of pheasant-
oummer

shooting seems an anomaly. A varied

bunch of wild flowers may be picked, many belonging
to June rather than to the months of nuts and berries.
Primroses bloom freely. Flowers are to be found
everywhere, and cottage gardens are ablaze with
Michaelmas and tall yellow daisies and dahlias ; the
coming of the first keen frost will mean a floral
massacre. On hedges laden with blackberries and the
red bryony berries there are sprays of honeysuckle,
and there are many bright blooms of scabious, knap-
weed, corn-poppy, daisy, harebell, violet, and scarlet
pimpernel. Even some of the old cock pheasants
seem to imagine that April has come, judging by

280 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

their spring-like crowing, and some of the hens nest
who should have done with nests by the end of July.
One very late nest we saw with eleven eggs, on
which the hen was only beginning to sit, as shown
by a broken egg. She had been cut out by the
mowing of seed-clover heads, but returned to her
mistaken duties, and was sitting on the evening of
September 80.

¥ V V

On a perfect summer-like day of autumn, it is strange
to think that hedgehogs are going to their winter

quarters, and that sleep is overtaking so
™? i-T — — »* tL ta, -J,*

dark rafters of the barn roofs ; toads in the
mud of the ponds ; field-mice, water-voles, lizards,
badgers, squirrels, hedgehogs curled in the ditches,
snugly rolled up in a great ball of dry grass and leaves ;
and the dormouse, " seven sleeper," as it is called
locally, or " dorymouse," " sleeper/* or " sleeping-
mouse." Much country weather-lore, in all parts of
the world, is based on the storing of nuts by squirrels,
the building of winter houses by musk-rats, the early
or late cutting of winter supplies of wood by beavers,
the working of moles, who are supposed before winter
comes to prepare basins for the storage of worms,
and the laying up of food on the part of bears.
" The hedgehog," said the writer of " Husbandman's
Practice," " commonly hath two holes or vents in
his den or cave, the one toward the south and the

A DISH OF HEDGEHOG 281

other toward the north, and look which of them he
stops; thence will come great storms and winds
follow." The badger in his winter retreat certainly
will block up holes from which draughts blow.

Though hibernating hedgehogs will remain above
ground all the winter, in the hollows where leaves

to cover them have accumulated, most retire
A Dish to the rabbit-burrows. They are seldom
h g found when ferreting operations are going

forward, because the ferrets do not care to
have dealings with them — though when hedgehogs
are skinned or opened, ferrets relish their flesh as
food. Keepers do not care to carry hedgehogs
home, on account of the many unpleasant things
that they distribute between himself and his ferrets.
It is true that gipsies and others eat hedgehogs, and
this is the time when they are in season for those
who appreciate them, being at their fattest, as are
all creatures about to retire for the winter. Gipsies
caught trespassing at this time of year are always
ready with the excuse that they are searching merely
for hedgehogs — even if dogs and nets and ferrets
happen to be in their possession. That they prefer
hedgehog to rabbit is a tale for a grandmother. Yet
they know well how to make a tasty dish of hedge-
hog. They burn off the bristles, split the prickly
beast down his back, and broil him on a forked stick
over a fire of wood. That is the quickest and cleanest

282 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

way of cooking out of doors; and, for those who
appreciate things grilled, the best. But for those
whose taste is toward cooking with all the natural
juices conserved, the elephant's-foot process is
recommended. Take not merely your hedgehog's
feet, but his whole body, " prickliwigs " and all, and
encase in a jacket of clay, and bury in hot ashes.
Before serving, peel off the clay and the prickles at
the same time. Of hedgehog also may be made a
stew of savoury brown. So that the stew's beginning
may be in keeping with the traditions of the immortal
cooks, take an onion stuck with cloves, then, having
browned your neatly jointed hedgehog in a frying-
pan, by means of a few ounces of butter (together
with the clove-stuck onion), immerse it in good
stock, to which add a few chopped truffles, and any
other such appetising things you can lay hands on — a
glass or so of champagne or other good white wine
will not be amiss, while a squeeze of lemon- juice is held
to effect a decided improvement. By simmering,
reduce the liquid contents of the cooking-pan by one-
half : and serve hot, garnished with little sippets of
toast. Should you tire of hedgehog cooked in these
ways, any of the numerous rabbit recipes may be
applied. It is to be presumed that most people
would soon have enough of the hedgehog dishes.

WINTER

Countrymen often display a dry humour all their own.
At a shooting party we fell in with a beater, into

whose charge one of the guns had given a
^f* well-filled cartridge-bag. Every now and

again we noticed that the beater thrust his
hand into the bag, and regarded the cartridges which
he pulled out with a puzzled look. We inquired the
reason, and it transpired that some of the cartridges
were loaded with No. 5 shot, and some with No. 5 J,
and that the beater had been asked to sort them by
their owner, a gun of indifferent merits. He said,
in continuation of his story : " He did tell I he can't
get on nohow wi' sich mixed tackle. I reckon if
there weren't no shots in 'em at all 'twouldn't make
ne'er a marsel o' difference."

Every oak-tree teems with life. Of insects alone five
hundred species look mainly to the oak for support.
j When the tree grows to the age of fruitful-

TheOak ness — ^ w j ien sixty or seventy years have

passed over its head — then its population is
increased tenfold. Here is a reason for the incredible

233

284 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

supplies of fruit — the great majority of the acorns go to
support the pensioners, and thousands must be sown if
one is to have a chance to develop into a seedling.
Squirrels come to feast and hide the acorns as they
hide nuts ; the dormice come ; human children come
with sacks for the sake of the pigs at home ; pheasants
feast on the ground ; rooks, more wary, amid the
branches; hungry jays warn hungry wood-pigeons
when the keeper approaches. To the animals, birds,
and insects are added the parasite plants, fungi
flourishing where a broken branch rots, lichens cover-
ing the bark, on the topmost bough the mistletoe.

Were it not for the oaks there would be scanty winter
faring and feasting for many wild creatures. When
acorns and hazel-nuts are scarce, and full
beech-masts are not plentiful, birds and
beasts have an unusually hard struggle to tide over
the winter, even should it be mild, as a paucity of nuts
is supposed to foretell. Different creatures like their
nut food in different conditions and at different times.
The rooks in their greed pull the acorns from their
cups where they grow, others do not relish them in
their fresh green state, and wait until they are ripe and
mellow. Pheasants, who are very partial to acorns
in autumn and winter, when more delicate faring is
not available, prefer to eat them just as they begin to
sprout. Like corn and other seeds, acorns when
sprouting possess a peculiarly attractive sweetness.

ACORNS 285

Some of the trees seem to produce fruit of extra
sweetness or extra fine flavour — at least, the game-
keeper finds that his pheasants seem to prefer to feed
beneath certain trees. Perhaps it is that those trees
which are most sun-drenched produce the sweetest
acorns, just as the most exposed hazel-nuts on the
topmost twigs are so much better than the pale ones
of the lowest branches*

The keeper welcomes a generous supply of acorns —
provided that the trees which yield them grow in his
woods, and not exclusively near the boundary of his
beat. Wood-pigeons, as soon as they have cleared
the beech-mast, their specially favoured food, will stuff
their crops with acorns to the bursting-point — and
so grow fat. Acorns also form an important item
in the winter fare of rabbits and deer. It is true that
they draw rats to the coverts, and even when the last
acorn has gone it is not easy to clear the rats away
completely. Whether or not there are plentiful
acorns, the keeper is much indebted to the oak for
food for pheasants, because they are so fond of the
spangle-galls, to be found in plenty on the backs of the
leaves, that they prefer them even to the maize which
is freely scattered. All the galls of the oak, whether
oak-apples, or bullet, artichoke, spangle, or root galls,
are the outcome of eggs laid by the various gall- wasps,
and the pheasants know that within the spangle-galls
are the grubs, feeding on the galls' flesh. Left to
themselves, the grubs will in due time reach the
chrysalis stage of existence, to be hatched in June as

286 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

winged insects, and to lay in turn the eggs which cause
the pretty vermilion-spotted galls. So the wheel of
life turns again and would turn for ever if unspoked
by the pheasant's beak.

* * *

In mid-November rabbits are at their fattest. Grass
has been green, sweet, lush, and growing ; under the

autumn sun, winter oats and wheat have
r!Ss sprung inches high, and rabbits have been

enjoying rare feasts. The stoats, in turn,
have found benefit in the autumn. It is on full-
grown rabbits that they now depend chiefly for food.
No longer can they feed on young birds ; nor are
small rabbits often to be met. Rats show fight when
attacked, and stoats prefer to tackle game without
power of resistance. Full-grown hares have too much
staying power to be hunted down, and they are too
fond of making for the open fields to be worth hunting.
There are mice and field-voles, but the fat rabbits of
the woods are the most obvious of possible meals. No
hunt is more determined, ferocious, or relentless than
when a stoat hounds a big rabbit to its death.

By scent alone the stoat runs down the rabbit chosen
for its dinner. No matter how devious the rabbit's
course, or how many other rabbits cross the trail, the
one line of scent is followed to the end, and sooner or
later the death-scream of the rabbit is inevitable. We

THE STOAT'S HUNTING 287

have often seen the last act of the tragedy. One
hunted rabbit made for the shelter of young under-
wood, cleverly twisting amid the jungle

The of fern, grass, and bramble, so that

Stoat's

Hunting th e leaping stoat could have been guided

only by scent ; the rabbit seemed to

understand that the hollowness of the bottom of old

wood offered few chances of dodging. At last the

rabbit grew exhausted ; and, at a loss to know where

to run to shake off its pursuer, but a few yards behind,

took to turning and twisting with redoubled energy,

now rounding a leafy stump, then dashing into a

clump of brambles, doubling, again rounding the

stump, again flashing through the brambles — then

sitting up for a second, listening to hear if the stoat

were still following. The stoat, thus baulked again

and again, grew ever more furious. Coming up on

the hot scent to the leafy stump, round which the

rabbit had slipped in the nick of time, it would dash in

so furiously as to make the brown leaves rattle off,

as a terrier leaps at a rabbit's seat from which the

owner has just fled. The burning scent throws the

pursuer into a frenzy. But the stoat, with a chatter

of rage, lost little time in following on into the bramble

clump ; and the sight of man near by was not enough

to turn it from its object. At last, in the brambles,

it came upon the rabbit dead-beat — charged in a blind

fury, sank its teeth into the head, worrying home the

grip. Then, having disabled the rabbit, it retired

a yard or two and charged again, retiring and charging

288 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

at intervals, as if to gain fresh power for driving in
the needle-sharp teeth. ... At such a moment the
keeper feels more than ever justified in shooting a
stoat.

Waiting for the end of such a rabbit hunt, for a
moment we lost sight of the chase ; then felt certain
we could hear the hoarse breathing of the captured
rabbit in a thick spot, on the opposite side of the
20-foot ride near where we were standing. Yet we
felt certain that neither stoat nor rabbit had crossed
from our side. We waited, and sure enough the stoat
caught the rabbit almost at our feet, where we had
thought them to be. The mystery of the heavy
breathing remained — the sound was exactly that of a
rabbit being mauled by a ferret within a burrow.
We crossed the ride, made search, and discovered a
large hedgehog curled up in its nest. While the
bloodthirsty business had been going forward six or
seven yards away, the hedgehog had lain snugly
wrapped in winter sleep — actually snoring I

A stoat, if accidentally deprived of its power of scent,
would soon come to starvation. All animals depend

on scent not only for their food but for their
Mysteries protection, their power of recognition, and
Seent ' or near ty *U the interests of their lives.

The scent given off varies with occasion.
In a state of rest it is modified. Thus a game-bird
who has been on its nest for some time is in less danger

MYSTERIES OF SCENT 239

of discovery than one that has just come to the nest,
leaving a fresh trail. So the scent given off by
foxes varies with their own condition — as, of course,
with the weather. The greatest scent is left behind
by the fox when he is warm with running ; the least
is given off at the beginning of a run, or at the end,
when he is exhausted. The hunted fox well knows
that his life may depend on the strength or weakness
of his scent — this is made clear when he runs pur-
posely through a herd of cattle or a flock of sheep.

Deluges of rain, burning sun, or extreme cold
obliterate fox-scent, but slight heat combined with
moisture, as when the sun shines after a warm shower,
is in favour of a strong and enduring trail. But there
is little certainty in the matter ; as Mr. Jorrocks truly
said, " Nothing so queer as scent 'cept a woman."
On a promising day hounds may be at fault when
within a score of yards of a fox ; but on a day so
apparently hopeless that few sportsmen trouble to
attend a meet, as when a thin crust of hard-frozen
snow covers the ground, the scent may be red-hot.
One day may yield a perfect scent ; on the next,
apparently with the same weather conditions, the
scent is elusive, and the hounds no sooner give tongue
than they fall silent. Much depends on the nature of
the country, or of the substance on which the volatile
scent particles fall. Crossing the meadows, the
hounds speak the line with certain voice ; but when
they come to dry, crumbling fallow-fields, the chorus
dies away into a few doubtful whimpers. The time

240 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

of the day has its effect on scent ; in midsummer the
woods may have no perfume in particular at midday,
but are filled with sweet smells in the evening. Every
one knows how a warm autumnal shower brings out
the savour of dead leaves and the smell of earth.

To the fox, as to the stoat, the sense of smelling is
the most important of all. With his nose the fox
discovers nearly all his food. If the sitting game-bird
has flown to her nest, and herself gives off the least per-
ceptible scent, the fox easily finds her by that strong
scent given off by chipping eggs. By scent he picks
up the young leverets, after quartering the ground
to gather the greatest advantage of the wind. He
scents young rabbits in the stop when a foot beneath
the surface of the earth, and when he starts digging
them out he goes directly to their nest. So a good
ratting terrier will point through a couple of feet of
soil to the exact spot where a rat is lying. We have
sometimes thought that an invention to magnify
scents would prove of great benefit to the gamekeeper.
But there might be fatal effects if a keeper, scent-
improver on nose, came suddenly on that mushroom
of the fetid odour commonly known as the Stinkhorn.

One of the many thorns that pierce the keeper's side
is driven home at the time of the cutting of the under-
wood. Once in every span of ten or twelve years this
time must come. Now and again the felling of part of
a covert before shooting improves matters from a

THE AXE IN THE COVERTS 241

sportsman's view — the beats are simplified, or are

more easily commanded with the regulation number

of from five to nine guns. But the keeper

The Axe knows to his cost that more often than not

In the . . , • .

Coverts cutting the underwood is ruination to sport.

Birds and rabbits are alarmed by the
sound of the woodman's chopping, and half the
hares fly before the smoke of the greenwood fires.
Many complications arise through wood-cutting, as
when the shooting is in other than the landlord's
hands. When he wishes to cut certain portions of his
woods, and the cutting may interfere seriously with
sport or the showing of game, unpleasantness must
arise among all parties — landlord, gamekeepers, shoot-
ing men, and copse-workers. Those responsible for
the shooting should find out as early as possible which
parts are to be cut, and arrange in good time with the
landlord to make it a condition of sale that no cutting
takes place before a convenient date. When several
acres of underwood are felled, and the wood is left
lying in long rows called drifts, a good deal of incon-
venience may arise, unless the underwood is worked
up as cut down. On shooting days half the pheasants
in the place may skulk in the drifts, whence it will
be impossible to dislodge them by ordinary beating
methods of the most energetic type. Besides, drifts
provide a safe refuge for rabbits. They increase
incredibly, and in the following year they will be by
far too plentiful for the welfare of the young shoots
that spring from the shorn stumps.

242 A GAMEKEEPERS NOTE-BOOK

Thirty yean ago the price of underwood as it stood
growing, at twelve yean old, was about twenty

pounds an acre ; but to-day five pounds an
Th* Uses acre is considered a good price for first-class
wood underwood, so hard has the industry been

hit by substitutes for ash and hazel.
Though we have known underwood to fetch only half
a crown an acre, we have seldom seen it described by
auctioneers as other than " prime and ripe." The
most useful kind is hazel. All sorts of sticks and
stakes for the garden are cut of hazel. Wattle-fences
are made of it, neatly woven, and the "hethen"
which bind the tops of live fences. Closely woven
hazel hurdles form a splendid protection for sheep
from wind and rain ; they cost, to buy, about eight
shillings a dozen, and the hurdler is paid about half
that sum. Hazel is now largely used in making the
crates in which the product of the Potteries is packed.
The cleanest growths were formerly made into the
hoops of barrels, and one might see thousands of
bundles stacked in a clearing. But iron is killing the
hoop-makers' industry. One use of hazel has been
unaffected by time — the use to which the country
blacksmith puts it, when he winds handles of the
shoots for his chisels and wedges — being pliant, they
allow his tools to adjust themselves to the blow of
the hammer. And the hazel-wand remains the
favourite divining-rod of the water-finders.

THE TIPPING SYSTEM 248

Gamekeepers are much associated with tipping. If
tips are to be reckoned as part wages, the element of

System a ^ch man buys the best place in a shoot.

For the system, it may be said that a tip is
the most convenient token of appreciation of skill in
producing good sport. And we agree that if any
servant of pleasure deserves a tip it is the game-
keeper. But among the fallacies of the system is the
fact that the scale of tips is seldom in proportion to
skill and energy. Thus, a tip of a certain amount is
given for a day's covert shooting of, say, under a
hundred head, half pheasants, calling for a certain
amount of energy and skill on the keeper's part. But
a tip of only half the amount will be given after a
thirty-brace day at driven partridges, which has
afforded five times the amount of shooting, and called
for ten times more skill and energy from the keeper.
There is a saying among keepers that tips may be
looked upon to provide three useful things — beer,
'baccy, and boots. In old times a five-pound note
was the order of the day — this is represented now by
half a sovereign or five shillings. A few keepers are
lucky enough to serve where wealthy sportsmen shoot
regularly, who willingly give the keeper a ten-pound
note. But most keepers praise heaven for £10 re-
ceived in tips in a season. Where the scale of tips
most fails is when a tip covers compensation for
injuries. But the beater who received a note on

244 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

account of a stray pellet in his person was more than
satisfied. " Bless you, sir/' he said, " you may give
me the other barrel for another of 'em." But beaters
always find contentment in a tip, whatever its
size. We recall how three beaters were more or
less bagged successively during a three days' covert
shoot. One, at the time, appeared to have had his
right eye destroyed, but saw his way to accept twenty-
five shillings. Another buried a shot in his little
finger, and on receiving seven shillings was eager to
undergo the same treatment for six days a week. A
third was peppered behind, and awarded eighteen-
pence, which satisfied him, being, as he lamented,
" only a boy, like." By the way, there seems no
place in the sportsman's scale of tips for awards for
narrow escapes. We have known a keeper mention
the fact quite unavailingly that his cap had been shot
from his head by a careless gunner, who had brought
down an easy bird with his first barrel, then, swinging
round, had blazed at a second bird just as it topped
the keeper's head. "Aw," he drawled, by way of
answer, when the keeper respectfully intimated that
he had escaped death by a miracle, " I certainly ought
to have killed both of those birds."

How many foxes have owed their deaths indirectly to
covert shooting ? It is a nice question for hunting
men. The fox is one of the craftiest creatures in the
world. A very short experience is enough to make

FREE SUPPERS FOR THE FOX 245

him associate the particular squeal of a rabbit when
caught in a snare with a cheap supper. And he

discovers quickly that luxurious banquets
Free await him after a day's covert shooting,
for the* ^ e di scovcr y has a certain result ; after
Fox covert shooting foxes gorge themselves,

and become totally unfit to stand before
hounds. To keepers this is well known, of course ;
and there are those who are not slow to take advant-
age of the fox's gluttony. Suppose a keeper thinks
that a fox or two the less would not be amiss, and
knows that on the morrow hounds are to be expected.
There is, suppose also, no covert shooting at the
moment in his immediate vicinity. Though unwilling
to take more direct steps, he is fully prepared to
handicap foxes before hounds so far as he may, and in
the night before hounds come he provides free suppers
for his foes. He is hardly to be blamed, and if blamed
by the hunt one keeper at least has a ready answer.
In view of a visit from so fine a pack, he says, he
wished to show that he had forgiven the doomed foxes
their sins, by spreading a final feast.

There are keepers who, not making the best of neces-
sity, harbour in their breasts an undying grievance
against foxes and take every chance to malign the
foe. After a beat, during which the guns had stood
in a hollow where pheasants had come at a good
height, a sportsman was collecting birds that had
fallen behind him, and to his surprise found a
pheasant with its head apparently torn off. He

346 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

suggested to the keeper that there must be foxes
in the wood — foxes near at hand, and very bold.
The keeper had reason to know better — but on
picking up another headless pheasant, remarked
sadly, ** If they treats 'em like this 'ere when they
be dead, it be cruel to think how they'd serve 'em
when they ketched 'em alive." The sportsman was
impressed by the keeper's melancholy tone, and
began to share his fox-enmity. But the keeper's
sharp eyes had seen what fate really had befallen the
pheasants' heads — a fate strange enough, for as the
birds fell their heads were torn off by the forks of
ash-stems, in which they caught.

By many signs keepers read the story of the presence
and work of foxes. A fox makes a half-hearted

attempt to bury game that he has partly
dues eaten, and wishes otherwise to dispose of —
Thief * n d the buried game is so impregnated

with his scent that no other creature will
touch it. He barks at night in mid-winter days —
and spreads uneasiness among sheep, as betrayed
by the bleating of ewes. He digs in a way all his
own, throwing out the soil behind him in a slovenly
heap ; he noses about mole-heaps and ant-hills,
and his visit is easily detected. On soft spots he
leaves his footmarks — and he always leaves his
scent behind him. Pheasants without tails tell a
story of a young fox's spring that failed to bring him a

MUZZLED BT A SNARE 247

supper. Heads of rabbits, and nothing else, in
snares, rejected maws lying near by — the disinter*
ment of poaching cats which the keeper has buried —
these show where hungry foxes have passed. By day
their presence is revealed if a cock pheasant cries
a sudden, uneasy, short alarm-note, by the screaming
of jays, and by a particular blackbird note, which,
if it does not mean stoat or cat, certainly bespeaks
a fox. A crow may be seen suddenly swooping
angrily as he passes over a field — a fox lurks there.
The hidden cause for the continuous uneasy spring-
ing of partridges is often a fox, or at least a cub
amusing himself by partridge hunting.

A fox does not grow very old without learning how

to take advantage of a snarer's catch. He learns to

follow up runs and visit places where the

Muzzled snarer has set his snares. And he often

toy a

Snare P a y s *ke penalty, his feet falling foul of the

noose. Hunting people commonly suppose
that traps — steel gins — are the chief cause of fox-
maiming, yet not once in a blue moon is a fox trapped.
But if too clever to be caught in a trap, he is not
clever enough to keep his feet out of the brass wire
of the simple snare. We came across a curious in-
stance showing how a fox may suffer from a snare.
Hounds found a fox which ran to ground almost at
once. Men were set to work to dig him out, and they
found he was merely skin and bone, and round his

248 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

muzzle they found part of a brass snare. The wire
had fixed itself in such a way that he could scarcely
open his mouth, so that he was handicapped both in
catching food and eating it. From his appearance
it was thought that he had been in this miserable
plight for a month. It had been better for the fox
if hounds had found him a month earlier.

A fox, in emergency, will sham death to perfection.
A Master of Hounds once noosed a fox in a whip
as he bolted before a terrier from an earth,
gjgj* The fox appeared to have been strangled—
when held up by the scruff of the neck his
eyes were seen to be closed, his jaws gaped, and the
body hung limply down from the hand. He was
placed tenderly on the ground— only to dash off
into covert. To be over-cunning is a common
fault. One fox entered a fowl-house, and amused
himself by killing every bird. In departing through
the hole by which he had entered, he stuck fast,
and was found hanging dead the next morning.
Another sought refuge from hounds by jumping on
to the low roof of a thatched cottage, and crawling
beneath the rafters until he could crawl no farther.
It was years before his skeleton was discovered.
Some of the foxes found dead on railway lines, by
the way, have been put there after death by vul-
picides. In olden days the punishment for the crime
of fox-killing was a spell in the stocks. Vulpicides

A HUNTING ARGUMENT 249

remain, but the stocks — some would say alas ! —
have gone from use for ever.

The hunting man has a hundred reasons why hunting
is a blessing to the community. He argues that

hunting circulates gold every year to the
A tune of seven and a half million pounds —

Argument anc * that this is good for the horse trade, the

forage trade, for the blacksmith, the harness-
maker, and for an army of grooms. Then hunting
tends to keep at their homes in the country wealthy
people, who might winter abroad if there were no
foxes to follow. This means that many large estab-
lishments are kept open, servants are kept in food
and wages, local tradesmen stand to benefit. Further,
it is claimed that there is little to be said against
hunting — we often hear how riders, horses, hounds,
and foxes all enjoy the sport ; on this point, how-
ever, we have no direct evidence from foxes. And
it is claimed that the amount of damage done to
agriculture is infinitesimal — though farmers who
have had hounds over young corn, or seeds, or fine
fields of turnips, might bring conflicting evidence to
bear on the point. Perhaps the favourite argument
in favour of hunting is that the sport is good for
horse-breeding, and that the hunting-field is the
finest training school for cavalry. Gamekeepers
would be among the first to lament the abolition of
fox-hunting, for if it were not for the existence of

250 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

foxes and their preservation for the hounds, few
keepers would be required to protect game. Nor
would there be those useful little sums to the keeper's
credit on account of litters, finds, and stopping.

Nobody can persuade a gamekeeper that dogs lack

reasoning powers. We were watching a terrier at

work, and she gave us a pretty example

The of something very like intelligence. A

Clever

Terrier pheasant was winged, fell on a bare field,

and ran for a thick dell — the terrier in
pursuit. She made one or two ineffectual attempts
to gather the bird, until within a score of yards of
the dell — then she raced ahead. She seemed to
realise that there was so much cover in the dell that
direct attempts to take the bird were risky — and she
proceeded to work the pheasant to a safe distance
from the cover before tackling it again, this time
effectively.

When this little terrier has marked a rabbit or a
rat in a patch of grass or brambles, her common sense
tells her that if she dives in after her quarry it may
dash out unseen by her, by reason of the grass or
brambles. So she stands by, and stamps, and other-
wise tries to make her game bolt, in a way which
will allow her to see the direction ; and she is seldom
baffled. It is difficult to decide whether this terrier
is more or less reasonable than her kennel companion,
a retriever, when feeding-time comes. If at feeding-

THE CLEVER TERRIER 251

time the retriever has a biscuit left over from the last
meal, which she has lightly buried, on her master's
approach she will promptly disinter the treasure,
holding it out as much as to say : " Thank you, I
need no biscuit." But experiments with the terrier
show that she will ever refuse to give the slightest
indication of a buried hoard. Whether she needs a
biscuit or not, she always takes one when offered,
as though she desired nothing better in the world.
A good story in proof of a retriever's reasoning powers
is told by an old-time sportsman. He was shooting
beside a frozen stream, and winged a mallard, which
fell in mid-stream. His dog crashed on to the ice,
broke through it, and fought her way to the middle,
where the ice only skimmed the water. She swam
round for a moment, then broke her way to the opposite
bank, paused to give a knowing look at the thin ice,
and went down stream at full speed for about eighty
yards. Running down the bank, she broke a hole
in the ice with her fore-paws, then crouched back,
watching the hole. In a few moments she made a
spring and plunged in, reappearing in mid-stream
with the mallard in her mouth. There was no doubt,
at least in her master's mind, that she had broken the
hole for the purpose of catching the bird when he
came up to breathe.

9 9 9

A keeper owned two retriever puppies who were
given a curious start in life. Their mother was shut

252 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

up at home, while her master went to shoot some
rooks. She was the proud mother of five new-born

puppies, but her litter was not complete. A
Born few rooks had been shot, and the keeper was
lug. waiting for others to appear, when up ran

the retriever carrying a rook in her mouth ;
somehow she had managed to get out, and had followed
to see the sport. She was sent back to her
puppies, and directly she reached home two new
puppies were born. They were born, as one might
say, retrieving.

V ¥ V

The most common type of gunner is the man who
kills frequently, but is not a good shot because he
does not know how to take his birds. He
Some would double his bag if he would put every
Types shot a foot farther forward — that golden
foot forward — if he would not fire when in
the act of turning (which must depress the gun's
muzzle), and if he would remember that driven birds
on seeing a man rise immediately and instinctively,
even at right angles to their line of flight. The keeper
detests the man who continually sends him to pick
up game which has never fallen. For these knowing
gentlemen, he is a wise keeper who carries a special
bird or two in his pocket, against the time when they
say, in their haughty way, " Aw, my man, kindly
pick up my bird that fell tha-ar 1 "

The luckiest shot we ever met was a colonel who,

VICTIMS OF WIRE 258

one windy day, happened to be stationed by himself
on a road lined by telegraph-wires. All the birds
came his way, and with ten shots he killed one.
Startled by his volleys, a bunch of passing birds
blundered into the telegraph-wires which, more deadly
than the gun, claimed nine victims. The colonel
was a study in modesty when he remarked a little
later that in ten shots he had been lucky enough to
bag five brace.

¥ ¥ V

Unfortunately the best stands for partridge-driving
are often behind hedges flanked by telegraph-wires.

This is specially unfortunate when the birds
Victims S ee the guns just before they pass beneath
Yfire ^he TOrcs- Up they go, and a whole covey

may be cut to pieces at the moment when
fingers were pulling triggers. Though a brace of
birds fall dead at the sportman's feet, evidently
neatly taken in front, to the sportsman this is not the
same as a brace to his gun : he would prefer, indeed,
a good old-fashioned miss.

Many country people who ought to know better are

hazy on the distinction between stoats and weasels.

We can forgive the Cockney uncertainty of

W^ase] 1 ? **" s sort ' as we * or 8* vc Urn for calling
rooks, and even starlings, crows. The

countryman may well confuse crows and rooks ; his

^f?

254 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

safest plan when in doubt about a big black bird is
to name him rook, for in most parts crows are now
scarce to the point of extermination. But those
who live in the country have as little excuse for
speaking of stoats, when they should speak of weasels,
as for mixing rabbits with hares. It is easier to tell a
weasel from a stoat than a rabbit from a hare, if
one is fairly close and has a clear view. A weasel
is quite a third of the size of a stoat and a third of
the weight : the males of both weasels and stoats
are about twice the size of the females. But the
outstanding distinction between stoat and weasel
is the long, black-tufted tail of the stoat, and the
short, unassuming tail of the weasel — no more con-
spicuous than a mole's tail.

We have come across many curious cases of ignorance

on these points. A countryman who had dwelt

with stoats and weasels all his life, and had

"The killed hundreds by trap and gun, yet had

Badger** no ^ ea °' *^ e true difference. Whichever
he saw, or killed and hung up by a twisted
twig, he determined to be stoat or weasel according to its
size. Then we remember a lady who kept chickens,
and suffered the loss of half a brood. She called in a
passing keeper to settle the question of the thief.
After waiting a while the keeper shot a weasel in
the act of returning for another chicken. The lady
of the chickens was overjoyed at this retribution,

CHALK-PIT HAUNTS 255

and presented the keeper with halt a crown. Her
words in making the presentation have been treasured
by the keeper : " This/ 9 said she, " is for shooting
the horrid badger."

To the old chalk-pit, where the sun is trapped and the
winds are kept at bay, come all kinds of creatures
for warmth and sanctuary. However de-
Chalk- serted the fields of winter seem to be —
Pit
Haunts however silent and sullen — signs of life

are never wanting in the chalk-pits ; they
are as inns to wayfarers who search the country for
a living and lodging. Creep silently, against the
wind, to the chalk-pit's edge, and in summer or
winter, sunshine or shower, on a still day or a windy,
you will catch a glimpse of some wild creature, a
visitor, or one of those who have made their home
in the pit for the sake of sustenance or shelter.

The sparrow-hawk may be caught napping on
some favourite perch, as on a stunted tree, in a

sheltered nook. The partridge covey may
When be seen for a moment, as the birds revel
sfe e eps° X in the Powdery soil, roofed by an overhang-

ing ledge — seeing you, they go whizzing
off amid a little cloud of dust. In the dead herbage
a wily old cock pheasant crouches, who long since
denied himself the luxuws and the dangers of social

256 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

life in the big woodlands : he crouches as he sees
you, but not so quickly that you may not note the
sinking of his glossy neck. Two or three rabbits
scuttle off to the doors of their burrows. Through
the bushes a hare steals away. No chalk-pit is
complete without a rabbit-burrow, a blackbird, and a
robin. If hounds came more often to the chalk-
pits they would save themselves many a blank hour.
There is no peace for the fox in the coverts, but the
old chalk-pit is as quiet as a church.

An exciting moment for rabbiters comes if a fox

bolts from a burrow when only a rabbit is expected —

so exciting a moment that if there is a

When man with a gun the fox is lucky to escape

meets a s ^°* — es P ec i a Uy should he have in his
Fox mouth the quivering body of a favourite

ferret. And the ferret is lucky to come
alive from a hole if he meets the fox in the only
passage by which he can leave the burrow. But
ferrets often escape if the burrow is not a proper fox-
earth, but has been used only as a temporary shelter.
Even if caught in the fox's jaws there may be hope
for the ferret ; we heard of one who was none the
worse for a long ride between a fox's teeth. Like
dogs and cats, foxes can be soft-mouthed if they will.
We have known a fox to deal so tenderly with a
captured rabbit that it ran about after the long
jaws had released their hold ; and for some time it

FEBRUARY RABBITS 257

amused its captor as a mouse amuses a cat. A fox,
when he wishes, can carry an egg without breaking
the shell.

¥ ¥ ¥

Towards the end of January rabbits begin to fall

off in condition. As food becomes less nourishing

their reserve supplies of fat gradually

Rabbite* 7 dwindle. But with the end of the game
season the price on their heads begins to
rise : and the keeper who has hard work to meet the
expenses of a shoot looks to the rabbit-catch of
February to swell the credit side of his accounts.
Most people know that a hen pheasant is more tender
and delicate to eat than a cock, though cock and hen
may be of the same age. So with rabbits — those
who sell rabbits might well charge a penny or two
more for the does than for bucks. The countryman
knows that the tenderest rabbits are those that he
may skin with the least difficulty.

While the gamekeeper is seldom at fault in the
matter of a ready excuse, he meets many people who

are his superior in carrying ever-ready lies
The on their lips. From poachers and mouchers,

Excuse M *k e haunters of hedge-sides are called,

he might learn the lesson that no excuse
is better than a fine excuse that is shallow. One
Sunday morning a keeper, dressed in his go-to-meeting

258 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

clothes — a useful disguise— came sauntering silently
down a load bounded by unkempt hawthorn hedges.
His trained ear caught the sound of a dog careering
past him on the field-side of the road : then he saw
the dog's master, who, on seeing him, set up a
sudden and energetic whistling. Of this the dog
took no notice ; with his nose well down, he rushed
on to a rabbit-burrow and began digging furiously.
" These hedges are full of rats/ 9 remarked the dog's
master. " My dog killed five just now." Asked
what had happened to their bodies, Mr. Moucher
replied calmly, " He swallowed 'em whole." On the
keeper suggesting that there was not much chance
of finding a rat in the rabbit's burrow, the moucher
agreed, called off his dog, and went his way. In
the hedges there was no sign of a rat, but a few
rabbits managed to eke out an existence, though
heavily persecuted by gentlemen of the road.

The opening of the hunting season proper brings
a new anxiety to the keeper. While it opens in

early November, no date is recognised. The
When keeper would like to see one fixed, and he
come would make it after his coverts had been

shot at least once. Many shooting men
would also like to see the idea established that hounds
should not come to their woods until after the first
shoots, especially where there are many hares. Often
a landowner will refuse a master's request for per-

WHEN HOUNDS ABE GONE 950

mission to come his way until he has done with his
coverts. The keeper does not so much object to
the hounds merely passing through when in full
cry, for then the hounds run in a compact body, and
pay no attention to game. They only disturb a
line about ten yards wide right through the woods.
What disturbs every game-bird and hare in the place
is drawing a covert, particularly when scent is bad
and foxes are in evidence, but not to be forced away.
Unhappy the keeper who must throw open his coverts
at all seasons while other neighbouring coverts are
closed. The prohibition of one wood often leads to
the closing of many more ; and hunt officials are
well advised to break down, by every power of per-
suasion, all restrictions which favour one or two
keepers at the expense of brother keepers. At any
rate, we think it would be an excellent idea that the
keeper whose coverts are always open to hounds
should have double the reward paid for a find to the
keeper whose coverts are open only after Christmas.

Those who shoot in the wake of hounds are no sports-
men. To state a case in illustration of this: A

sportsman has the shooting of a wood
When bounded on one side by another's fields.
5?? 11 In days gone by he was glad to keep a fox
gone for hounds, and gladly he would throw open

his wood to the hunt, in a reasonable way.
In the cause of sport, he was content that his pheasants

200 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

and hares should be driven out of his wood into his
neighbour's fields and hedgerows. But when he found
that his neighbour was the sort of man to shoot
in the wake of hounds, so that the evicted creatures
were given no fair chance to return to their homewood,
but instead were shot in the afternoon following a
morning visit of hounds — he felt compelled to close
his wood to the hunt, with the natural sequence that
he was soon compelled to bar the covert to foxes
also. No shooting days in the wake of hounds
should be a golden rule for all neighbourly neighbours.

Of poachers there are many types ; and the worst

are the organised bands that hail chiefly from colliery

and manufacturing districts. These men

Weapons are mur ^ erous ruffians* and the keeper who
interferes with them carries his life in his
hand. Wives look anxiously indeed for their hus-
bands' return when such a band is about. The
gangs chiefly practise night shooting, and pheasants
are their object. But they are as ready to fire at a
keeper as at pheasants. We were shown a single-
barrelled muzzle-loading gun which a keeper had
taken from such a poacher, who had shot a roosting
pheasant under his very eyes. After the shot, the
keeper went up to the man, who pointed the gun
straight at his head, threatening to fire if he
advanced another yard. But the keeper knew his
man — and his gun. He knew there had been no time

MOLES' SKINS FOR FURS 261

for the ruffian to reload. He knocked up the barrel,
and caught his man, who in due time was sentenced
to nine months 9 imprisonment. Had his gun been
double-barrelled, it would have been another story,
and a tragic one. A favourite weapon, and a deadly,
in these poachers 9 hands is a heavy stone slung in a
stocking.

¥ ¥ 9

For moles 9 skins the keeper has no sentiment. He
will not part with his skins of rare birds — but will

willingly barter the prospect of wearing a
Moles 9 moles 9 skin waistcoat for the price of an ounce
Ffiro of shag a skin. By catching moles he pleases

the farmers, who know no more than he
himself about any good work that moles do : he
frees his rides from unsightly heaps and raised
tunnellings ; and now and then his mole-traps catch a
weasel. Many keepers make a fair sum of money
each year by selling moles 9 skins ; furriers will as
readily give twopence for a skin as others threepence or
sixpence. The skins, cut close round the head, are
drawn from the moles 9 bodies as a man draws stock-
ings from his legs ; they are pegged out, fur down-
wards, on a board, to be dried and powdered with
alum, then are stuffed with meadow hay, and packed
by scores or hundreds. Perhaps no fur is quite so
soft and beautiful as the mole's ; and the keeper
is always well pleased to note how well the pelts of his
enemies become women-folk's faces.

SdS A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

To shoot while there are still many leaves on the
underwood and trees, and while there is a full muster

of pheasants, or to wait until there are fewer
Coyert- leaves and fewer pheasants — that often is
Problems ^ e question. For there are many coverts

in which pheasants will not stay after the
fall of the leaf. Then the shooting man who does
not own the coverts to which his birds will betake them-
selves must make the best of things, and be content
to bring down more leaves than pheasants, and often
nothing but leaves* What with the showering of
leaves and the crashing of shot-pruned boughs and
dead wood, he may imagine that a pheasant must be
an extra heavy bird — only to find that not a feather
has been touched. To shoot pheasants among a
crowd of leafy oaks is no simple matter — it is more
difficult than to shoot a rocketer in the open valley.
One thing may be said for this aggravating pastime ;
it teaches the slow shooter to be quick.

There are good reasons for shooting coverts for the
first time before the end of November, apart from the

fear of a leakage of pheasants. A sack of
•'Cocks corn a day will quickly swell a bill to un-
to conT wwnteteble proportions. Unshot coverts
promise also mean that the whole time of keepers

and watchers is taken up, with a string of
awkward consequences. Thus, little can be done to thin
the rabbits, for fear of disturbing the other game in the

WHAT A CAT MAY KILL 268

coverts. Each night some of the hares go out, never
to return. Hunting must be curtailed in self-defence.
Then again, neighbours may be shooting, and it is
very certain that what goes into your neighbour's bag
cannot go into yours. The best compromise between
shooting in woods still leafy and waiting for the
sporting Christmas pheasant to soar far above the
tops of the bare trees, is to shoot " cocks only " at
the first covert shoots. This may be a perplexing
plan to those not accustomed to it — either they in-
clude a good many hens, or they let off a good many
cocks which they mistake for hens. It is a plan to
make the nervous man shoot his worst. And the
keeper, as a rule, will not be found to favour it, unless
the guns are discriminating and good, and appreciate
sport more than bag. But sooner or later the
day of " cocks only " must come — why should it not
come at the beginning and be done with ?

A strange confession was made by a cat-lover con-
cerning the cat of her fireside. The confession was

made publicly ; in fact, in the columns of an
What a obscure local paper. It was to the effect
kl 2i that the cat had brought in to her kittens,

in one week, twenty-six field-mice, nine-
teen rabbits, ten moles, seven young birds, and
two squirrels — all of which passed through her
mistress's hands ; there may have been others not
taken account of. It never seemed to enter the head

264 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

of the cat's mistress that any hurt was being done to
other people's interests by this poaching of rabbits,
nor that any neighbouring gamekeeper might read her
words. It would be unfair to argue that all cats,
with or without kittens, are as bad as this one ; we
have heard of cats a great deal worse. Naturally a
mother cat forages far and wide for food ; but she
hunts chiefly for small things, and knows that mice
and birds are more suitable for her weaning kittens
than sitting partridges and pheasants. It is that
arch old villain, Sir Thomas, who commits the crimes
for which mother cats are blamed. But the
keeper has no hesitation in bringing home to all cats
a reparation, sudden and effective, for Sir Thomas's
sins.

¥ ¥ ¥

A gamekeeper friend told us, with infinite delight,
this quaint little story. If we are to believe him,

he was sitting one fine September day behind
A the hedge of a cornfield, thinking about the

j^ 6y coveys hidden in the corn, when he became

aware that a lover and his lass were sitting
on the road side of the hedge, directly behind him.
They were Cockneys, and this was the first of their
days of country holiday-making. Presently the lover
speaks. " Emma," says he, " just look at this pretty
fly wot's settled on me 'and." " Lor' I " says Emma,
44 ain't he a daisy ? " A pause follows ; the lovers
are silently contemplating the beauties of the fly.

HARES IN SMALL HOLDINGS 265

Emma suggests he is out for an airing in his racing
colours — yellow and black. Then the lover calls
out in a voice of mingled amusement and pain.
M Crikey ! " he cries, " ain't 'is feet 'ot ? "

The hare that haunts a small holding has a slender

chance of dying a natural death in ripe old age. But

we have a little story of how a small-holder

Hares in was converted from hare-shooting. He was

Holdings a man w h° rented a meadow on the out-
skirts of a large village ; and it chanced that
hares were much attracted to this pleasant spot. The
gamekeeper of the shooting tenant was deeply
troubled by the drain on his stock of hares caused by
the small-holder ; but there was little he could do to
stop the' slaughter that went on at all times and
seasons, and by all manner of means. He had the
good sense to keep on friendly terms with the trouble-
some sportsman, and at last he thought that some
improvement might be brought about by arranging a
laugh at his expense. He stuffed a hare, and one
night set up the skin in the meadow, at a fair range
from a gap in the hedge. Early next morning the
news reached the small-holder that there was a hare
in his field. Off he started with gun and dog ; saw
from the gap that the hare was sitting up, " jest about
a pretty little shot," took steady aim, and fired both
barrels to make sure of a kill. How his dog retrieved
a hare-skin stuffed with hay was a story that soon

266 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

became public property in the village and the neigh-
bourhood, and from that day forward there ha* been
no safer place for a hare than this man's meadow.

The gamekeeper often picks up hints about poachers
in unexpected ways. His wife, as a rule, takes no

great interest in the affairs of game; yet
*??. Sta * every now and again she is able to tell her
Father husband some news that may be at once bad

and good. It happened that the wife of a
highly respected gardener fell ill, and one afternoon
the keeper's wife kindly offered to take charge of her
children. The eldest child, a boy of about six, seemed
to have little to say for himself ; but, as the party
was walking silently along a lane, he suddenly said
in a voice that promised well to be a bass some day :
" Our muver, she do make we some good dinners."
" Indeed," said the keeper's wife, " and what does she
give you for dinner ? " The boy answered eagerly
and proudly : " Bunny rabbits, m'm." " Indeed,"
said the keeper's wife again, " and where does mother
get the bunny rabbits ? " " Please, m'm, faither
buys 'em off a man as brings 'em." " Oh ! in-deed ! "
said the keeper's wife, and it was not long before one
more receiver of stolen rabbits was brought to justice.

When the oaks shed their leaves night has a new
danger for the roosting pheasants. They become

7. THE PHEASANTS' ROOSTING-TREES 267

easy targets for the gun of the night shooter. While

the leaves remain the pheasants are well screened —

and they often owe their lives to their habit

The of roosting in oaks, where the leaves give

Roostbtui v belter l° n g after beeches are bare. On
Trees a night of bright moonshine beeches
scarcely provide any cover for the bulky
form of a roosting pheasant. No doubt it is rather for
comfort than through cunning that pheasants choose
a roosting-place in oaks. They show no cunning in
choosing their oak-tree, for they will roost night after
night on some low branch overhanging a road. They
seem naturally to prefer oaks to beeches for a lodging.
Unlike most trees, oaks throw out their branches
horizontally, but beeches' branches tend to rise
vertically. Their bark is smooth and cold, but oak
bark is rough, easily gripped, and warm.

When oaks have lost all their leaves the beeches
provide the better cover ; for their vertical lines
form some sort of screen. Even with a full moon
it is not always easy to see sleeping pheasants which
go to roost in the lower branches. It may be more
difficult to see a roosting pheasant than to shoot it —
though the hardest shot a pheasant can give is when
it flies by night. Fir-trees in a pheasant covert have
a special value to the roosting birds. While unsuit-
able as sleeping-places, for the birds cannot fly up
through the thick twiggy branches, nor can they see
where they are going, the firs make the more suitable
roosting-trees warm and cosy, and against their dark

2*8 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

background it is difficult to see the pheasants, and to
shoot them. The poacher has no liking for sporting
shots.

¥ ¥ ¥

Wet weather is often a benefit to the fox. Like all

accomplished night thieves he is more venturesome

in attacking hand-reared birds when the

The Pox wind howls and rain beats heavily down.

in the

Storm Th e storm drowns what little noise there

may be from his stealthy feet ; and the scent

of the birds is stronger by reason of their steaming

bodies. In wet autumns foxes take their heaviest

toll of the young birds that have grown to a fair size

— the dripping trees incline the birds to sleep on the

ground long after they are able to fly, and should be

flying nightly to roost. Grave risks are run by birds

that sit on their nests through wet June nights.

Foxes are sometimes found among pheasants where
wire, or string netting, has been set up at the flushing-
places, to prevent the birds running instead

Foxes at f flying, and to cause them to rise and fly at
Pheasant 7 , . , , „~ . .

Shoots a sporting height and pace. When it is too

late, and the beaters have come to the

flushing-place, the indignant "cock-ups" of the

pheasants are heard, and then they rise in a great rush,

too thick and fast for the convenience of sport. We

remember one case where a stampede of pheasants

PHEASANTS THAT GO TO GROUND 2«0

so enraged a sportsman that he ordered his loader to
bowl over the old sinner of a fox. Should a fox show
himself during the beating of a wood, it would be wise
to give him every chance to escape. What usually
happens is that the beaters force him forward with
sticks and curses, and the guns drive him back with
cries of " Tally-ho ! "

But the fox's appearance is disconcerting ; and
there is a touch of irony in the thought that a
crafty old fox, who in his time has slain more than
his share of pheasants, should yet be in at the death
of those that escaped him.

The careful gamekeeper will stop all the rabbit-holes
round about the place where he hopes that many

pheasants will fall — perhaps for fifty yards
Pheasants before and behind the stands of the sports-
***** men. Many a pheasant is lost through going

Ground to ground in a rabbit-burrow, and there is

seldom a spade and a grub-axe at hand.
The pheasant may be winged or otherwise wounded,
and if it cannot be dug out may die a lingering death.
But many a crafty old cock has revealed his hiding-
place because, while he has taken the precaution of
drawing his body into a burrow, he has forgotten his
tail. Only one partridge, in our experience, has run
to ground after being winged.

* * ¥

170 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

A witc pheasant would go abroad before the middle of
November. He would leave the fallen beechmast f or

the pigeons, and turn a deaf ear to the per-
Phea- 1 '" suasive whistling of the maize-laden keeper.
Doomsday Since the issue of his death-warrant on

October 1, the pheasant has fared well-
he has never known the want of a hearty breakfast.
But sooner or later comes a morning when he must
breakfast on the remnants of a last good supper. I!
he wonders why, he never thinks he has been denied
his food because a big breakfast is not good to fly on,
because a full crop will lessen his value in the eyes of
the game-dealer, and because it is intended that he
shall fly high, and give a sporting shot. So he is
kept short, like a pig whose time has come to be made
into pork. But no doubt even his short life has
been worth the living.

We have a story of a retriever who was forced to fore-
go breakfast on the morning of a shoot. Retrievers,

as they grow old, often grow cunning, and
Th* we saw this one getting the better of his

Retriever master "* a novel and drastic way. The old

dog had grown fat, and somebody com-
plained that he was inclined to be lazy in his
work. It was decided that he had too much to eat,
and it was to improve his activity during a day's
partridge driving that his master kept him without
breakfast, usually a heavy meal. There was a cold

THE OLD WOOD ST1

partridge that came within range of the dog's nose —
but his longings were not gratified. Out in the fields
the dog was sent for the first bird his master shot,
a runner. Away went the dog with unusual speed ;
he picked up the bird, and then quietly sat down and
made a meal of it. Having had his breakfast, he did
his work handsomely for the rest of the day.

The first covert shoot has a peculiar charm for the
sportsman — especially when the shoot is in familiar

woods. There has grown a feeling of friend-
^5>od ship for the old rides and trees, and they

seem to offer a warmer welcome every year.
He comes to the historic corner where he failed miser-
ably to do justice to a rush of pheasants. Here is
the opening through which his first woodcock tried to
glide — in vain. He remembers, perhaps, that even now
he has that woodcock's two pen-feathers in the depths
of some ancient purse. Here was where he scored a
double at partridges hurtling through the tree-tops
— only to be beaten a moment later by a hare, slowly
cantering. Nothing has changed in the woods.
They wear the same old look of nakedness ; save for
a hurrying pigeon, there is the same desolate lifeless-
ness. Nothing stirs, but the leaf fluttering to earth ;
all is dead quiet. Then in the distance is heard the
prelude of the beaters' sticks — tap, tap, tapping.
The sportsman dreams, musing of past days and their
great deeds. Then a lithe moving form catches his

97» A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

eye — a hare has slipped out of sight. A shot rings
out, echoes and re-echoes; another, and doubles,
and clusters of shots. The old wood is the old wood
still.

* V V

Perhaps not many shooting men remember much
about the old days of the muzzle-loader, or could

recall all the items of the paraphernalia
Memories necessary for a fair day's sport. In spite of
goggl all their drawbacks, wonderful feats were
loaders performed by the old guns ; and certainly

there was a truer ring about the word sport
in the good old times. A fancy-dress shooting party,
with the sportsmen in the old-time shooting-suits,
armed with muzzle-loaders, would be entertaining
— if dangerous. How many members of the party
would arrive on the scene of action with all the
appliances necessary for the firing of a fowling-piece
— powder, shot, wads, and caps ? And who would
know how to load his weapon, even with powder,
shot, wads, and caps at hand ? The man who did not
know how to load would be in a bad way, for, of course,
no valets could be allowed on the scene, even suppos-
ing they might know more than their masters. Short-
tempered men would be exploding perpetually in
wrath at the delays caused by the process of loading,
while birds were rising and going away — we have
heard powerful language addressed even to the
modern weapon when it has been responsible for a

RELICS OF THE GREAT DAYS 278

hitch in shooting. It is shocking even to think
of what a short-tempered man might say if he
flung away an open box full of copper caps in mistake
for an empty case, or if he applied his powder-flask
to his lips and swallowed a few drachms of treble
strong black powder instead of a few drops of sloe-gin.
No doubt some of the party would suffer the mis-
fortune of upsetting their whole supply of shot for the
day's sport. Then the short-tempered man sooner or
later would break his ramrod — others would shoot
ramrods, like arrows, into the air. At the end of the
day there would be headaches and black-and-blue
shoulders. And what would be the bag ?

The old-time gunner went out in the morning with
all manner of contrivances and implements stowed
about his person. He wore a shot-belt for
Relies distributing the weight of his lead, he carried
Great neat ^tle magazines, so that he might the
Days m9ie easily handle his copper percussion-
caps, and he wore a wallet of leather con-
taining such tools as a nipple- wrench and spare parts
— the nipples in the gun might break or blow out.
The careful man carried a wad-punch, and in emer-
gency would punch wads for his muzzle-loader out of
his felt hat or his neighbour's — what could be a more
neighbourly act than to sacrifice a pair of leather
gaiters in the cause of wads ? A keeper friend
treasures many relics of the great days of the old

374 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

squ ire among them a curious little mirror, the glass
about the sice of your little- finger nail, set at the top
of a tiny brass box, small enough to slip into the
barrel of a twenty-bore. The old squire would draw
this mirror from his waistcoat pocket before the first
charge was poured into the muzzle of his gun, dropping
it glass upwards down each barrel in turn, so that he
could see by the reflected light if they were well
cleaned and

The cleaning of a muzzle-loader was an immense

undertaking. First, the barrels were removed from

the stocks, then bucketfuls of hot water

Cleaning were forced through them ; out would pour

Muzzle- a stream °' black, liquid filth, having no
loader respect for clothes or person, and smelling
abominably. Heated water was used be-
cause it cleaned away all the foulness of the black
powder, and quickly dried off. After washing, the
barrels were fixed in vices carefully padded to prevent
injury, and then they were given a hearty polishing
inside with a tow-topped rod. Great attention was
paid to the locks, which were not so well protected
from water as they are to-day — they were removed
every now and then, and taken apart by means of a
neat little clamp for holding the mainspring. In
those days people spoke of how many pounds of shot
they had fired — not of how many cartridges. The
old-time bags were not to be despised. One keeper,

THE KNOWING BEATER 275

who has been in his present place for forty odd years,
told us that he can always remember his last day's
shooting with muzzle-loaders, because they bagged
the same number of hares as pheasants — 218 — to say
nothing of 824 rabbits. They must have performed
some wonderful feats of loading as well as shooting.

At covert shoots beaters often behave in unaccount-
able ways ; but it is not every day a beater is seen

crawling about on hands and knees. A
Jh e guest at a covert shoot, surprised at such a

Beater sight, inquired about the beater's object.

" Beg pardon, sir ; I thought as 'ow you was
the guv'ner," said the beater, rising. A further ques-
tion as to why the guv'ner should be met on all fours
brought this answer: "Well, you see, sir, 'tis this
way like — the guv'ner, 'e don't allow no game to git
up 'igh, not if 'e can anyways 'elp it. Not 'e, for 'e
wops it into any birds as rises 'ardly afore they be got
on their wings like. So you see, sir, soon as I thinks
I be gittin' dangerous near 'im, I alius reckons to be a
bit careful."

* ¥ ¥

The shepherd and the gamekeeper are men in sym-
pathy, for one is dependent to some extent on the other.
In the eyes of the keeper, the shepherd is one of the
most important persons on a farm. And where there
is not a good understanding between the two men the

27« A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

keeper will suffer loss in game, and the shepherd not
only in sheep, but in rabbits. With rabbits to spare,

the keeper's first thought is of his friend
Mends *^ e shepherd. The shepherd is vigilant by

night as well as by day, and may watch the
interests of game without detriment to his own charge.
And it is a pleasure to the keeperto run his eye over
the fold when he passes that way to see if all is well.
He comes to the rescue of many a sheep on its back
that would have remained on its back until dead
without his timely aid ; and he saves the shepherd
many possible disasters through the flock breaking
from the fold, when the sheep might come to destruc-
tion by over-feeding on green stuffs. Through the long
nights of the lambing- time the keeper may give the
shepherd his company over pipes of fragrant shag,
and pots of heart-cheering ale — hands, hearts, and
ale alike made warm by the little stove in the shep-
herd's movable house on wheels. Look well at a
shepherd's back, and you are likely to see a keeper's
old coat.

¥ ¥ ¥

Shepherds like their pot of beer — and some of them
are wondrously fond of a fight, and so may become
useful allies to the keeper when poachers are to be
dealt with. We knew a shepherd who would always
be especially retained to help the keepers of an estate
at times when pheasants were liable to be shot at
night. His appointment came about in this way:

-i -"J.

LIVES OF LABOUR 277

the head keeper, during the absence of an assistant,
had employed the shepherd to watch, and had dosed

him with half a gallon of beer to keep the

What cold out before sending him oS on duty. The

herds ^^ an< * *^ e n *#kt *** were no * without
enjoy effect ; and when presently a human form

came stealthily along in the shadow of a moon-
lit ride, the shepherd was in grand fighting trim and
spirit. He waited his chance, then sprang like a lion
on the intruder, gripped his throat, bore him to the
earth, and belaboured him in hearty fashion. He was
about to tie him hand and foot when he saw that he was
tackling his own master from the mansion, who, having
been dining with a neighbour, had chosen to walk
home by way of his woods. So impressed was the
master with the shepherd's valour on behalf of his
pheasants that he gave him a sovereign, and retained
him on the night staff at five shillings a night — and half
a gallon of beer.

V V ¥

Like most country workers, shepherds and game-
keepers may go through a long life of labour without

ever taking a holiday, possibly without
Wves thinking of one. We hear of eight-hour
Labour days for factory workers and discussions

of an ideal work-day of six or even of four
hours ; but seldom a word is spoken for those country
labourers, the length of whose toil is limited only by
daylight — when it is not carried on as a matter of

278 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

course into the night. Farm hands may work
through all the days of the year ; for where there is
stock to he fed work is never-ceasing. Tet it is
reasonable to suppose that holidays are as needful
to the countryman as to the townsman, and that if
the farm labourer or the shepherd were sent away
to the sea every year for a fortnight's rest and
change, he would work with a new energy that
would more than compensate for the work lost. It
would be something at least to break the deadly
monotony of the daily round, even if the labourer
had no ideas for profitably spending a holiday.

For the shepherd the days and nights of January
are heavy with responsibility — he counts himself

lucky if he can find time for an hour's sleep.
Folds 6 " * s won derful how the shepherd of a large

flock knows all the ewes and the lambs
over which he now watches. In his lambs he has a
personal interest, for there may be a sixpence in his
purse for each lamb that lives to be deprived of its
tail. The shepherd's knowledge of the lambs sur-
passes that of the ewes, whom sometimes he deceives ;
for it is by scent rather than sight that the mother
recognises her offspring, while the shepherd believes
only what he sees. By fastening the skin of a dead
lamb on to an orphan he will induce a bereaved ewe
to adopt the orphan, and she will accept, guard, and
love it as if it were her own.

SHEPHERDS' CARE 279

January is to the shepherd what June is to the
gamekeeper. There is more than common meaning

to the shepherd in the greeting, " A happy
'hep- an d a prosperous New Year." Be luck
Care good or bad, the bleat of the lamb is the

sweetest sound of the year to shepherd ears :
it means as much as the pee-peep of the pheasant
chick to the gamekeeper. Keepers and shepherds
are deeply attached to their respective " coops " —
a word used by the shepherd for the enclosures, one
hurdle square, made for the lambs. The experience
of coop life is briefer for the lamb than for the young
pheasant. After enjoying a few hours of privacy,
the ewe and her lambs are turned into the large
general nursery, to fend for themselves among the
baa-ing crowd.

¥ ¥ *

Weather makes more difference to partridge-driving
than to most forms of shooting. The ideal day
comes when the weather is mild, and the
Winter air still. Then only can the movements
driving °' partridges be controlled with some cer-
tainty — not that partridges ever can be
driven against their will. In high wind their speed
is tremendous, and a hundred birds do not give
the chances of ten too tired to swerve. In hard,
frosty weather, when the fields are like rough paving-
stones, though the day is still, the birds are up and
off before the advancing driving-line can shape itself

280 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

to influence their flight. But in mild, still weather,
the soft soil clogs the birds' feet, they are slow to
rise, and packs and coveys become split up and
their ranks disorganised — to the advantage of the
sportsmen.

A mild day may open hopefully enough, but if
driving rain comes with blustering wind the sport
is spoiled.

On a frosty day, when things have been going
badly, the guns may be congratulating themselves
as they reach some big turnip-fields for which
the birds have been making. A turnip-field may
be expected to steady and control the departure
and the direction of birds ; but in the grip of frost
turnips are only a little better than the bare, frozen
field. For the leaves, that yesterday made luxuriant
cover, to-day are flattened to the ground by the frost-
Even the charlock, which may have done so much
to make up for the thinness of the turnips, has been
shrivelled to a few brown stems. Why the farmer
leaves the late-grown charlock untouched is because
he knows that before it reaches seed-time the frost
will have killed every plant. On a small shoot, frost-
flattened turnips may ruin the hope of a full day's
partridge-driving. On big shoots frost counts for
less, for long drives can be taken. Short drives in
winter partridge-driving are seldom profitable-'
whether a shoot be small or big.

;

2sn A (,AMKKKFPl"S NOTEBOOK

t.i i:r*i';« r 1*0 thar fh-ht. i*nt in ir-i'd, >ii«i v * ■ :
t •■• * fi s t * 1 1 r!>'>£s- the birds* f<*i*. they h?t *•! ^
r.>»\ a: d pack* and ia»veys Ik.- op.** sp»,i \ ;
ti' # *ir r:*» ks di*->r;:aiilsed • to tin* adv.-r-tijr >•

«*; or'^i'i^n.

A :■■'.. a dav mav or en hwj>efullv enou/h, h..» -
cis ivir-i- r.un romes with l!»r.lcrin^' wi;.d th« .- •
1^ spoiled.

On n frc^fv dav. vIxni thrijs hr«vc b r rn i •*. ..
b-idl}*. the trails mr.y ho c^n^ratuiati' 1 *; t'^m 1 * "«-
as tla-y reMeh s«>me bi^ twnip-fi< Ms for v.l,..
the brrrt.4 have been making. A t\r;ip-f:e!d ?n.;
* be cxr^ted to steadv and control 1\e d'7«'.- .

and toe d ; r»*ct in; of Hid?- ; but in the prip of fr* •
t'irnirs n~e ojiIv a lit lie hotter th.-Mi th« j 1 «r«\ f' /.*
tii.d. r.-r the haves, thai ve*derd.;v m.tdi- hx«;i\< i
c»\< r t'. i >a*e flattened to the ground by th«. f- *'
I"'. - ■• . v^rleek, wh:rh mav ha v e d*-ne so v *'
t. ■• . . f..- the thinness of the tun/ips, h:i e r ■*•

.si i*. . » i »• fi-w brown stems. V hv tr^e * . :

lra\«'' l .- :. '« i:"o»vn chirhvk urtourhed is K'/'i
he k.v *.s :.» .t U ftin* it. tc.achos seedtime th^ f
will have killed evny plant. On a small shoot, fn
flattened turiJps niay n;ir. the hope of a full S
partrid^ driving- On li^ shoots frost ev'.inU :
less for long dri\es cr»n he takon. bho *t drl . » «-
wilder r a-tridu«--drivir»^ are seldom profit *>•!?
v. !r Hier a shoot be snuul or bitf.

THE FEAR OF SNOW 281

By the very poor snow is regarded as among the
most terrible calamities of life. Many types of

countrymen, rural publicans, postmen, out-
TheFear j^r labourers, and small traders, speak of
Snow snow as the worst of all possible weather,

leaving the most serious after-effects. And
snow means calamity to many wild things. Lucky
are the robins of a garden who have a friend to stir
the old hot-bed, and turn up the worms from beneath
the frozen top-soil ; happy the grain-feeding birds
who find a rick that has been threshed. Thousands
flock to the corn-ricks, and there is food for all —
pheasants, partridges, rooks, jackdaws, starlings,
sparrows, greenfinches, chaffinches, yellow-hammers,
and the bramble-finches, orange, white, and black
in plumage. To the holly-trees come the starving
thrushes, and in hard weather even the fieldfares
will lose their extreme shyness to besiege a holly-
tree beside a door. The more delicate redwings
die in thousands, though the dying and dead are
seldom seen.

To a few the snow means profit — for the hawks there
is a carnival of feasting, and the fox finds weak and
hungry hares and rabbits an easy prey, if ill-nourished
on a diet of tree-bark and withered herbage. As to
the pheasants, they are well cared for — and the
keeper, in snowy weather, scatters his maize with a
liberal hand.

982 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

By many signs wild creatures inform the game-
keeper of the approach of hard weather. The wood-
pigeons give him useful warning. In most

H***- parts of the country flocks of pigeons take

Weather f7i « *u * * *i»

Prophets *°11 °' "* e g^cns and root-crops — a thou-
sand pigeons may be seen rising from a
single field of roots. In mild weather they may
return once or twice during a day. When they are
seen constantly streaming to the root-fields, those
disturbed returning again and again, it is a certain
sign that hard weather is near.

Animals have a reputation as weather prophets — if
their prophecies strike the human observer as some-
what obvious. The cat washes her face,
Weather- and this is commonly held to be a sign of
**** coming rain ; in summer it is thought to be
and a sign of a thunder-storm when cats are

Birds remarkably lively. Dogs sometimes bury
their bones when rain is in the air — perhaps
an inherited instinct to save food against days of
bad hunting. Horses by stretching their necks and
sniffing the air seem to be scenting distant rain ;
and donkeys have a way of braying before the storm.
Shepherds hold that if sheep turn their tails wind-
ward rain will come ; and cowherds read the same
prophecy when a herd of cows gathers at one end
of a pasture, their tails to the wind. Changes in

WEATHER-WISE BEASTS AND BIRDS 288

weather mean much to wild life, and we are prepared
to believe they are forewarned. A storm may mean
the loss of a meal to a fox, a ruined nest to a bird,
an end of all things to an insect. The fox has done
well that has eaten heartily before the storm. Yet
it appears that a change of weather must be near at
hand before wild creatures take notice. The pheasant
crows before the thunderstorm because he hears
distant thunder. The wheatear, a bird nervous of
clouds, flies to shelter as the cloud drives up. It is
the first touch of cold weather that sets squirrels
hiding nuts.

Weather has a marked effect on the moods of wild
creatures. There are days when hares or partridges
seem overcome by oppression ; they move listlessly
if disturbed, and lie or sit about as though all energy
had gone from them. Thunder in the air may be the
cause, or perhaps snow is coming ; when the storm
has blown over, liveliness is restored, and new life
inspires all things. Before a storm, partridges in the
stubble-fields set up their feathers, and in cold weather
the feathers of many birds have the appearance of
being puffed out, so that they look almost twice their
usual size. Many creatures feed at an unusually
early hour if storms are coming. It is a bad sign when
rabbits are out feeding in the fields early on a bright
sunshiny afternoon. The birds of the open fields —
rooks, starlings, pigeons, or fieldfares — feed hungrily
and hastily while rain-clouds overshadow the sky ;
but it is a sign of good weather when rooks fly to feed

284 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

far from their roosting-trees, and fly high. Cock
pheasants will go to roost early before the storm,
choosing low branches, and trees that afford good
protection. In bitter weather, even the warm
feathers of birds may become ice-bound.

Between a green and a white winter in England there
is a world of difference to wild creatures. There may

come day upon day, week upon week, of
^j^ w mist, rain, fog, and blustering winds, of hail,

sleet, and furious snow-blizzards — to birds
and beasts these are days of prosperity and fatness.
Peewits, snipe, woodcock, blackbirds, and thrushes
then find food far more plentiful than in the hot dusty
days of late summer. Often, in late summer, their
breasts are narrowed by leanness to the shape of a
boat's keel. But in moist, warm winter days the
flesh rises roundly as if it would burst the skin — the
breast-bone, no longer up-standing like a bare ridge*
is buried almost out of sight in a valley of fat, on
the thighs are little hillocks of fat, and the bones
of the back cannot be seen or felt for their thick
warm covering. But should there come two or three
days of frost, which hold through the day and increase
their grip on the land by night, then this loaded store
of fat vanishes as mist before the sun.

WHAT RAINY DAYSJNEUNG 285

A mild open autumn and a green winter also mean
much to the farmers and to the gamekeepers ; a blessing

on many accounts, a curse on others. The
What farmer groans because his land is so wet
Dayjf And heavy that he cannot sow his winter,
bring seeds ; the keeper sees the ruination of many

a promising day's sport. The keeper gains
when there are no frost and snow by having the
pleasure of showing bills for corn reduced to a mini-
mum — in a mild winter he will not need half the
amount of corn that must be distributed to his birds
in hard weather, when they are actually in need of
food. What little he gives them in open weather is
to keep them together, as natural food is abundant.
But a low bill for corn hardly compensates the keeper
for rain-spoiled sport, or for day after day of outdoor
work in the wet. The work cannot be done in a way
to satisfy the keeper — or possibly others. And the
rain means that he falls behind with that everlasting
tax on his time entailed by keeping rabbits within
bounds. After a mild, open winter, by the time the
game-shooting season is ended, and coverts are avail-
able for rabbit-killing, young rabbits have already
made their appearance. The keeper welcomes a
short spell of really hard weather in February, so
that he may the more easily catch up all the pheasants
he needs for penning. Otherwise the kind of winter
that best suits him is a dry one — without hard frost.

286 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTEBOOK

We met a gamekeeper who had been blessed with a
litter of fox cubs born about the middle of December —

just before the usual mating-time of the foxes.
Cut* When most of the season's cubs would be
mta born these Christmas cubs would be three

months old, and well grounded in the
elements of a fox's education. And when the
pheasants and partridges began to sit they could save
their mother a deal of laborious work — as our friend
the keeper found out. In cub-hunting days, there
must have been some rude shocks for the puppies of
the pack, and even the old stagers of hounds must
hare been taken aback when they came to close
quarters with one of these forward cubs. The keeper
caught one, and by a strange chance. He had been
expecting a visit from hounds. He knew an earth
where he thought that possibly a vixen later on might
have a family ; not willing to disturb the place by
spade-work when stopping it, he stuffed the entrance
with sacks. Hounds came and went — and afterwards
the keeper visited the earth to recover his sacks.
What was his surprise when he found that inside one
of the sacks a cub had curled itself comfortably for
sleep. Well knowing that if he were to say there was
a litter of cubs on his ground at Christmas none would
believe him, he put the cub into a capacious pocket.
Then when he told the story of his early litter, and was
laughed at for his pains, he confounded sceptics by
drawing the little fox, alive and uninjured, from
coat-tails.

WORK FOR RAINY DAYS 287

The keeper always has a supply of odd jobs on hand

to occupy his time on a soaking wet day, or when a

snow-storm rages. He has always plenty to

Work for <j — but much of his work cannot be done

R&lnv

Days properly in bad weather, and to work out of

doors on a wet day may be as much a waste of

time as to work indoors on a fine day on matters of no

moment. It would be foolish to go ferreting in heavy

rain — nets become soaked, rabbits will not bolt, and

digging for ferrets in soft mud is heart-breaking

work ; at the end of the day, while there may be a

few rabbits that look as if they have been bathing in

mud, there is all the tackle to be dried for the next

day. Then again, it would be sheer waste of time

to stop rabbit-burrows when snow has freshly fallen,

for half the holes would be hidden, and the work would

have to be done over again. It pays to wait until the

next day, when rabbits have been out to feed and the

holes are seen easily.

When he decides to stay under cover the keeper

hardly knows where to begin, as he looks about his

store-houses and sheds. Here are traps that should

be cleaned and overhauled, broken chains to be

mended, bent parts to be carefully straightened — a

little judicious filing and a drop of oil are needed here

and there to make all parts work together smoothly

and swiftly. Snares must be overhauled and sorted,

the sound ones to be neatly shaped so that the noose

stays open ready for use, and each one must be fitted

with its string, teeler, and plug. A supply of new

988 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

snares may be made. Plugs and pegs may be shaped,
for holding snares and traps, from a length of solid ash
which the keeper knows to be well seasoned, so that it
will not crack when he drives it into stony ground
with his heavy, steel-shod heel. For months he has
treasured that piece of ash — and terrible was the
vengeance that he vowed on his wife when she dared
to hint that it would serve nicely for her copper fire.

The wet day brings the chance for doing various little
carpentering jobs, long neglected. The keeper may
have set himself the task of making a new
The hand-barrow before the coming of another

Lumber pheasant-rearing time — a barrow for carry-
ing the coops, two at a time, with the hen
and precious chicks within, where a horse and cart
cannot pass through the coverts. Perhaps he remem-
bers a day when the crazy handle of the old barrow
snapped off and upset two coops of his best birds.
Then a wet day is a good day for sorting coops, and
putting apart for professional treatment those beyond
the keeper's makeshift craft. He can set about
painting the whole ones. Now and again he must
look to his ferret-hutches, and fit new wire-netting
to the fronts if any meshes are rotten with rust —
should the ferrets escape there is no telling what may
happen. And guns are never the worse for an extra
special examination, and a thorough cleaning and

WHEN FOXES MATE 289

oiling. An all-round tidying-up of his varied assort-
ment of tackle certainly makes for a temporary
improvement in the look of his work-places — but,
as it has been with every clearance, the same old
lumber is once more reprieved. " You see/ 9 says the
keeper, " it might come in useful some time."

Soon after Christmas the gamekeeper hears the bark-
ing of foxes at night, and he well knows the reason.
The foxes are searching for mates. And

When here is one of many reasons why hounds in

Foxes

mate these days fail to find foxes in woods never

hitherto drawn blank. Hunting and shoot-
ing have disturbed the quiet of the coverts, the
underwood harvest is going forward, the supply of
fox-food is shorter than at any other time, and is most
hard to catch ; so foxes generally have forsaken their
haunts, finding lodging in out-of-the-way places
which offer some chance of peace and quietness.
Followers of hounds have much to learn about the
ways of the fox in January. They go from one blank
covert to another, cheerfully riding an intervening
couple of miles, while all the time the fox is lurking
in a dell or a hedgerow only two hundred yards from
the first covert drawn. Yet a suggestion that the
dell or the hedgerow should be tried meets with silent
scorn. This might be expected from people who hunt
to ride, or people new to the hunting-field ; but it does

290 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

not become the experienced to pin all their faith
to the well-known coverts. In a southern county
hounds have disturbed no fewer than twelve foxes
together — probably a collection of suitors for the pad
of one or two eligible vixens.

On a Sunday after Christmas we paid a visit to an old
keeper, who, on his own confession, had not dined

wisely on the good fare provided by his wife
A on Christmas Day. Into our sympathetic

Dreams ears he poured the strangest tale of the

dreams that he had dreamed. The first
began pleasantly enough, but ended in a nightmare.
He was one of a party shooting in his best wood, and
he was ever in the hottest part of the hottest corner,
but each time he threw up his gun to shoot the crowds
of pheasants, the gun fell all in pieces. Never, he
said, had he known such a nightmare ; though some
of the other dreams that succeeded were bad enough.
One was to the effect that on an important occasion
all the birds of his coverts utterly refused to rise and
rocket, and when he pressed them with beaters he
found that one and all had turned into foxes. This
dream merged into one in which the foxes in his
preserves were so numerous that they outnumbered
and overpowered the hounds, and then attacked the
Master, who was eaten. And there was a dream in
which the old keeper found that he had changed

A DEATH-BED VISION 291

places with his employer, whom he roundly abused
for the mistakes he made in placing stops and manag-
ing the beaters. The climax of this was the unkindest
cut of all. The gamekeeper dreamt that his employer,
far from bearing him any ill-will for the abuse, sent
to his cottage on Christmas Eve a large tin of tobacco,
beneath the lid of which was a ten-pound note. This
worthy old man has had many queer dreams in his
time — if we are to believe him. He is ready to con-
f ess, for the sake of the story following the confession,
that he has never really mastered the art of shooting
driven partridges. But one night he dreamt that he
had brought oS the most masterly right and left, and
from far and near congratulations on his brace poured
upon him. Then he awoke to find himself in his own
familiar chair by the fireside, in the chill dawn of a
winter morning, and the local doctor, who was also a
sportsman, was telling him how there had arrived
safely in the room upstairs a brace of fine young
keepers.

* * *

We can vouch for the truth of this fox story : An
old keeper — the keeper of a shoot where partridges

were preferred to foxes — lay dying. It was
A Death- j a t e in May, when the partridges were be-
Vision ginning to sit. Suddenly he called for his

two sons and told them of a dream. In a
certain burrow in a certain wood adjoining his par-
tridge fields he had dreamt of a litter of cubs. And

2M A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

he refused to be comforted until his sons had gone
forth to verify his dream. In due time they came
home with enough evidence that the dream was of
true things to allow the old man to give up the ghost
with an untroubled mind.

The partridge at Christmas is at his best — as a test of
reputations. In this respect there is a world of differ-
ence between the slow, simple yellow-legged
Christ- bird of September and the partridge of
Sport December. To bag a brace from a Septem-
ber covey is satisfactory to a sportsman.
To get a bird with each barrel at an October drive is
no mean thing. But to bring off a double event at
Christmas partridges is to make a reputation. And
it is to experience a feeling of goodwill towards the
whole world. For Christmas and cold hands excuse a
multitude of misses.

The birds whirl over the line of guns like brown
clusters of bullets. And if the sportsman is tested,
the gamekeeper's reputation hangs also in the balance ;
his highest art is called for if he is to drive birds in
the desired direction. Whether or not his birds have
been much harassed by previous driving makes a
difference to his chances. Success will be appreciated,
for sportsmen keenly relish a selected partridge drive
as a foretaste to a pheasant shoot. When the drive
is over and the pheasants 9 turn has come, they feel in
slightly faster but certainly smoother water*

CUNNING COCK PHEASANTS 298

No bird is more artful than an old cock pheasant, or
better able to take care of himself. At this season a

solitary cock may be observed night after
Cunning night roosting in some isolated tree, out in
Phea- ^ e w * n d-swept fields, and far from the
sants sheltered coverts. Yet you may hunt this

bird all day, high and low, in vain. When,
on the way home, you pass his dark form on a lonely
perch, you feel he deserves to rest in peace. Some-
times the old cock is over-cunning, or too confident
in the safety of his retreat. He may allow one to
approach within a few feet, although he certainly
heard footsteps in time to make his escape. A certain
keeper can tell many tales of the inglorious ends of
his cunning cock pheasants, but most of these episodes
are better forgotten.

Winter flocks of pigeons are here to-day and gone

to-morrow, travelling far in search of food. If they

find little or no beech-mast or acorns, they

Greens° are ' orce( * early in winter to a diet of salad.
It must be a relief to the wandering hosts
when they come to a place where acorns are in plenty.
In hard winters, turnips supply a great part of wood-
pigeons' food ; and it used to be held that from this
food their flesh acquired too pronounced a flavour,
so that nice judges, who at other times thought
them a delicate dish, would reject them. One old-

294 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

time sportsman held that the green leaves of turnips
gave a peculiar and very palatable flavour to the flesh
of larks and partridges. In this connection we always
think of the story told by Gilbert White of a neighbour
who shot a ring-dove as it was returning from feed
and going to roost. " When his wife had picked and
drawn it, she found its craw stuffed with the most nice
and tender tops of turnips. These she washed and
boiled, and so sat down to a choice and delicate plate
of greens, culled and provided in this extraordinary

manner.' 9

Shooting parties in the week following Christmas have
a festive air. As at the hall, so in the keeper's cottage,
the air is charged with the Christmas spirit. Ten

o'clock on any morning soon after Christmas
Chrtst " Day may find the keeper entertaining a
Shoots crowd of beaters at the expense of his own

private cellar, and the good things from the
cellar are served hot and spiced. In hats and caps
are seasonable tokens — sprigs of mistletoe and holly.
The keeper himself does not wear button-holes, but
should his children make a garland of holly for the
collar of his old retriever, he will leave it for the
brambles to pull away. The guns turn up late —
they have been dancing through the night ; when all
are met, in the brief greetings, in the distribution of
cartridge-bags, and in the inquiries about weather and
the possible bag, there is a note of unusual cheeriness.

WOODCOCK TALK 295

At a Boxing Day shooting-lunch the talk among the
guns was upon the ways and wiles of woodcock.

One spoke of his long bill, with its sensitive
Wood- nerves, which tell the bird what he has found
Talk when the bill forages among the dead leaves ;

speculating as to whether he lived by his
powers of suction only. Another wondered if the eating
qualities of woodcock legs were really improved by
pulling out the sinews. The question arose : Is the
man who shoots a woodcock entitled to its pen-feathers,
or is the man who first finds and secures those delicate
trophies best entitled to stick them in the band of his
hat? Woodcockprovoked many controversies. Is there
any secret in the proper roasting of them ? Would the
law absolve a man who shot his fellow when shooting
'cock ? — and would the fact that he shot his bird as
well as his man make any difference ? How many
people could swear to have seen the mother woodcock
carrying her young ; and exactly how does she carry
them ? How many of the home-bred birds leave us
in autumn ? What proportion of woodcock comes in
from abroad, and what is the difference between the
foreigners and the genuine Britishers ? In answer to
the last question, a suggestion was made that the
foreign birds were large and light in colour, but the
British birds small and dark. Around this point arose a
discussion, and the keeper was called in to give his
opinion. " It ain't nothin' at all to do with Englishmen
and foreigners," he said. " It be whether they be cocks
or hens, and 'tis the large light uns that be the hens."

196 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

Most gamekeepers hold the killing of a hen pheasant
after Christmas to be a moral crime. And perhaps
most genuine sportsmen feel a twinge of the
Sp*** conscience when they pull a trigger at a hen
Hens * n New Year days — irrespective of the host's
permission. Of course, when the orders are
to spare hens, the man who kills or even tries to kill
one does something that the keeper will not forget —
he loses caste for ever in the keeper's eyes ; whereas
the man who is not greedy to take advantage of an
impromptu permission to shoot hens ensures for
himself a niche in the keeper's good graces.

It is true, there are hens and hens. Only a churlish
keeper would not admire the man who stops one
of those skyscraping hens, of the sort bagged by
ordinary gunners about once in a lifetime. But the
order, " Shoot hens if they are real tall ones/' alarms
a keeper — unless he has full confidence in the guns
of a party. When the word has been given, it is
wonderful how many hens are "real tall ones."
There are excuses which must be accepted : for in
certain conditions of light, when the golden moment
for pressing the trigger is within grasp, it is almost
impossible to distinguish hens from cocks — length
of tail is then the most reliable evidence.

We remember a knowing old keeper who laid a
plot to ensure at least a merry start to a Christmas
shoot, when " Cocks only " was the order of the
day. This worthy, when catching up birds for his
pens, had gathered together some twenty super-

A FREE-AND-EASY 297

fiuous cocks. These, a dishevelled and more or less
tailless crew, he carried just before starting-time
to a dell thick with spruce, chosen doubtless for
decency's sake : and on a plausible pretext lined out
his guns between the dell and a wood. But he
forgot there was no natural inducement to the birds
to fly in the face of evident danger — and all the birds
broke away out of gunshot, and so suddenly as to
make their recent history all too evident.

Boxing Day, in many parts, remains a regulation
fixture for rabbit-shooting by tenants, local trades-
men, keepers, and their friends. Nobody
A could possibly appreciate the exciting nature

aJJJ" of these shoots unless present in person.
Easy It is safer to be present only in spirit.
Otherwise, shot-proof cover becomes the
most desirable thing in the world : and it often
seems a wonder how more than one man can sur-
vive the day to count the bag. Talking to a tenant-
farmer on such an occasion, we noticed that his
hands were covered with warts, and suggested
remedies. " They b'aint woorts, bless ye — they be
only shots," came a proud answer — the honourable
wounds of many rabbit-shooting campaigns.

At another tenant-and-tradesman shoot we found
the guns unduly plentiful — there were twenty to
begin with, and the party grew as the day wore on.

298 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

But all of a sudden there was a magic disappearance
of a large proportion of sportsmen, corresponding
with the appearance of an important-looking in-
dividual, who calmly went to the man next to us,
and relieved him of his piece and cartridges, which
he began to use in a liberal fashion. Gradually, the
original gunners reappeared — mostly from fir-trees.
And it transpired that they were gunners without
licences — who had taken courage when they saw the
local officer of the law stretching a point himself.
One, bolder than the others, made an appeal to the
law for a ruling on the licensing question — and was
informed that notice must be given of the imminent
use of the gun, in order that the law's representative
might have time to look the other way.

The gamekeeper, perhaps, believes less in ghosts

than other countrymen. He is not afraid to keep

vigil in the loneliest wood, though well

A known to be haunted by a headless spectre.

f JSf ' He carries a g™' and his do * is at heel -

Story so it may be that the ghosts are afraid of
the keeper. We know a house where great
alarm was caused by the ghostly ringing of bells.
Watches were set, and one watcher after another
made report of a flitting figure, clad in white, that
roamed the corridors. At last the keeper was called
in to deal with the ghost. He took up his watch,

A KEEPER'S GHOST-STORY 299

his trusty gun, loaded with buckshot, in his hand.
" There I bid," he relates, " till jest on twelve o'clock
— when all of a sudden the old baize door at the end
of the stone passage opens, of its own accord like,
and in slips the ghost. I ups wi' m 9 gun, and I sez,
* Be you the ghost ? * sez I. ' And if ye moves/
sez I, * 1 shoots. 9 Three times I speaks, gruffer
and gruffer each time. And then I makes a rush for
the ghost — wot turns out arter all to be Mary the
9 ouse-maid. 99 " What did you do with Mary ? 99 we
asked the story-teller. " Lor 9 love ye, I took and
married 9 er out o 9 the way. 99

This same keeper let us into the secret of his
shattered faith in ghosts. As a young man he and
a fellow under-keeper had been told off to watch
the carriage-drive for night poachers. In a jocular
moment the head-keeper warned them not to be
afraid if they should see the estate ghost — the head-
less body of an old coachman driving a pair of gallop-
ing horses harnessed to a hearse. Naturally, the
two young keepers, as the night wore on, fell to
talking about the headless apparition. Presently,
sure enough, hoofs were heard, and a hearse came
lumbering down the drive. The watchers crouched
low in the heap of dead bracken in which they were
hidden. Asked, an hour later, if they had seen the
poachers, " No, 99 they said bravely ; " we only saw
the old fellow without a head, driving his hearse. 99
" Well, 99 said the head-keeper, chuckling, " if you'd
looked inside his hearse you would have found it full

800 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

of corpses — rabbits' corpses ! Me and Bill, we

ketched the ghost, whiles he was drinking your
•ealth."

* * *

Many gamekeepers we have known. Looking back
down the years we can summon to view a serried

regiment of the servants of sport ; large
Old men and small, rough and gentle, brown-

In Velve- ^^ men, some in velveteen, others in
teen rough tweed, most of them in stout leggings,

all with the keen eyes of watchmen, bronzed
by the sun, beaten by the weather ; good men and
true, every man of them. The best of them are
strong, upright, fearless, full of confidence; men
who neither beg favours nor grant them ; set their
own standards ; keep their own counsels ; take no
false oaths, whatever the provocation of the poacher ;
who, in preserving game, have no enmity against
other living creatures ; who are all-round sportsmen
and lovers of fair play. At the end of the long line,
farthest from view yet most distinct, stands an old
man with silver hair, with light blue eyes, and a face
kindly, yet sharp as a hawk's, the keeper who was
first to show us how to hold a gun.

Many fine stories this old man would tell, leaning
over a gate, gun in hand, of Master this and Master
that, uncles and such-like, even then old men to a
boy's eyes, yet still called, by the older keeper, by
their familiar names. " I mind the time," he would

OLD FRIENDS IN VELVETEEN 301

begin, his eyes twinkling : and then he would ramble
off into the history of some wild affray with gipsies
or with poachers, enough to make a boy's hair stand
on end.

One time that often eame to his mind was when
Master Charles plagued the life out of him to be taken,
at night, through a bedroom window, by way of a
ladder, on a hunt for poachers ; and how at last he
yielded to entreaty, though it was as much as his
place was worth if Master Charles's guardian got
wind of the affair. So he chose a bright moon-
lit night, when he was tolerably certain that no
poachers would venture forth; whistled beneath
Master Charles's window, upraised a ladder, and got
the young gentleman safely to ground, in nothing
more than nightshirt, greatcoat, and bedroom slippers.
Off they went together, and it was the keeper's
heart that beat fastest. Arrived in the Long Walk,
what should they see but two poachers with bows
and arrows, shooting the pheasants in their sleep.
The keeper's first idea was to send the young master
back to bed ; but he was not to be denied this grand
adventure: and with a yell and a bound he was
among the poachers before the keeper could say
Jack Robinson. It was a desperate affair, not only
for the poachers, but more particularly for the game-
keeper ; but he still lives to tell the tale, with ever
more wonderful variations.

802 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK

A favourite story of another old friend tells how

he found the cure for a notorious poacher. It was

in the days before the Ground Game Act,

The Con- and a farmer had complained, as well he

verted

Shepherd n^gh** °' rabbits that had cleared every

blade of a field of oats, and were beginning
to attack some wheat in the next field. The keeper
set many traps and wires. His cottage was a long
way from the wheatfield : but the cottage of the
poacher, a shepherd, was near at hand. Knowing
that the shepherd would in any case keep an eye
on the captured rabbits, the keeper went to him,
and frankly invited him to remove all those caught
overnight, and keep them safe until he should come
himself in the morning. The keeper, of course,
could tell where a rabbit had been caught ; and no
doubt the shepherd knew this, for he delivered
up each night's catch to a rabbit. And he con-
fessed, at the end of a week's campaign, that the
confidence placed in him so unexpectedly had broken
his heart of its love of poaching for ever.

All keepers are shamed when sportsmen go home

from their preserves with empty bags. To have

in a party a shooter " who never shot

A Final

Story noth'n' all day long " reacts on the keeper's

fame. We noticed that a crafty keeper

friend would always scheme to place an old colonel

CAREFUL WIVES 808

well forward of the line of guns ; and as the colonel

was never seen to add to the bag, we asked for an

explanation. "Well, ye see, it be like this 'ere,"

came the answer. " I knows as 9 e can't shoot, and

'e knows it ; but I knows and 'e knows that if 'e be

put forward 'e be likely to get a shot at a rabbit what's

stopped to think. And 'e knows that I knows that

'e will pay somethink 'andsome when 'e can go 'ome

an' tell 'is missus as 'ow 'e ain't bin an 9 disgraced

'isself agin. So I puts 'im forward ; and every time
'e shoots a rabbit what's stopped to think, it reminds

'e of I."

With many gamekeepers we have known many game-
keepers' wives. Strong-minded, capable women as
they are, most keepers are wise enough to
Wives regard them as Ministers of Finance, re-
ligiously handing over all their gain in coins.
A shilling a week, perhaps, is handed back again by
way of pocket-money, besides an allowance of 'baccy,
out of housekeeping hinds. We have known more
than one keeper who never would have had a shilling
had it not been for his wife; and we have known
more than one keeper's wife who would never fail
to keep her hand on every shilling that her good-
man brought home.

806

INDEX

Hams, 58, 59, JOB; and small
holdings, 265; curious acci-
dents to, 902, 20S, 225

Harvest mice, 167, 206, 209

Hawks, 18, 61, 62, 105

Hedgehogs, 166, 173, 206, 231

High birds, 189

Homely medicines, 7, 8

Honeysuckle, cause of accidents,
204,205

Hounds, 145, 259, 260 ; " finding, 91
190, 191

Hunting, 249

Hurdle-making, 77, 78

Jackdaws, HI
Jays, 160

Lahdbail, 157, 191, 192
Leverets, 65
Long-netting, 219, 220

MAoras, 31, 49
" Marking," 193, 194, 195
Moles, 261
'•Mothering/* 117
Moucher, 257
Munle-loaders, 272

Nwrnro-sims, 73, 80, 81

Nightjar, 125, 126

Nutters and gamekeeper, 207, 208

OwiA, 105, 205

Pabtbxdob, flying with broken

wing, 201
Partridge-driving, 279, 280, 292
Partridges, 60, 61, 92, 93, 114,
133, 134, 140 ; and dry summer,
133; and foxes, 114; andgrass-
and, 93 ; and June, 137, 141 ;
and peasants, 93 ; and peewits,

92, 93 ; and policemen, 214 ;
and rain, 139 ; cocks and hens,
129 ; French, 75-77 ; hatching
of their eggs, 139; persever-
ance of, 115, 116; young and
old, 129

Pheasant and young, 1 17, 1 18

Pheasants, 10, 40, 41, 43, 53, 54,
55, 56, 68, 71, 73, 119, 124, 138,
155, 156, 185, 187, 269, 293, 296 ;
food-bill, 225 ; rearing by hand,
85-89

Pied birds, 199

Pigs, 198

Poachers, 15, 57, 180; dogs of,
16, 17; traps to catch, 111,
112; weapons of, 260

Policemen, sporting, 214, 298

Prospects, 161-163

Puppies, 146, 147, 197, 252

Babbits, 124, 257; and snares,
33, 34; as perquisites, 5; in
autumn, 211-213; pressed for
food, 44, 45; when fattest, 236

Rate, 22, 94, 99, 131, 222

Bat-catching, 90, 91

Batting, 98, 100, 102; without
ferrets, 100

Red-legs, 141

Retrievers, 148, 206, 207, 270,
271

Ride-trimming, 172

Books, 47, 66

Scent, 238 ; and retrievers, 148
Shepherd^ the, 276-279, 302
"Shocks," shooting among, 192,

193
Sight, of birds and beasts, 37, 38
Sleep, of birds and beasts, 34
Snares, 33, 34

INDEX

807

Snow, 281

Sparrow-hawks, 10, 02

Sporting terms and others, 68-66

Squirrels, 27, 29

Starlings, roosting, 204

Stoats, 172, 236, 240; and

weasels, the differenoe, 264;

yellow and white of, 26
Stook-doves, 62
Swedes, warts on, 163

Tipping, 2, 243, 304
Trapping, 22, 23, 24, 26, 176, 178
Traps, 24, 26, 26, 32, 33

Truffles, 206

Underwood, 226, 227, 241, 242

" Vblvmmbts," 104
Vermin, lists of, 18, 19, 20, 26

Walkino-up partridges, 180
Warts, from shooting, 297
Wasps, 264, 266
Water, and game, 142-146; for

birds and beasts, 133
Weasels, 26, 173, 264
Weather-wisdom, 282, 283
Wines, home-made, 183, 184
Wire, and game, 136, 136, 263
Woodcock, 196, 196, 197, 296;

and woodcook owls, 196, 196
Woodman, 79, 80
Wood-pigeons, 4, 6, 63, 167, 293

PRINTED BY

BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD

Tavistock Street Covent Garden

London

YC 12092

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