GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL:
THEIR FRIENDS AND THEIR FOES.
A. E. KNOX, M.A. F.L.S.
; AUTHOR OF ' ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES IN SUSSEX.'
LONDON :
JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW.
M.DCCC.L.
LONDON:
Printed by SAMUEL BENTLEY and Co.,
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
PREFACE.
THE following papers are chiefly derived from
the observations and experiences of the Author,
in reference to those birds which are usually the
objects of pursuit with the British sportsman ;
and to certain other animals which, either justly
or erroneously, are supposed to be injurious to
their welfare and increase.
The ornithologist, therefore, who opens this
little book in the expectation of finding a scien-
tific treatise on those families of the rasorial,
grallatorial, and natatorial orders which might be
supposed to be included in its rather comprehen-
sive title, will be doomed to disappointment ;
while those indulgent readers who could find
amusement, or relaxation from graver pursuits, in
the author's * Ornithological Rambles ' may per-
haps give a favourable reception to these pages,
in which he has endeavoured to blend entertain-
ment with instruction, and thus add new votaries
to a loving observation of Nature.
924743
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
The Partridge Game of the Farm Certain Agricul-
tural Improvements injurious to the Partridge and ad-
verse to the Sportsman Common Partridge scarcely
ever known to breed in Captivity Easily domesticated
Anecdote A Friend to the Farmer Has many Enemies,
Quadruped and Biped Destructive mode of Netting
The Quail Its Capture in France, Sicily, Malta, &c.
Identical with the Bird of Scripture Red-legged Par-
tridge and Common Partridge Affinity and consequent
Hostility Examples among Birds and Quadrupeds. . 1
CHAPTER II.
Peregrine Falcon Truthfulness of Virgil's Description
Haunts of the Peregrine Hereditary Dominions
Extensive Geographical Distribution Grouse and Pere-
grineIncident in Ireland Paradise for Wild Fowl
The Falcon's Watch-tower Disappointment Change
of Tactics Attack and Pursuit Unsuccessful Swoop
Chace continued Death of the Mallard The Rod and
the Gun Falcon and Teal. . . . . . 15-
VI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
PAGE
The Woodcock Summer and Winter Haunts De-
crease in England Erroneous Reason assigned The
true Cause suggested Slaughter on the Shores of the
Mediterranean and the Adriatic Clumber Spaniels
Colonel Parker's Notes Shooting Expeditions to the
Morea and Thessaly Kornupeli Aspect of the Country
Covers of Arbutus and Oleander Gulf of Salonica
Reflections on the preceding Account Protection recom-
mendedDistribution in the British Islands A Wood-
cock Battue in Ireland The Common Snipe The Soli-
tary Snipe. . . . . . . . .35
CHAPTER IV.
Severe Season of 1838, 1839 Winter Scene on the
Coast Preparations for an Expedition to Pagham Har-
bour Equipment Irish Water Spaniel Frozen Fish
Arrival at the Harbour Flocks of Waterfowl Wild
Swans Observation and Plan of Operations Mysterious
Object Formidable Rival Ambuscade Various species
of Wild fowl Suspense The Great Gun Off at last
Cripple Chace Retriever and wounded Swan The
Hero of the Gun-boat Return 56
CHAPTER V.
The Pheasant Care and Attention necessary for his
Increase and Welfare Tame Pheasants Outlying Nests'
Eggs Foster Mothers Barn-door and Bantam Hens
Food of the Chicks Ants' Eggs Best Mode of Col-
lecting them Out-of-door Management of the Young
Pheasants ( The Gapes' Prevention better than Cure
Singular Instance of its Malignity Origin of the Disease,
and consequent Inefficacy of ordinary Recipes Colonel
CONTENTS. Vll
PAGE
Montagu's Cure Pheasants' Eggs The Practice of
Purchasing them reprehended Importance of obtaining
them in a Fresh State Experiment to effect that
Object Accident Open Pheasantry The Rivals
The Victor vanquished Nature the best Guide Unex-
pected Result 72
CHAPTER VI.
Various Species of Wild Geese Grey-lag and White-
fronted Distinguishing Characters Origin of the Do-
mestic Stock Bean Goose Pink-footed Goose Ber-
nicle Brent Goose Shieldrake Foreign Ducks and
Geese unadvisedly admitted into the British Fauna Pro-
bable Cause of the Error Ducks on tjie British Coasts
Diversity of Haunts, Habits, Food and Structure
Decoys Wild Fowl Shooting Young Water Fowl
devoured by Pike The < Bird-fly' Observation. . . 99
CHAPTER VII.
Red Grouse Limits of its Range Natural Enemies,
winged and four-footed The Badger unjustly proscribed
-Unsuccessful Attempts to re-establish the Red Grouse
in the South of England Ptarmigan Its Haunts and
Habits British Game Birds Order in which they
arrive at Maturity Annual Importation of Ptarmigan
Highland Moors Mayo Mountains Shooting Expedi-
tion Lodge Backward Season Operations deferred
Wild Scenery Youthful Ardour and Veteran Coolness
Variety of Sport 114
CHAPTER VIII.
The Woodcock Modes of Capture Net and Gin
Woodcock trapped Attempts to Rear it in Confinement
Vlll CONTENTS.
PAGE
Insatiable Appetite of the ' Bird of Suction ' Rapid
Digestion Crepuscular Habits High-road Gunners
Netting Snares, Ancient and Modern The Old Poacher
and his Springe .138
CHAPTER IX.
Falconry Youthful Attempts in the 'Noble Art'
Heron Hawking The Look-out The Chace An Irish
Bog Fabulous Errors Magpie Hawking Colonel
Bonham's Hawking Experiences Scardroy Peregrine
Falcons Grouse Hawking Russian Setters The Gos-
hawk compared with the Peregrine Their respective
Merits How does the Falcon strike her Quarry 1
Woodcock Hawking Convincing Fact Anecdote The
Falcon's last Flight < Falcon' and < Tiercel' Wild
Duck, Blackcock, and Ptarmigan Hawking ' Playing'
the Hawks The Falcon at Sea Recognition and Re-
covery. 152
CHAPTER X.
Favourite Haunts of the Pheasant in a state of Nature
A more general Distribution of the Species desirable
Inefficiency of the Game laws Importance of a quiet
and secure Place of Retreat Asylum for Pheasants at
Walton Hall Descriptive Sketch Crowing of Cock
Pheasants Scenery Valley of the Rother Singular
Occurrence Importance of Evergreen Timber Trees in
Preserves 181
CHAPTER XL
Injuries inflicted on various Birds during the Breeding
Season Robbery of Eggs Plover's Eggs Eggs of Terns
and Gulls Blackheaded Gulls Preserves of those Birds
CONTENTS. IX
PAGE
Gullery at Seoul ton The Gannet or Solan Goose
Wild Geese and Ducks The Eider Duck Its Distribu-
tion and Domestic Economy Plunder of the Eggs and
Down Traffic in the Eggs of Rare Birds Injurious Con-
sequences Scientific and Amateur Collectors Eagles'
Eggs French and Dutch Purveyors Tricks of the
Trade Depredations committed on Game Birds during
Incubation The Red Grouse Feathered Bandits
Grouse and ' Scaul Crows ' Poachers The Egg Stealer
the most Mischievous and Difficult to Detect Indirect
Encouragement thoughtlessly Afforded Pheasants' Nests
Habits of the Hen Pheasant Tactics of the Egg
Stealer Ignorance of Game-keepers Persecution of
comparatively Harmless Animals Duties of a Keeper
during the Breeding Season 191
CHAPTER XII.
The Capercaillie Characteristic Habits Nature of
the Country suited to it Unsuccessful Attempts to
Naturalize it in England Restoration of the Capercaillie
to Scotland Mode of Management and Propagation
Present Condition of Capercaillie at Taymouth The
Black Grouse Its introduction into Ireland desirable
Natural facilities for its establishment there Obstacles
to its Increase in England Plan recommended Diffi-
culties to be surmountedUnity of Interest and Mutual
Advantage 218
CHAPTER XIII.
The ( Random Shot ' Field Sports Cruelty tempered
by Mercy Museum Lectures Maxims for Young Sports-
men Destructiveness of a Bad Shot A Case in Illus-
tration Retriever over-matched Evil Consequences of
careless Shooting and Random Shots The best not infal-
X CONTENTS.
PAGE
lible Necessity and Use of a good Retriever The most
promising Breed Experiments and Observations Im-
portance of Discipline A Field Day 233
CHAPTER XIV.
Four-footed Vermin Less Destructive than the Human
Poacher The Fox Conflicting Interests of the Fox-
hunter and Game-preserver Wild Cat Its Predatory
Habits and Ferocity House Cats running Wild A
Retriever Cat The Marten The Polecat, Stoat, and
Weasel Utility of the Weasel Anecdote The Hedge-
hogDevours Eggs The Mole Not only Harmless but
Beneficial Witnesses to his Good Character The
Squirrel unjustly Accused Trial without Jury. . . 249
ILLUSTRATIONS.
DEATH OF THE MALLARD . . . Frontispiece.
1 OFF AT LAST' 68
THE OLD POACHER'S SPRINGE ..... 150
GROUSE AND ' SCAUL CROWS ' 206
GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
CHAPTER I.
" All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace." POPE.
The Partridge Game of the Farm Certain Agricultural
Improvements injurious to the Partridge and adverse to
the Sportsman Common Partridge scarcely ever known
to breed in Captivity Easily domesticated Anecdote
A Friend to the Farmer Has many Enemies, Quadruped
and Biped Destructive mode of Netting The Quail
Its Capture in France, Sicily, Malta, &c. Identical
with the Bird of Scripture Red-legged Partridge and
Common Partridge Affinity and consequent Hostility
Examples among Birds and Quadrupeds.
AMONG our native game birds there is not one
more essentially fera natura than the common
partridge (perdix cinerea), and yet there is none
whose increase and welfare have been so di-
rectly favoured by the improvements in modern
agriculture. The inaccessible peaks of the highest
mountains are the resort of the ptarmigan ; the
B
2 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
. blackc/DCk: loves the unreclaimed swamp and the
*ftirctfeii** r or alder glen; and the red grouse
' '/Haunts .flje moor and the barren heath, retreat-
ing invariably before the progress of cultivation.
Even the quail would seem to prefer the compa-
ratively slovenly mode of tillage pursued through-
out the greater part of Ireland, to the refined
system of husbandry now carried on in England.*
It is indeed a remarkable fact, that for the last
fifty years these birds have been gradually dimi-
nishing in the latter country ; and, apparently from
an opposite cause, have been steadily increasing
in the sister island. I have myself found them
far more numerous during the winter on the half
reclaimed arable grounds, in the immediate vici-
nity of the great bogs, which had produced a
scanty and precarious crop of oats, than in the large,
well-fenced, and thoroughly drained wheat-fields.
But the partridge is par excellence the game of
the farm, and, ceteris paribus, the finer the crops
of cereal grain and the higher the turnips, the
larger and more numerous will be the covies
found in such districts.
Yet there are certain recent refinements in
agriculture that are decidedly injurious to the
welfare of this bird, and others which must be
earnestly deprecated by the sportsman. The
* Thompson's ' Natural History of Ireland.'
MODERN FARMING VERSUS SPORT. 6
system of grubbing the wide old fashioned hedges
or ( shaws,' and replacing them by narrow, well-
clipped quickset fences, wooden palings, or iron
rails, ostensibly for the purpose of increasing
the surface of ploughing land, deprives the par-
tridge of a favourite nesting place, and the shooter
of an excellent and convenient cover into which
he could always calculate on driving them when
the covies were wild, and the turnips thin. A
still more objectionable * improvement ' is the
introduction of the ' fagging hook,' which in
many counties has superseded the good old
fashioned sickle. From the shape and size of
this instrument, and the manner in which it is
used, the stalks of the wheat are cut close to the
ground, and the stubble the glorious stubble
is thus relentlessly shaved down as effectually as
if the operation had been performed by a scythe ;
and the birds, finding no place of concealment
there, or in the neighbouring fences, are quickly
alarmed at the approach of the shooter, and,
almost before his dogs have begun to range the
field, run to the opposite side, scud over the
hedge, and take refuge in the nearest piece of
turnips. Here, too, ' the modern system ' is
against the sportsman. The white rounds or
Swedes have been sowed in drills for the freer
admission of air, and more perfect drainage of
B 2
4 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
the soil, so that the field is intersected from one
end to the other by straight narrow alleys, along
which the birds run with extraordinary speed;
and instead of finding them well scattered at or
near the spot where they were marked down as
was the case when the old broadcast style of
sowing was in vogue he has the mortification
of seeing them far out of shot, topping a gate in
a compact body, and may thank his stars if their
next flight should happen to be into a patch of
clover or standing oats.
But although the common partridge may thus
be said to follow in the steps of civilized man, and
to be attracted by the labours of the agriculturist,
still there is scarcely an instance * of its having
ever bred in captivity, while the experiment has
frequently proved successful with the red-legged
species, as well as with grouse and black game ;
and yet, individually, the bird is eminently sus-
ceptible of domestication in confinement, and has
been known to evince the strongest personal
attachment to its owner. A lady in West Sussex
had a tame partridge for many years : it was a
* a There is but one record, as far as I am aware, of the
partridge breeding in confinement. Sir Thomas Marion
Wilson, Bart., had a small covey of seven or eight hatched
and reared by the parent birds in his aviary at Charlton in the
summer of 1842. I saw these birds in 1843." Yarrell's
' Hist, of British Birds,' second edition.
THE PARTRIDGE A FRIEND TO THE FARMER. 5
mere chick when it came into her possession, and
no dog or parrot .ever presented a more perfect
model of affection and docility. Although it had
the run of the house, its favourite quarters were in
the drawing-room, where it would sit for hours
on the back of the chair usually occupied by its
beloved mistress, and never fail to exhibit every
symptom of grief and concern during her occa-
sional absence. When she retired to rest it
would accompany her to her chamber, and take
up its position near the head of her bed. No
wonder then that many a tear was dropped when,
from an untimely accident, it ' went the way
of all ' pets.
The partridge is decidedly a friend to the
farmer, even more so than the pheasant; as his
consumption of grain is less, and the quantities
of injurious weeds and noxious insects devoured
by him at all seasons of the year are more
considerable, in proportion to his size. The Rev.
G. Wilkins, who has bestowed much attention
to agriculture in Essex, thus addressed a neigh-
bouring farmer who had solicited his advice.
" If you have a nest of partridges, encourage
them. All the summer they live upon insects,
wire worms, &c., and consider how many millions
a covey will destroy in a single summer ! " He
might have added, and in the winter and spring ;
6 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
for, if the crop of a partridge be examined during
those seasons, it will be found to contain chiefly
grasses, grubs, and minute coleopterous insects,
which in the larva state are, in a greater or less
degree, injurious to vegetation.
Where the country is open and magpies nu-
merous, the nest of the partridge is subject to
frequent depredations, especially during hot dry
summers, when the herbage is scanty, and the
eggs . therefore easily discovered. The peculiar
mode of roosting at night generally adopted by
the whole covey, who are squatted in a circle
in an open part of a stubble field, with their tails
in the centre, and their heads turned outwards,
although apparently well calculated to enable
them to perceive the approach of danger, yet
exposes them to certain deadly enemies, among
whom the night-prowling fox and the human
poacher stand pre-eminent. The former, from
his keen scent and stealthy mode of advance,
frequently succeeds in springing into the midst
of the family, and in sacrificing several of their
number especially in wet weather. To say
nothing of the various systems of wiring, snaring,
trapping, and shooting, usually employed by man,
there is one mode of netting although many
are practised that is not much known, and seems
to deserve especial notice from its destructive cha-
DESTRUCTIVE MODE OF NETTING.
racter, and the success with which it is frequently
attended. Two or three poachers, disguised in
respectable attire, travel about the country in
a gig or dog-cart, accompanied by a single pointer
or setter. One of the party alights at the out-
skirts of a village or country town, and proceed-
ing to the public room of the nearest tavern,
soon falls into conversation with some of the
unsuspecting inhabitants ; and passing himself off
as ' an intelligent traveller,' or keen sportsman,
about to pay a visit to the neighbouring Squire,
soon obtains sufficient local information for his
purpose. The other ' gentlemen ' have in the
mean time put up their horse and gig at an inn
in a different quarter, and while discussing their
brandy-and-water at the bar, have ' pumped' the
landlord of all the news likely to prove useful to
the fraternity. At a certain hour in the evening
the trio meet by appointment at some pre-
arranged spot outside the village, and commence
operations. After comparing notes, the most
promising ground is selected. A dark night and
rough weather are all in their favour. The
steady old pointer, with a lantern round his neck,
is turned into a stubble field, and a net of fine
texture, but tough materials, is produced from
a bag in which it has hitherto been closely packed.
The light passes quickly across the field now
8 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
here, now there, like a ' Will-o'-the-Wisp ' as
the sagacious dog quarters the ground rapidly,
yet with as much care and precision as if he
were working for a legitimate sportsman in open
day. Suddenly it ceases to move, then advances
slowly, stops, moves once more, and at last be-
comes stationary. Two of the men then take
the net, and making a circuit until they arrive
in front of the dog, shake out the meshes and
place it in a proper position on the ground. Then
standing opposite to each other, and holding
either end of the string, they draw it slowly
and noiselessly over their quadruped ally whose
exact position is indicated by the lantern fre-
quently capturing at the same time an unsuspect-
ing covey huddled together within a few inches of
his nose. When this operation is carried on by
experienced hands, an entire manor may be effec-
tually stripped of partridges in an incredibly short
space of time.
Although the quail (coturnix vulgarls) is known
only as a summer visitor in most parts of England,
yet in Ireland it has of late years been met with
in considerable numbers during the winter. The
London market is well supplied by quantities
which are netted in France and sent alive to
this country in the spring, where they are sub-
sequently fattened for the table. Mr. Yarrell
THE QUAIL.
" found, on inquiry, that three thousand dozens
have been purchased of the dealers by the Lon-
don poulterers in one season." Most of these
birds are males, which arrive from the south
a few days before their partners, and are then
decoyed into the net of the fowler by a well-
imitated love note of the female. In Italy,
Sicily, and Malta, they are still more numerous.
As they fly by night, and generally close to the
shore, long nets stretched on poles and extended
over the edge of the water are used in capturing
them. One hundred thousand have been taken
in a single day on the western coast of the Nea-
politan territory. Great numbers are also killed,
not only by regular sportsmen in the field, but
by the motley population of the maritime vil-
lages on the Mediterranean, on the return of
these migratory flocks to their winter quarters
in Africa and Asia.
Mr. Yarrell has shown very ingeniously and
satisfactorily, that there is every reason for be-
lieving that this the only migratory species of
quail was the identical bird alluded to by the
Psalmist, when it pleased the Almighty to furnish
an ample supply of food to the, famishing Israel-
ites in the Wilderness : " He caused an east wind
to blow in the heaven, and by His power He
brought in the south wind. He rained flesh also
B5
10 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as
the sand of the sea, and He let it fall in the
midst of their camp round about their habita-
tions ; so they did eat and were well filled, for He
gave them their own desire." * But a verse in a
subsequent psalm even more distinctly points to
the bird in question : " The people asked and
He brought quails, and satisfied them with the
bread of heaven." ^
The introduction into this country of the red-
legged partridge (perdix rubra), called also the
Guernsey partridge and the French partridge, is
a subject of regret with most sportsmen, espe-
cially in some parts of Norfolk, where the value
of certain manors has been much deteriorated by
its increase. In the first place, their extreme
wildness, the rapidity with which they run, and
their reluctance to take wing, are serious objec-
tions, as they not only spoil the dogs, but disap-
point the shooter. In the next, even when
killed although their varied plumage, and espe-
cially the brilliant colour of the beaks and legs,
cannot fail to be admired yet the flesh is far
inferior to that of any of our game-birds; in-
deed, in my opinion, scarcely to be distinguished
from that of a guinea-fowl. Lastly, it has been
found that in those districts where they have
* Psalm Ixxviii. 26-29. t Psalm cv. 40.
AFFINITY AND HOSTILITY. 11
once obtained a firm footing, the disappearance
of our indigenous partridge (perdix cinerea) has
been the result: one to be regretted in every
point of view, sporting and culinary; for, with
so many disadvantages, the foreigner does not
possess a single redeeming quality to justify his
usurpation.
It has often struck me as a singular fact in
natural history, that when two species which are
very closely allied are brought into juxtaposition,
the weaker or less warlike will gradually give way
to the other, and eventually become exceedingly
rare or extinct. It would appear that similarity
in habits, as well as a near relationship or affinity,
is a necessary condition. The old English black
rat (mus rattus), now almost unknown in his
native land, had existed in this country for ages
on good terms with the water rat (arvicola am-
phibius), and even with the common mouse
with whom he was specifically allied until the
importation of the voracious grey rat (mus de-
cumanus), to whose superior strength he was at
last obliged to succumb. Thus the pheasant and
the common partridge had prospered and in-
creased on the same manor for centuries, until
the latter was in some instances turned out of
his inheritance by his continental relative. Two
species or rather varieties of the common
12 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
pheasant were originally introduced into this
country ; the Colchican from Asia Minor, and the
ring-necked from China. The latter was the
less robust of the two, and, besides other well-
marked distinctions of plumage, was characterised
by a white ring round the neck. In process of
time the Colchican increased and multiplied,
while the Chinaman diminished in an equal ratio.
It is said, however, that they bred freely toge-
ther, and that the former, being the more
powerful, gradually absorbed the other, while
the white collar, that still adorns the necks
of many of our modern pheasants, is all that
remains of the plumage of their remote ances-
tors.
A friend of mine, whose residence adjoins an
ancient building, under the massive eaves of
which great numbers of swifts annually rear their
young, has observed that previous to their ar-
rival in the beginning of May, the air overhead
is filled with swallows and martins at all hours of
the day, but as soon as the swifts have regularly
taken possession of their summer quarters, their
smaller congeners retire from the immediate
neighbourhood ; scarcely an individual is to be
seen there during that season, while the shrill
notes of the 'screecher' resound from morning
till night. About the middle of August the
CHOUGH AND JACKDAW. 13
scene again changes. The swifts, the last to
come, are the earliest to depart. The swallows
once more make their appearance at ' the old
hospital/ and continue to haunt the neighbour-
hood until, with the early frosts of October, they
wing their way to the warmer regions of the
southern hemisphere.
But the most remarkable example of this hos-
tile tendency in animals of similar habits that has
ever come under my own notice is that afforded
by the chough and the jackdaw. I have else-
where stated * that all my attempts to discover the
former species on the maritime coast of East
Sussex where it was once plentiful were un-
successful, nor could I ascertain to my satisfac-
tion that a single specimen had been killed or
seen for many years between Brighton and
Beachy Head. Subsequent observation and in-
quiry have satisfied me that it has been banished
by the jackdaw, whose numbers have palpably in-
creased of late, and I believe that the same process
is taking place on the cliffs of Dover, and on many
parts of the southern coast of England. Some
years ago, I found great numbers of choughs on
the precipices of Caldy Island, off the coast of
Pembrokeshire, and procured several specimens ;
but observed no jackdaws, although I saw two or
* ( Ornithological Rambles in Sussex.'
14 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL,
three pair of ravens who from time immemorial
as at Beachy Head and Newhaven had lived on
excellent terms with the red-legged crow. But
the daw has, I am told, since made his appear-
ance there, and the graceful, slender bill of the
chough can prove no match for the hard, conical
beak of the grey-pated intruder. Indeed, I can-
not help fancying that his doom is sealed : that,
like the black rat, he must eventually give way
to his more robust cousin and disappear from the
cliffs of Albion ; and thus, as too frequently hap-
pens in analogous circumstances among a nobler
race of bipeds, the instinct of selfishness is often
most powerfully developed by the ties of rela-
tionship and the clash of interests.
FALCON AND WILD FOWL. 15
CHAPTER II.
" Quam facile accipiter saxo, sacer ales, ab alto
Consequitur pennis sublimem in nube columbam,
Comprensamque tenet, pedibusque eviscerat uncis :
Turn cruor et vulsse labuntur ab eethere plumse."
VIRGIL.
Peregrine Falcon Truthfulness of Virgil's Description
Haunts of the Peregrine Hereditary Dominions
Extensive Geographical Distribution Grouse and Pere-
grine Incident in Ireland Paradise for Wild Fowl
The Falcon's Watch-tower Disappointment Change
of Tactics Attack and Pursuit Unsuccessful Swoop
Chase continued Death of the Mallard The Rod and
the Gun Falcon and Teal.
How obviously has ' the poet of nature '
pointed to the peregrine in this passage ; although
certain learned systematists in compliance, no
doubt, with the imperious necessities and refine-
ments of modern classification have deprived
him of one of his ancient titles (accipiter) and
conferred it on the ignoble sparrowhawk, whose
short wings and general conformation are better
adapted to a denizen of the lower regions of the
air and of the woods, than of the clouds or the
16 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
precipice. Indeed, the description will hold
good even as regards the favourite prey (columba)
of the peregrine as every falconer knows, and
as I can myself testify from personal observation
of his habits in a state of nature. On one of the
most inaccessible ledges of a lofty maritime cliff
on the north-west coast of Ireland a pair of
these hawks have for many a long year been
established : there have I frequently seen either
of them plunge into the midst of a party of
rock pigeons (columba livia), as they issued from
a deep fissure in the face of the rock, and carry
one off to their expectant family. Even the
deadly clutch of the falcon at the moment that
he grasps his quarry (comprensamque tenet) is
true to the life, for although at other seasons,
and in different situations, he usually fells his
victim to the earth at a single blow, yet when
foraging for his young he selects from the motley
inhabitants of the cliff one of moderate size a
pigeon, a puffin, a herring gull, a jackdaw, and
occasionally even his congener the kestrel for a
greater burden might impede his ascent to the
eyrie ; and it would be irretrievably lost if struck
in the ordinary manner, and suffered to fall into
the sea, perhaps many hundred feet below.
But although sacred to the gods (sacer ales]
in classic times, and although to the vigour,
HAUNTS OF THE PEREGRINE. 17
courage, and docility of this noble bird our ances-
tors were indebted for so large a share of their
amusement when his value was so great that
in the reign of James the First a sum equivalent
to a thousand pounds of our money was once
given for a well-trained ' cast/ or pair yet in
these degenerate days he attracts but little notice,
except where his occasional forays among grouse
and partridges, or his wholesale depredations in
the neighbourhood of decoys or on preserved
lakes or ponds which are stocked with water-
fowl, draws down the vengeance of the keeper
and consigns him to the deadly trap. His eyrie
too is occasionally plundered of its contents by
some adventurous native, to whom the sale of
the eggs or young may prove a fortunate specu-
lation and strange to say, the latter are less
likely to find a purchaser now-a-days than the
former but although from the danger and diffi-
culty of robbing the nest of the peregrine, and
his now comparative worthlessness in a sporting
point of view, together with his great wariness,
his wonderful powers of wing, and the altitude
at which he flies when searching for prey or per-
forming his migrations, it might be expected that
the species would have multiplied of late years,
yet such does not appear to be the case. In-
creased attention on the part of ornithological
18 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
observers may have been the means of revealing
to the public the precise situation of the breeding
place of a pair or so in most of our maritime
counties, but nevertheless its existence was well
known from time immemorial to the neighbour-
ing inhabitants, and the traveller will always
find, on prosecuting his inquiries, that the bird
is honoured with some provincial title which
has generally a direct reference to his prowess,
the species on which he preys, his powers of
flight, or to the locality itself. During my own
wanderings I have invariably found this to be
the case. I have seen peregrines at their eyries
in Sussex, in the Isle of Wight, in Devonshire,
on several parts of the coasts of North and
South Wales, and in similar situations on the
north-west, and south-west of Ireland ; and
although in some of the more remote of these
places I might have occasionally flattered myself
that I was the first actual discoverer of the fact,
yet an ornithological chat with the natives was
always sure to dispel the pleasing illusion. I
found that the circumstance of the peregrine
being established in their neighbourhood, and
even the exact situation of the eyrie was well
known to them, and the tradition of its having
been similarly occupied in bygone times regu-
larly handed down from their ancestors ; and that
EXTENSIVE DISTRIBUTION. 19
the gull-hawk, the puffin-hawk, the duck-hawk,
the sharp-winged hawk, the great blue hawk,
the great hawk of Benbulben, the hawk of Cadia,
&c., invariably turned out to be the peregrine,
whether the appellation was conveyed in the
language of the Saxon, the ancient Briton, or
the Celt.
The jealousy inherent in this bird and certain
other raptores prompts them to expel their young
from the neighbourhood of the nest as soon as
they are able to provide for themselves, nor do
they appear to tolerate the intrusion of another
pair within many miles of the original stronghold.
The extensive geographical distribution of the
peregrine for it has been found in all regions
of the old and new worlds together with its
hardihood and enduring powers of flight, will
account for these exiles being able to pitch their
tents as colonists in any quarter of the globe.
Certain it is, that many birds of the year, or
' passage hawks ' as they were termed by our
ancestors, to distinguish them from the ( eyas,'
or bird taken from the eyrie, are known to ap-
pear in Holland, and different parts of the Con-
tinent, at the period of the southern autumnal
migration, when the old falconers used to capture
them by means of a net and a lure ; and evidence
is wanting to show that these birds ever return
20 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
to their native country for the purpose of estab-
lishing themselves in the breeding season : yet
the species must be almost omnipresent, for there
is no nest of this falcon on the face of the earth,
however remote or isolated, where, in the event
of the death of one of the proprietors, the
survivor will not succeed, generally within twenty-
four hours, in finding a helpmate of the opposite
sex, even when none but the original pair had
up to that moment, perhaps, ever been observed
in the neighbourhood.
Although the most formidable foe that any
bird of moderate size could encounter, yet from
its general partiality to an open country, the
grouse and ptarmigan more frequently become
its prey than any other species of British game ;
indeed, there are few sportsmen who have shot
much on the maritime moors of Scotland or Ire-
land, who could not recal to memory having
seen some of their wounded birds struck and
appropriated by the peregrine. I particularly
remember an instance of the kind occurring to
myself at the close of a grouse-shooting expedi-
tion, during which the fates had been decidedly
unpropitious. It was one of those days that a
sportsman abhors. The weather was sultry, and
the scent bad. My dogs, as tired as myself,
had dropped to heel, or now and then perhaps
GROUSE AND PEREGRINE. 21
would suddenly start off on a brief but ineffec-
tual beat, and soon slink back to their former
station. I was dragging my weary limbs up the
interminable slope of the last mountain that
separated me from the lodge, and already antici-
pating the pleasure I should derive from the first
glimpse of its chimneys in the valley beyond,
when at an unexpected moment up sprang an
old cock grouse from a little gully formed by the
bed of a narrow stream, and wheeling over my
head, away he went, ' cucketing ' down the
hill. I had only time for a random shot, which
appeared merely to stagger him, and left a few
feathers floating on the air. His flight, however,
became gradually more laboured and difficult,
and I had just raised my hands to my eyes in
hopes of marking him down, when a shadow-
passing over the ground near my feet caused me
to look upwards, and I saw a peregrine in rapid
pursuit after my wounded bird, and gaining on
him every moment. He had already cleared
the valley in safety, and was evidently struggling
to attain the shelter of the thick heather a few
hundred yards up the opposite brow : but before
he could reach it down she came and stopped his
career in an instant. Having no wish to dispute
the prize with my successful rival, or to be com-
pelled afterwards to reascend the tedious hill
22 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
which I had already surmounted, I made the
best of my way, with a light bag, and a heavy
gun, to my quarters at the lodge.
The myriads of gulls, puffins, guillemots, and
razor-bills, which generally inhabit the same
cliffs as the peregrine during the breeding-season,
furnish a constant supply for itself and young
during the summer ; while the various flocks of
wild ducks and water-fowl which visit this coun-
try on the approach of winter and haunt our
inland lakes and estuaries on the coast, are fre-
quently attended by a falcon of this species,
who, on these occasions, finds himself in the
midst of plenty, seldom failing to decimate his
victims if allowed to remain sufficiently long
without molestation. He usually abstains from
striking his prey immediately over the water,
unless it should happen to be a teal or some
other bird of small size. I had many oppor-
tunities, about two years ago, of observing the
tactics of a fine female peregrine, who had taken
up her quarters for the winter in a secluded part
of the demesne of Parsontown, which was fre-
quented by numbers of wild ducks. Two rivers,
the Birr and the Brosna, here unite their waters.
The former, rapid and turbid, rises in the distant
mountains, and flows in a distinct current, until
gradually lost in the dark yet transparent stream
PARADISE FOR WILD FOWL. 23
of the latter, which forms the boundary between
Tipperary and King's County ; and having its
source in one of the vast bogs which extend
through this part of Ireland, winds along, deep
and silent, occasionally contracting itself as it
hurries over some declivity, or stretching out
now and then into wide sluggish pools, whose
swampy banks, well fringed with beds of reeds
and tall sedges, present a combination of every-
thing that can be supposed to constitute a para-
dise for wild fowl during the winter.
Towards the close of a day's snipe-shooting,
wishing to vary iny bag with a few teal or wigeon,
I approached this spot as stealthily as possible,
just before the witching hour of twilight, when
the shades of evening might favour my design,
and before these birds had yet begun to quit this,
their favourite haunt during the day, and scatter
themselves over the bogs and morasses, their usual
feeding places at night By crawling along the
side of the river, frequently on my hands and
knees, keeping as near as possible to the margin,
so as to avail myself of every inequality on the
banks that might serve to mask my approach
while at the same time the crackling of the dry
sedges, as I wormed my way to the edge of the
pool, might be drowned by the noise of a rapid
just above I at last found myself, though up to
24 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
my knees in mud, and gradually sinking deeper
and deeper, yet in a capital position for a family
shot at the first party of ducks that might rise
from the cover. Two mallards and a teal had
already passed at a short distance, but I still
reserved my fire, and at last clapping my hands to
give the alarm, a group of about a dozen sprang
from within a few yards of me, and after blazing
right and left into them, I could see that about
half their number had dropped into the deepest
part of the pool. The pointers were far away
with an attendant, and having no retriever with
me, I was obliged for the present to give up all idea
of recovering them. The report of my gun had
roused every bird in the neighbourhood, and up
they started in all directions, chiefly ducks, wigeon,
and teal, and provokingly wheeling round me within
pistol-shot a common occurrence, as every wild
fowl shooter knows, under similar circumstances
while I was loading as quickly as I could,
attained such an altitude by the time that opera-
tion was completed, that I had nothing left but
to gaze at them as they swept aloft in wide and
increasing circles, until they disappeared in the
distance. Just at that instant I saw a peregrine
falcon pass rapidly overhead, in full pursuit of a
batch which had cleared the opposite bank, and
were evidently making the best of their way to
INCIDENT IN IRELAND. 25
Killeen Bog, about a mile off. She soon singled
out one, a duck, who, as if aware of her danger,
suddenly quitted her companions and endeavoured,
by making a wide circuit, to attain a greater
elevation. This manoeuvre brought both her
and the falcon again within view, and nearly over
the spot where I was standing. Little did I
think of my own dead or wounded birds in the
absorbing anxiety of that moment. It was
already growing dark, and I feared lest, after all,
I should not be a witness to the termination of
the chace. The falcon was just then above her
quarry, in a favourable position for dealing the fatal
stroke, but evidently waiting until the latter had
cleared the banks of the river. Another mo-
ment and down she came, the sound of the blow
reaching my ears distinctly, and as the duck
tumbled through the air, head over heels, into
the callows on the opposite side of the Brosna,
I saw her conqueror descend with closed pinions
just above her, until an intervening bank of
sedges shut them both out from my view.
Of all the incidents which can occur in the
wanderings of an ornithological sportsman, per-
haps such an example as this of the powers of
the falcon, unchecked by any artificial influences,
is one of the most exciting. The performances
of trained hawks, even under the most favour-
c
GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
able circumstances although by many degrees
the noblest sport in which man has ever indulged
yet to a certain degree are wanting in that
unspeakable charm which attends the unrestrained
operations of Nature and adds such a keen zest
to the pursuits of her real votaries. Such at
least have always been my own feelings, and
acting under their impulse on this occasion, I
abandoned both dog and gun for a couple of
days, and relinquished for that time some of the
best snipe-shooting in Ireland, for the sake of
improving my acquaintance with the peregrine
in her winter-quarters. Many a cold and anxious
hour did I pass in a well-concealed position which
commanded a good view of both banks of the pool
not far from the junction of the two streams.
On one side spread the wide callows, or flooded
meadows, stretching away towards the great bog
of Killeen, with the fairy mountain of Knock-
shegowna* in the distance. Immediately in
front, near the edge of the river, stood a dead
tree, the topmost branch of which was the falcon's
favourite resting-place. There she sat, erect and
motionless, as if scorning to conceal her person,
and in full reliance on her own irresistible powers
whenever she chose to exert them.
* See Crofton Croker's ' Fairy Legends of the South of
Ireland.'
DISAPPOINTMENT. 27
On the other side lay the grounds of the de-
mesne watered by the upper river, here working
its obscure way through the trees, many of which,
uprooted by a late flood, were still floating on
its surface ; there rushing down an abrupt de-
scent in a foaming cascade, or suddenly turning
away into open ground and expanding into many
a little bay where neither bush nor bramble
could interfere with the tackle of the fly-fisher ;
while the grey turrets that flank the monster
telescope, and the summit of the great tube it-
self, frowned over the tops of the trees near
the castle.
I had waited long and anxiously, but although
a duck or teal had passed now and then up the
river, yet they failed as yet to rouse the attention
of the imperturbable falcon. I noticed that they
kept close to the surface of the water, especially
as they neared the tall tree, and I almost fancied
that the position of their enemy had not escaped
their observation, for they always dropped sud-
denly into the stream close to the sedges. As
my own place of concealment was too far from
this retreat to admit of my flushing them again,
without at the same time alarming the peregrine,
I was obliged to leave matters to take their
course, and thus the first day wore away without
any satisfactory result. On the following morn-
o 2
28 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
ing I adopted a more successful expedient. Des-
patching a light-footed native, who was well
acquainted with all the favourite resorts of wild-
fowl among the labyrinthian recesses of a distant
bog, through which the river meandered in its
earlier course, I directed him to flush them from
these haunts, while I resumed the post which I
had occupied on the preceding day. For the first
half-hour I was almost in despair ; for the falcon
was absent from her accustomed station, and I
thought it not improbable that the operations of
my coadjutor might have attracted her attention,
and that she was perhaps at that very moment in
full enjoyment of a chace which I was fated not
to witness ; but on looking up a few moments
afterwards, there she sat, bolt upright as usual,
and now every minute appeared an hour, as I
strained my eyes continually in the direction
from which I expected the arrival of the first
detachment of ducks. Presently a cluster of
dark spots appeared against the distant sky, gra-
dually becoming more distinct, and sinking lower
and lower as they neared the river, and at last
keeping close to its surface, until they scudded by
within a few yards of the commanding position of
their enemy ; who, probably from her reluctance
to strike so large a quarry as a wild-duck, which
she could not have clutched and carried off with
ATTACK AND PURSUIT. 29
ease across the water, suffered them to pass unmo-
lested. Next came two or three wigeons, which
also ran the gauntlet with impunity. I now
began to fancy that the appetite of the hawk
must have been satisfied by some recent prey,
or that perhaps the bird which I had seen her
strike two days before might remain still undi-
gested. Just at that moment, however, a whist-
ling of wings reached my ear ; and I perceived a
party of five or six wild ducks and a few teal
approaching from a different direction, and nearly
at right-angles to the course of the river, which
they would apparently have reached at a point
about thirty yards distant from the falcon's posi-
tion. But she had no intention of allowing them
such an advantage. In an instant she was on the
wing, and had cut them off from their retreat.
For a few seconds it seemed doubtful which was
to be the victim, but one of the mallards having
made a bolder dash at the stream than his com-
panions, she seemed to mark him at once for
destruction, while on his part he endeavoured
to mount above his pursuer, and strained every
nerve to accomplish this object by ascending spi-
rally. In the meantime his comrades, availing
themselves of this diversion in their favour, scud-
ded down to the water and dashed at once into
the friendly shelter of the sedges. Almost at the
30 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
same instant the falcon made a swoop, but miss-
ing her quarry, she. suddenly appeared a consi-
derable distance below him, and now it seemed
doubtful whether she could recover the advantage
which she had lost by this unexpected failure.
While she struggled upwards again in circular
gyrations, and the mallard also made the best of
his time to attain a higher elevation by execu-
ting a similar movement, but in a much wider
curve, the two birds frequently seemed to be
flying in opposite directions. The superior ease
and rapidity, however, with which this manoeuvre
was performed by the peregrine, soon convinced
me that the result of the chace could not be
doubtful; for the drake was now far from his
favourite element, and as each successive evolu-
tion brought his enemy nearer and nearer, he
seemed to relax in his efforts to ascend any
higher, and at length turning his tail to the
wind, away he went towards the bog of Killeen,
trusting for escape to the rapidity of his flight,
and closely pursued by the falcon. I felt that
not a moment was to be lost if I wished to
witness the denouement; so, scrambling to the top
of the bank, I was just in time to see the mallard
tumbling headlong to the earth, while the falcon
checking her downward career for a moment, as
if to satisfy herself of the success of the stroke,
DEATH OF THE MALLARD. 31
dropped to the spot where he had fallen in the
middle of a wide marsh, which I might have
reached, by crossing the river at a higher point
and making a circuit of about half a mile; but
fearing that any closer inspection of her proceed-
ings might tend to alarm her from her favourite
haunts, and being quite satisfied with my share
of the sport, I left her to discuss her well-earned
prize without further interruption.
Many a subsequent visit, however, did I pay
to the same spot before my return to England,
frequently without seeing anything of the falcon,
but occasionally finding myself amply rewarded
by witnessing a display of her powers'. I always
forbore from carrying my gun, lest I should be
tempted to take a shot at some of the wild-fowl,
and so disturb or perhaps scare away the pere-
grine, which was now the chief object of interest
to me. I therefore employed my rod as an ac-
cessory to the day's sport, and although it was
not the regular season for fly-fishing, yet on a
muggy day, with ( a southerly wind and a cloudy
sky,' I could always catch a good dish of well-
flavoured trout from the upper stream, with the
small black-midge or the dun-hackle, aided by
fine tackle and a light hand. At other times the
tantalizing rumours that reached me of some
enormous pike having been seen, as he lay asleep
32 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
in the recesses of the lower river, where he looked
' for ail the world as big as a calf/ would tempt
me to sally forth with the approved paraphernalia
of trolling, to endeavour to capture one of these
monsters of the deep, who, I was assured, had
baffled the arts of every previous visitor, and was
destined to become a trophy of ' my honour's
superior skill/ But although well aware that
these leviathans existed only in the excited ima-
gination of my informants, yet as their reputed
whereabouts lay in the immediate vicinity of the
falcon's retreat, I used to listen with apparent
credulity to these pleasing fables ; and if I failed
to land a larger fish than any of my predecessors,
yet I obtained at least the reputation of possess-
ing a greater share of those indispensable qualifi-
cations of an angler, patience and perseverance.
One afternoon especially I remember, when tired
with want of sport, I found myself close to the
spot where I had witnessed the last performance
of the peregrine. Having waded into many parts
of the stream during the morning, I had now the
less hesitation about venturing into the sedges ;
so converting my trolling-rod into a beater's stick,
I walked boldly into the swamp, and flushed
several ducks, wigeon, teal, and a few pochards ;
pausing every now and then, when an opportu-
nity occurred, to take a reconnoitring glance
FALCON AND TEAL. 33
through the thick sedges. These glimpses, how-
ever, were so partial, and the ducks continued to
rise so frequently without my being able to see
them, that I at last struggled through as quickly
as the nature of the ground would admit, and oc-
casionally above my waist in the water. I was well
repaid, however ; for just as I cleared the cover, a
small flock of teal, which had probably seen their
enemy overhead and skulked before me to the
edge of the reed bed, now sprang up at my feet
and took wing with evident reluctance. Almost
at the same instant I saw the falcon dash into the
midst of them, as if she had fallen from the
clouds, and in spite of the sudden and simulta-
neous whirl of the whole party towards the sur-
face of the water, she succeeded in clutching one
of them and carrying it across the pool, until she
plunged with it into a thick clump of reeds and
oziers, which clothed a little promontory that pro-
jected from the opposite side of the river.
Kind reader ! I have perhaps detained you too
long on the banks of the Brosna, but my remi-
niscences of almost every spot that I have visited
are so intimately associated with birds, that ( for
the life of me ' I could not help it. Had I been
less of a sportsman or more of an astronomer, I
might perhaps have edified you with marvellous, yet
strictly veracious accounts of all that was revealed
c 5
34- GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
to my wondering eyes by the monster telescope
under circumstances too which were unusually
propitious for such observations. Of the stars or
nebulae I will say nothing ; and of the queen of
night herself I will merely remark, that I ascer-
tained to my perfect satisfaction in spite of
Milton and Galileo to boot that there were
neither seas, lakes, rivers, woods, nor forests ' on
her spotty globe,' and that whatever may be
the ordinary occupations or the favourite diver-
sions of ' the man in the moon,' he is at any rate
neither a fisherman nor an ornithologist.
THE WOODCOCK. 35
CHAPTER III.
" Long have I roamed through lands which are not mine,
Adored the Alp and loved the Apennine ;
Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep
Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the deep."
BVKON.
The Woodcock Summer and Winter Haunts Decrease in
England Erroneous Reason assigned The true Cause
suggested Slaughter on the Shores of the Mediterranean
and the Adriatic Clumber Spaniels Colonel Parker's
Notes Shooting Expeditions to the Morea and Thessaly
Kornupeli Aspect of the Country Covers of Arbutus
and Oleander Gulf of Salonica Reflections on the
preceding Account Protection recommended Distri-
bution in the British Islands A Woodcock Battue in
Ireland The Common Snipe The Solitary Snipe.
WHILE the pheasant, the partridge, and even
the grouse, are exposed to considerable danger
during the breeding-season ; the woodcock is then
in the enjoyment of comparative security; the
great majority of the species having returned
from their winter quarters in the British islands,
and the swamps and orange-groves of Italy,
Greece, and Albania, to the vast unexplored
forests of the North, where they rear their young
36 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
and remain until the early frosts of the follow-
ing autumn prompt them to repeat their southern
migration.
It is singular enough that while too little at-
tention is generally paid to the welfare of our
game birds during the season of reproduction
more especially in preventing the depredations
of the egg-stealer and while their diminution
is often exclusively and falsely ascribed to the
practices of the night-shooter, or the unrestrained
indulgence of the sportsman himself; the mani-
fest decrease of woodcocks in many parts of
Great Britain, of late years, has frequently been
erroneously attributed to the wealthy gourmands
of Stockholm and Christiania, who, it is alleged,
evince the same predilection for the eggs of that
bird as is shown in this country for those of the
peewit, or lapwing, and we are told that many
thousands are thus annually sacrificed for the
gratification of the Scandinavian epicure.* On
this subject Mr. Lloyd very properly says, " If
persons, who entertain such an opinion, were to
* Since the above was written, I have been much pleased
in perusing Mr. Thompson's recently published work on the
Birds of Ireland, to find my own opinion confirmed by Mr.
George Matthews, who made a sporting excursion to Norway
in 1843. " His notes state that the Norwegians seem to know
little about woodcocks, and in some places will not eat them."
Thompson's ' Natural History of Ireland,' vol. ii. p. 25.
DECREASE OF THE WOODCOCK IN ENGLAND. 37
see the almost boundless northern forests, they
would probably think with me, that if the whole
of the scanty population of that part of the world
were to go out for the purpose, they would not
be able to explore the hundredth part of the woods
in the course of a year, and consequently they
could not take or destroy any considerable num-
ber of eggs. If they are really scarcer than they
were, it is doubless in some degree attributable
to the greater number of persons who are in the
habit of shooting at the present day than was
the case formerly." *
There can be no doubt that this conjecture
is correct, and the wholesale destruction by
shooting does not take place in any part of
the Scandinavian provinces for Mr. Lloyd him-
self says that he never killed more than three
in any one day during his residence in the north
of Europe but is carried on principally by
British sportsmen, not only in their native land,
but in various parts of the south of Europe ;
where their performances have occasionally been
such as to ( astonish the natives,' and even to ex-
cite the surprise of many a veteran gunner at
home.
I have had good woodcock-shooting in Wales
and in Devonshire, and in some of the larger
* Lloyd's ' Northern Field Sports.'
38 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
covers of the Weald of Sussex, and have also
formed one of a party who had tolerable sport
in the neighbourhood of Rome and Terracina
several years ago, but I have never seen so
many killed as in Ireland. The most wholesale
slaughter, however, of these birds would appear
to be on the shores of the Mediterranean and
of the Adriatic. Several British officers who
have been quartered at Malta and the Ionian
Islands have made expeditions to these wonder-
ful swamps, and wild groves of orange, oleander,
and arbutus, where the objects of their pursuit
are found in incredible numbers. Many sporting
members of the Royal Yacht Club too, tempted
by the success of their friends, have been induced
of late years to steer towards the South, instead
of laying up their vessels at the close of the
season ; and to vary the charms of a winter cruise
in the Mediterranean with woodcock and snipe-
shooting on the classic shores of Greece and
Thessaly. Immense numbers are occasionally
killed when the majority of the party are good
shots, but it is generally admitted that the birds
are not in such condition as those which are met
with in the British islands, nor do they present
so difficult a mark to the sportsman. A pack
or team of wild spaniels is a great desideratum.
The Clumber breed is the best, as their superior
WOODCOCK SHOOTING IN GREECE. 39
strength enables them to work their way through
the jungles of blackthorn, where the more dimi-
nutive cocker would be soon baffled or exhausted.
Half broken dogs are superior to those which
are perfectly trained, as it is absolutely necessary
that they should wander as far as possible from
their keeper or huntsman, and bustle about in
the tangled recesses of the cover, which would
of course be inaccessible to him, while even the
habit of crying or giving tongue so serious a
fault in the eyes of the sportsman at home is
considered a natural accomplishment of the highest
value by the woodcock shooter in Greece.
Never having had the good fortune myself
to pull a trigger on the banks of the Eurotas, to
shoot snipes on the plain of Marathon, or to hear
the echo of a double-barrel among the sacred
heights of Ossa and Olympus, I am unable to
speak of the subject from personal experience ;
but the kindness of a friend Colonel Parker,
1st Life Guards has enabled me in some mea-
sure to supply the deficiency, and to furnish the
reader with information which, although it may
excite very different feelings in their breasts,
cannot fail to prove interesting to the ornitho-
logist and the sportsman.
Colonel Parker's notes refer to an expedition
which he made in the Louisa yacht, with his
40 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
uncle, Sir Hyde Parker, and a few friends to
the Morea and Thessaly, during the winter of
1 844-5 ; and although the season was singularly
unpropitious for the woodcock-shooter in the
south of Greece, yet the records of the expe-
dition show that besides the great variety of
sport afforded by deer, hares, herons, bitterns,
quails, pheasants, partridges, plovers, snipes, wild
ducks, &c., the number of woodcocks killed on
several occasions was incomparably greater than
the most fortunate and skilful party could pro-
cure in any district of the British islands with
which I am acquainted. This communication
also contains some account of the proceedings
of two other parties who, during the same period,
visited the Peloponnesus, as well as the shores
of Albania, for a similar purpose, in the Diram
and Flower of Yarrow yachts. As the testimony
of an eye-witness is generally best conveyed in
his own words, I gladly avail myself of Colonel
Parker's permission to insert here a portion of
his letter to myself, with extracts from the journal
containing the result of each day's sport.
" You will perceive that the party in Albania
had better shooting than in the Morea. This is
quite dependent on the season. When the win-
ters are mild, and there is not much snow on
the mountains as was the case in 1844-5 Al-
KORNUPELI PALAMETOCHI. 41
bania affords the best sport ; in the hard winters
the Morea.
" Chiazenza, in the Morea, is the usual landing
place from Zante, and twelve miles distant from
it. Castel Tornese is the fortress above it. The
ground here is moderately undulating, of a dry
sandy soil; the covers formed by arbutus and
bay-trees. In previous years this had been very
good woodcock ground, but owing to the pre-
valence of fine weather this year, 1845, and
absence of snow from the hills, the cocks had
not come down so low. The same remark applies
equally to several of the other shooting grounds
that we visited.
" Kornupeli on the Morea is to the north-
east, about thirty miles from Chiazenza. From
this anchorage we got our best shooting in the
Morea. The ground of Palametochi showed the
most sport. Near the convent of the above name
are some small woods, with strong undercover of
blackthorn, very difficult to work through. Ad-
jacent to these is one very large wood, which,
owing to the strength of the blackthorn, is nearly
impossible to beat. We could not get the Clum-
ber spaniels to go far into the cover away from
their master, and the kirtled Greeks did not in
fact, could not face the thorns, so that we did
not half beat these covers, which will partly ac-
2 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
count for our always finding, upon our return
to these places, nearly as many cocks each time as
the first. Part of this cover was low and marshy,
but not very wet this year. The grounds of
Maldonada, Cortiche, and Ali Tchelebi, are open
plains with a good deal of fern and oaks, much
like our English park scenery, with rivers and
streams intersecting the plains, along which run
narrow stripes of slight cover.
" Catacolo Bay in the Morea is the harbour to
Pyrgos. Here the ground is varied. A good
deal of it currant gardens,* very unpleasant to
shoot in, the dwarf vines just reaching to your
middle and catching you every moment. There
are some wild, scrambling, small covers in the
hollows like the ' shaws ' of Sussex some
wheatfields and some undulating sandy hills, with
thick cover formed by arbutus, bays, and olean-
ders. The whole of this district Catacolo,
Pyrgos, and the Alpheus river furnished but
little sport this year from the great mildness of
the season. Most days were like an English
July. The sandy soil, on which grow the bay,
arbutus, and oleander, had produced in former
* Colonel Parker, no doubt, alludes to the Zante, or Corinth
grape ; the well known little fruit which, when dried and im-
ported into this country, is familiar to all housekeepers under
the name of currants.
GULF OF SALONICA. 43
and wetter seasons a good show of cocks, but this
year they were thin.
" In the gulf of Sparta, on the plains of the
Eurotas, we did not find much shooting, although
there were some good low covers near the mouth
of the river, and the banks of it in many places
afford good shelter for game amidst its high
reeds and rushes, which form a border, in some
parts, of good depth.
" In the gulf of Salonica our first anchorage
and shooting ground was Lentorochori, supposed
to be the ancient Methone, at the siege of which
place Philip of Macedon lost his right eye. It
is on the plains of Thessaly. Our first day's
shooting here produced a great variety of game.
Upon landing we took a line nearly direct with-
out reference to the likelihood of the ground for
game to our intended quarters at Sphintza, a
village twelve miles inland.
"Near the sea- shore there was a good deal
of low blackthorn and reedy and marshy cover.
In this we first found the pheasants. The ground
gradually ascended from the shore and partook of
the character of flat park scenery high fern
with plenty of Velani oaks none of very great
size. In the fern we found pheasants and deer.
Further up again were cultivated wheatlands,
on which we found a good many partridges and
44 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
hares. The partridges were of two kinds, the
grey and the common brown.
" We descended again to the level of a small
river, and shot along the line of it ; a succession
of wild, rushy, small covers in which we found
our great variety of shooting. Pheasants, wood-
cocks, snipes, wild ducks, teal, all in the air at the
same time. Neither the pheasants nor wood-
cocks differ in appearance or plumage from the
English. We fancied the pheasants were drier
than ours from want of good feeding, hut we
invariably put them into soup, and had there-
fore no fair trial of what a plain roasted one might
have proved. The whole day we shot in sight of
Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus.
"Our expedition into the interior did not
answer our expectations, as the extracts from the
journal will show. In fact we got among such
large strong blackthorn covers that we could not
work through them ourselves, neither would the
Clumber spaniels face them, and I suspect that
without * stops' the Thessalian pheasants run as
fast as the British. Three guns had again a very
good day on their return to the yacht. As far as
our experience went the shooting was always best
nearest to the shore, and it is better not to go far
inland. On the 3d of February we got under
weigh for the Vardar river, where we were told
REFLECTIONS. 45
that we should find the best shooting in the gulf
of Salonica, but the wind changed to ' on shore/
so we could not anchor there, and therefore stood
on for Salonica and here our shooting ended." *
That the number of woodcocks in England, and
even in Ireland, has greatly decreased during the
last twenty years, I take to be a fact established
and admitted on all hands. The question that
arises is to what cause the diminution of the
species is to be ascribed. I think that from
the actual observations of Mr. Lloyd and Mr.
Matthews, to which I have already alluded, it
does not arise from the persecution of the
woodcock in his summer abode in the North
of Europe ; neither is it attributable to the num-
ber which fall to the gun of the sportsman in
these islands during the shooting season. But I
believe that such wholesale slaughter as that
which Colonel Parker describes on the shores of
* The following extract from the journals will show the
result of six of the best days woodcock shooting.
Woodcocks.
f
Two days at Butrinto .............................. | J
Two days on the Fanara, or Acheron river ... < -^
c i fift
Two days on the Achelous river ............... \ ^ji
Grand total of six days ............... 1026
46 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
the Mediterranean is the chief cause of the birds
being drained off from other quarters. The tem-
perate climate of the southern countries of Eu-
rope will always afford strong attractions for the
woodcock whose food is so essentially derived
from moist and marshy ground during the winter
months, at which period, in the inhospitable,
regions of the north, the snow-clad earth and
ice-covered waters bid defiance to the efforts of
his slender bill ; and when arrived on those shores
his further progress is possibly arrested by the
philosophical reflection that having already at-
tained a sufficient supply of food he might
' go further and fare worse ;' which would cer-
tainly be the case should he adventure himself
towards the interior of Africa ! Although wood-
cocks have no doubt been occasionally found in
Barbary and in Egypt, I think we are not to infer
that they are by any means common in those
countries ; but on the coasts of the Morea, Thes-
saly, Macedonia, and Albania, at Athens, and
in many parts of Italy, we know that they
abound, and indeed they appear to be concentrated
on the shores of the Mediterranean during the
winter months. Here they might probably be
exposed to but little danger from the natives;
but if our own countrymen, with all that ardour
which characterizes an English sportsman, should
PROTECTION RECOMMENDED. 47
engage in an annual crusade against them, and
especially if there should be many such deadly
shots as Colonel Parker and his friends, the spe-
cies must manifestly be soon greatly reduced.
Here too let me observe, that I think it would
tend much to the preservation and increase of
the woodcock in this country, if all proprietors
would extend to it the same immunity which is
so properly granted to our gallinaceous game
birds, namely, not to allow it to be shot after
the 1st of February. At present we know that
it is customary in many counties to shoot hares
and rabbits long after the pursuit of the pheasant
has ceased, and on such occasions not only the
keepers and farmers who so far as I am inte-
rested would be most welcome to their share of
the sport but also many idlers about the neigh-
bouring towns and villages, form a rabble rout
with all the curs of the district at their heels, to
drive the covers and exterminate certain quadru-
peds and birds over which the law has not ex-
tended the aegis of its protection. Amongst these
the poor woodcock is a frequent martyr ; and his
fate is the more to be lamented, that being by
general habit a migratory bird, the scattered
examples that are found during the spring and
summer had probably resolved to become perma-
nent settlers and colonists amongst us, and had
48 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
no doubt already paired and selected some se-
cluded spot for their honeymoon, where, if spared,
they would have nested and reared a brood. Now
by encouraging the woodcock to do this, or at
least by protecting him during the summer, we
should go far to secure him as a constant resident,
and the result would almost certainly be that in
a few years the number in our covers would be
materially increased. I am happy to say that some
judicious game preservers in my neighbourhood
have lately enforced this regulation, and with
them, after the 1st of February, the woodcock is
as sacred as the pheasant, and the consequence
already is a palpable and undeniable increase in
the number to be found on their properties
during the regular shooting season.
The first arrival of these birds in England is on
the eastern coast, during the latter part of Oc-
tober or early in November, when there is either
little or no wind, or a favourable breeze from the
north-east. After resting for a short time they
resume their journey towards the south-west ;
invariably revisiting, if possible, their haunts of
the preceding year, and showing a strong prefer-
ence for large woods, extensive heaths or swamps,
and, above all, a moist and warm climate. Ac-
cordingly, after the early part of the season has
passed away, they are more numerous in the
DISTRIBUTION. 49
southern and western than in the northern and
eastern counties, more plentiful in Cornwall and
in Devonshire than in any other part of England ;
and as the western migration continues, under the
influence of severe weather and protracted frosts,
they abound in Ireland at the very period when
they have almost disappeared from their usual
haunts in this country, as was especially exempli-
fied last year, 1849. In the early part of the
season there was a fair sprinkling in a great wood
of West Sussex, where they were suffered to
remain undisturbed till a later period, when the
covers were to be beaten for pheasants and hares.
In the meantime a hard frost set in ; the ground
was covered with snow, the brooks and springs
were frozen up, and at the termination of the
grand day on which it was expected that we
should bag at least twenty woodcocks, a solitary
emaciated individual was to be seen at the end of
a long row of pheasants. About the same time
I received a letter from a friend in the county of
Galway, informing me that the woodcock-shoot-
ing in the west of Ireland was better at that
very moment than it had been for many pre-
ceding years.
It is almost unnecessary to remark that the
sister island has long been famous for affording
this sport in perfection. Indeed, my own earliest
D
50 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
recollections of the gun are identified with it,
and I had become a tolerable snipe and woodcock
shooter before I had fired at a pheasant or even
seen one on the wing. The southern and
western provinces are more celebrated than the
northern and eastern, although I have had good
sport in all of them. When the party is nume-
rous, as is generally the case, a great number of
cocks are killed in the large woods ; twenty-five,
thirty, and even forty couple being frequently
the result of one day's sport. It is usual on such
occasions to employ a host of beaters, whose pro-
ceedings are conducted upon a very different plan
from that generally observed by the steady-going
assistants of the pheasant-shooter in England.
A heterogeneous army of men and boys whose
appearance might recal the description of Fal-
staff's ragged recruits at Coventry, each fur-
nished with a long pole, are drawn up at one side
of the cover. The guns are either placed at
intervals where the backward growth of the
brushwood may afford them the chance of getting
a shot as they work through its mazes for rides
or alleys are but little known in these wild
natural woods or else station themselves in dif-
ferent parts of the coppice, or on some eminence
that commands a wider range of view and
these are the most knowing ones of the party
WOODCOCK BATTUE. 51
until at last the word is given to advance, when
each beater shouting ' Heigh cock ! ' at the very
top of his voice, and laying his stick about him
with all the energy of a thrasher, such an unin-
terrupted and discordant row ensues as might
well start every cock within hearing from his
place of concealment, and, in fact, causes num-
bers of those birds to spring prematurely from
distant parts of the wood. Here, however, those
wary gunners who have previously taken up their
position on favourable heights possess a great
advantage, and bring down many woodcocks as
they fly in various directions, sometimes towards
the beaters, sometimes in the face of the shooter,
each struggling to escape the danger, but not
knowing from which quarter it proceeds. By
this time all discipline is at an end. Some of
' the boys,' having caught a glimpse of a falling
woodcock in the distance, now fling away their
poles and rush towards the spot, all anxious to be
the first to pick up the bird and to congratulate
the successful shooter on his dexterity ; who, by
the way, receives their compliments with marked
ingratitude as they come rushing through the
cover, insist on keeping close to his person, and
so, effectually spoil his sport for the rest of the
day. The same scene is probably enacting in
ten different places at once. All order is at
D 2
52 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
an end. Far away in the distance the cry of
' Heigh cock ! heigh cock ! ' may now and
then be heard during the intervals of the con-
fusion from a solitary beater who as yet has
listened to nothing but the sound of his own
voice, and, instead of proceeding in a straight
line, has made a wide circuit and now finds
himself unexpectedly at the very point from
which he started ; while another who has inde-
pendently advanced all alone, and at least half an
hour too soon, to the opposite end of the wood,
is flushing the cocks by dozens, without for a
moment considering where the guns are, or which
way the affrighted birds take, but delighted all
the time at his own performance, while the
distant sportsman inwardly curses him from his
heart. Many a cunning old beater, too, who
has been too long used to the thing to feel any
excitement in it, drops quietly into the rear,
and squatting under a holly-bush, lights his
' dudeen ' with the utmost sang froid, regardless
of all that is passing around him. At last the
storm gradually subsides. A few dropping shots
alone proceed at intervals from the outskirts of
the wood. The shooters and beaters emerge, one
by one, at different sides, all eloquent on the
subject of their own performances ; not excepting
him of the dudeen, who exultingly points to
SOLITARY SNIPE. 53
sundry recent scratches on his face and shins, and
swears that he ' never had such hard work in the
whole coorse of his life. 1
The great or solitary snipe (scolopax major) is
less frequently met with here than on the con-
tinent. Its favourite breeding-places are in the
north of Europe, and its autumnal line of mi-
gration lies rather to the eastward of the British
islands. Among the hundreds of snipes that I
have seen on the wing and killed in Ireland,
I never could detect a single example of scolopax
major, although until I became acquainted with
the characteristic distinctions between this and
the common snipe (scolopax gallinago), I used
occasionally to fancy that I had obtained a spe-
cimen of the rarer bird when I had only bagged
an unusually large or well-fed individual of the
other species. It is sometimes found in the cen-
tral and southern counties of England, but, as
might be expected, occurs most frequently on the
eastern coast. Some years ago, when shooting
on the Pontine Marshes near Rome, in the early
part of the winter, I killed three great snipes :
their flight was different from that of the com-
mon bird ; their bodies appeared much larger,
and the wings shorter in proportion ; they kept
much closer to the ground, and did not at least
as far as my experience went utter any cry,
54- GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
showing a similarity in these respects to their
diminutive congener the jack-snipe (scolopax gal-
linula). In all the examples that I have seen,
the bill was much shorter than in the common
snipe ; but the most obvious distinction consists
in the brown marginal markings extending over
the feathers of the breast and belly, nearly as
low as the vent, while the same parts in the
common species are of a pure white.
A friend of mine, who passed some time in
the Austrian provinces to the south of the Da-
nube, told me that he frequently killed these
birds during their autumnal migration, but that
he rarely found them when the winter had set
in. He remarked that they well deserve the
title of e solitary,' as he did not remember having
ever sprung two at the same moment.
Although still abundant in some parts of Ire-
land, the common snipe is less generally dis-
tributed even there than formerly, while it has
almost disappeared from many districts in Eng-
land, where, about twenty years ago, it might
have been considered plentiful. Indeed, the ad-
mirer of snipe-shooting will find comparatively
little room for indulgence in his favourite pastime
on this side of St. George's Channel. He should
betake himself to the great bogs and rushy swamps
of the sister island, or the marshes of Italy and
COMMON SNIPE. 55
Greece. If anxious to have a preserve of these
birds in this country, and if his love of the sport
is sufficiently strong to induce him to make the
necessary sacrifices, he must possess at the same
time considerable territorial authority, and make
up his mind to run counter to the prevailing
spirit of the age. He must refrain from an in-
terference with nature, and boldly stem the torrent
of modern innovation ; but as the rage for agricul-
tural improvement has lately increased to such a
degree as to become a fashionable mania, and
the proprietor of land may feel it no less his
duty than his interest to increase the productive
capabilities of his estates, it would perhaps be
too much to expect that those who have the
pecuniary means should practise such self-denial.
Nevertheless, he who undertakes the drainage of
a marsh, or the reclamation of a bog, at the same
moment issues an * order to quit/ not only to
snipes, but to various species of grallatorial birds,
resident as well as migratory.
56 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
CHAPTER IV.
" Now, all amid the rigours of the year,
In the wild depth of winter, while without
The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat
Between the groaning forest and the shore
Beat by the boundless multitude of waves."
THOMSON'S SEASONS.
Severe Season of 1838, 1839 Winter Scene on the Coast
Preparations for an Expedition to Pagham Harbour
Equipment Irish Water Spaniel Frozen Fish Arrival
at the Harbour Flocks of Waterfowl Wild Swans-
Observation and Plan of Operations Mysterious Object
Formidable Rival Ambuscade Various species of
Wild fowl Suspense The Great Gun Off at last-
Cripple Chase Retriever and wounded Swan The
Hero of the Gun-boat Return.
THE severe winter of 1838-1839, will be long
remembered. The ornithologist and the wildfowl-
shooter, who fortunately happened to be then
located on our southern shores, will recal to mind
the acquisition of many a rare bird, and many a
sporting expedition by day and night which it has
never since fallen to his lot to realize. It is true we
have had hard frosts and deep snows since then,
and the winter which has just passed (1849-1850)
SEVERE WINTER. 57
has been unusually harsh and protracted: but
whatever may have been the rigour of the season
in more northern latitudes, it has never, at least
in this part of England, reached such a point
of intensity, or been attended with such results
as marked the memorable period to which I have
alluded.
Many feathered visitors of rare occurrence
have certainly been met with lately in different
parts of Great Britain, but they have been found
more frequently in the interior of the island
than on the southern coast, the cold having been
sharp enough to drive them from their usual
haunts, and to scatter them over the face of the
country, but not sufficiently severe to induce
them to continue their progress to the southward
or to concentrate vast flocks of different species
in the sheltered bays and estuaries of the channel.
Our evergreens, too, have escaped unhurt. The
laurel groves exhibit their wonted verdure and
luxuriance, and the bay-tree flourishes as before.
Even the myrtle has withstood the chilling blasts
of the last four months. How differently did
they fare in 1838 ! While on our sandy soils
they were perceptibly affected by the severity of
the season, in the clay district of the weald they
were killed outright, their foliage in the ensuing
spring presenting the appearance of deciduous
D 5
58 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
trees in the autumn ; but as brown and brittle
as if it had been parched by a burning sun.
I resided during that winter in a cottage on
the coast of Sussex about two miles to the west
of Bognor. A small meadow lay in front of my
windows, flanked on one side by a grove of stunted
oaks, which were gradually disappearing before
the inroads of the sea for with spring-tides and
stormy weather it rushed over the frail bank,
tearing away the shingle and washing the pro-
jecting roots of the trees and on the other by a
wide expanse of the channel as far as the en-
trance to Pagham harbour, where the low flat
coast appeared to extend suddenly to the south-
ward until lost in the low promontory of Selsey
Bill, above which the loftier outline of the Isle
of Wight was visible in the distance.
About the middle of January the severity of
the season appeared to have reached its climax.
A cutting north-easter swept the water and car-
ried the foam from the waves out of sight in an
instant. All the larger features of the landscape
seemed to have lost their natural colours, and
were bathed in the extremes of light and shade.
The surface of the earth, houses, banks, hedges,
and corn-stacks were covered with snow. The
sky was black and lowering, blended, as it were,
into one vast cloud which looked still more
PREPARATIONS. 59
gloomy in the distance as you faced the blast for
a moment and peered into the eastern horizon.
The sea was as dark as the sky, but its surface
was broken by the white crests of the angry
waves as they hurried towards the west, and thus
relieved the obscurity on that side of the pic-
ture, while long files of various species of wild-
ducks, and small parties of cormorants and guille-
mots, might be seen scudding along close to the
surface, but at a considerable distance from the
shore, and every now and then a great black-
backed, or a herring gull, swept past, a few yards
overhead, and flocks of sand-pipers skimmed ra-
pidly along the margin of the beach in the same
direction, all bound for the muddy flats and calm
waters of Pagham Harbour.
I had made preparations over night for a re-
gular field-day. The distance from my residence
to the mouth of the haven was little more than a
mile along the shore, and I was thus enabled
though not without a certain degree of labour,
which, however, the intense cold rendered less
irksome to carry my own guns and ammunition,
and at the same time to dispense with the services
of an attendant, who, as experience had taught
me, proves rather an incumbrance than an advan-
tage on an expedition of this kind. My long
duck-gun was now unpacked, and a heavy double,
60 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
weighing about eleven pounds, also put into
requisition. A supply of El ey's cartridges suited
to the calibre of each, with well-dried powder
and waterproof caps, were stowed away in the
larger pockets of my shooting-coat, while the
smaller receptacles contained the minor sundries
necessary to complete my equipment.
But although I willingly dispensed with the
services of a biped attendant, I had one compa-
nion whose assistance was all in all to me on
such occasions. This was an Irish water spaniel,
whose education I had myself superintended in
his native bogs and on the shores of the Atlantic,
and whose sagacity, courage, and docility far sur-
passed those of any dog that I have been able
to procure in this country. He was rather larger
than a setter, but his legs were shorter and
stronger : his coat was curly, entirely of a liver
colour, and of a fine silky texture ; his ears long
and pendulous; his feet were webbed like a
duck's, to the very toes ; his face was smooth ; his
forehead broad and open. But the most striking
feature was his eyes. Nothing in canine physiog-
nomy could surpass the intelligence of their
expression. They were of a bright golden colour,
like those of a sparrowhawk : restless, and always
on the move ; indicating a joyous and adventur-
ous spirit, and an ardour and perseverance, which
SMALL BIRDS AND SPARROW-HAWKS. 61
indeed were prominent qualities in the character
of their possessor.
Thus attended, and with a gun in each hand,
like Robinson Crusoe, I hastened along the shore
to Pagham. On my way I met with a singular
evidence of the extreme intensity of the cold.
Several fish of different kinds lay scattered at
intervals on the beach, some dead, others dying,
but all in a perfectly fresh state, having been
frozen in their rocky lairs at the bottom of the
sea, and cast up by the waves. Some of these were
of a species entirely new to me, and which I have
never since met with. Their colours were in-
describably beautiful. Every hue of the rainbow
seemed to have been transferred to their scales.*
My astonishment could hardly have been sur-
passed by that of the poor fisherman in the ( Ara-
bian Nights,' when he drew forth the variegated
fish from the enchanted lake. I could not help
regarding this discovery as a lucky omen for
myself, so having selected half-a-dozen of the
brightest, I concealed them under a heap of peb-
bles, and continued on my way to the harbour.
Innumerable flights of small birds were col-
* Mr. Yarrell, to whom I related the circumstance, conjec-
tures that these fish belonged to the Wrasse family (labridce),
some of the rarer species of which are remarkable for their
beautiful iridescent colours.
62 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
lected in the fields, and along the hedges, near
the coast, consisting chiefly of larks, woodlarks,
grey linnets, chaffinches and yellow hammers. So
densely, indeed, were they crowded together that
they seemed to be almost blended into one vast
flock, which was continually reinforced by fresh
arrivals from the interior, while every now and
then a little male sparrow-hawk would suddenly
appear on the outskirts of the army, and dashing
into the midst, carry off with ease a starved and
half-frozen victim : indeed, at one moment I
observed several of these active little camp fol-
lowers all busily plying their trade at the same
time.
Not far from the narrow entrance to the har-
bour I found a coastguard-man perched on the
summit of a mud wall, and attentively recon-
noitring some distant object through his spy-glass.
From this position he commanded an extensive
view of the haven which as it was now about
full tide spread like a great lake into the inte-
rior. The absence of large vessels, and indeed
of almost all kinds of sailing craft, from this
secluded spot, would at first strike a stranger
with surprize, but at low water the mystery
would be cleared up : the scene would then be
entirely changed : a great extent of flat mud
would be left by the receding waters, in the
WILD SWANS. DO
middle of which the shallow and devious channel
might be perceived winding like a silver thread
on its way to the sea.
At this moment, however, the tide was at the
highest, and a glance into the distance was suffi-
cient to show me the object which had attracted
the man's observation. Several flocks of wild
fowl, apparently brent geese, wigeon, scaup
ducks, pochards, and tufted ducks, were swim-
ming near the further side of the estuary, while
in the midst of these, like a naval squadron
among a fleet of fishing boats, sailed a noble herd
of wild swans. I soon perceived that they were
too far from the shore to admit of my getting a
shot at them, and had therefore no choice but
either to wait patiently in expectation of some
of the party separating from the main body
and wandering up one of the narrow creeks on
the opposite side of the harbour, when by tak-
ing a circuitous route, and availing myself of
any intervening object that might project above
the flat banks of the swamp, I might perhaps
succeed in stalking them, or else to proceed in
search of a less noble quarry. I at once chose
the former alternative.
As I swept the shores of the estuary with the
spy-glass, I had the satisfaction of observing that
my sport was not likely to be anticipated by any
64 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
wandering gunner, who might have perceived the
birds already and perhaps venture on a random shot
before I could commence operations, or even de-
cide on the best mode of carrying them into effect.
There was not a human being within sight, nor
could I discover a single boat on the surface of
the water. I had hardly congratulated myself on
this fortunate circumstance, when a distant object
arrested my attention. It looked at first like a
plank of wood, or the trunk of a dead tree, as it
floated slowly down a narrow creek, and seemed
to be carried here and there at the mercy of the
current; still there was something suspicious
about it which prevented me from looking at
anything else, and I continued to watch its move-
ments with increasing anxiety.
On reaching the open water it turned round,
apparently in an eddy of the tide, and gave me
an opportunity of examining its outline as the
broadside was turned towards me for an instant.
There was nothing, however, in this hasty glimpse
calculated to increase my alarm ; on the contrary,
I now felt more than ever convinced that I was
looking at an inanimate log, and my only fear at
this moment was that it might be drifted by the
tide which would soon begin to ebb or by the
irregular course of the channel, to that part of
the harbour where the hoopers were still sailing
UNWELCOME DISCOVERY. 65
in apparent security, and alarm them prema-
turely. On a sudden, however, it seemed to alter
its course and to move slowly under the shadow
of the bank, or, as the sailors term it, to ' hug
the shore : ' it was apparently propelled by some
hidden power, for it now no longer wheeled
about, but advanced steadily with one end fore-
most, and as I watched its movements while it
crept cautiously along, I fancied every now and
then that I could distinguish the slight splash of
a paddle, and my heart sank within me.
It was evidently the gun-boat of a wild-fowl
shooter, and of one who was no novice in the
craft; but when the first feeling of disappoint-
ment had passed away, I easily succeeded in
persuading myself that I should derive more
pleasure from witnessing his operations than
in spoiling his sport which would have been
the result of a premature movement on my
part, for he was yet at least half a mile from
the objects of his pursuit but it occurred
to me at the same moment that I might even
manage to convert him into an unconscious but
important ally in contributing to my the jackal's
share of it. Taking, therefore, a hasty survey
of the harbour and its shores, I saw that if I
could contrive to conceal myself at a certain point
on a long and narrow belt of shingle at some
66 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
distance, over which the swans would probably fly
when returning to the sea, I might perhaps have
the good luck to intercept them. I lost no time
in carrying out this plan : the coastguard-man
ferried me across the mouth of the estuary, after
which, by taking a wide circuit and availing
myself of the nature of the ground where it was
possible to mask my advance, I succeeded at last
in reaching the desired point, and having scraped
a hole in the loose shingle sufficiently large to
conceal myself and my dog in a crouching atti-
tude, I placed my guns on either side of me,
and now directed all my attention to the exciting
scene in the harbour.
The hoopers were still there, surrounded by
several flocks of wild-ducks, some five hundred
yards from the position which I occupied, and
about half that distance beyond them was the
gun-boat, as harmless a looking object as could
well be imagined, lying low in the water, and
never for a moment attracting the attention of
any of the devoted birds, who appeared to be
perfectly at their ease and in the full enjoyment
of repose and plenty after their long and stormy
voyage. The brent geese and the wigeons were
preening their feathers, while the scaup and
tufted ducks were continually diving, or flapping
their wings on their raturn to the surface before
SUSPENSE. 67
they again plunged to the bottom. The swans
were also feeding, but in a different manner:
with their long necks they explored the surface
of the mud beneath, where, to judge from their
perseverance and the number of tails that ap-
peared at the same moment directed upwards,
they must have discovered something well suited
to their palates. I could also distinguish some
of the less common species of anatidce, among
which the males of the smew and the golden-eye
were conspicuous in their pied plumage. The
sooty scoter too was there, but foraging by him-
self apart from the main body. All this time
their concealed enemy was gradually lessening
the distance between them and himself. Slowly
and stealthily did he advance, nearer and nearer,
until at last I expected every instant to hear the
roar of the stanchion -gun, and fancied that he
must be excessively dilatory or over-cautious, as
minute after minute elapsed without the report
reaching my ears. At last a bird rose from the
crowd and flew directly towards me. I saw that
it would pass tolerably near, and when in a few
seconds afterwards I perceived that it was a male
golden-eye within thirty yards of me, I almost
forgot the important though as yet passive
part I was enacting in the scene, and as I in-
stinctively grasped my double-gun and raised the
68 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
hammer, I felt tempted to pull the trigger. Pru-
dence, however, prevailed, and I followed the
example of my sagacious dog, who lay crouched
at my side without moving a muscle of his limbs.
He had seen the bird as well as myself, and his
quick eye had detected my hasty movement, but
his attention was again directed to the main body
of water-fowl, several of which had at length
taken alarm and were rising, one by one, from
the water. It was an anxious moment. The
swans were still there, but they had ceased to
feed ; their heads were turned towards me, and
I soon perceived that the entire flotilla had gra-
dually approached nearer to me. Now or never,
thought I. I glanced rapidly at the advancing
gun-boat almost at the same instant a small
puff of smoke issued from its further extremity,
succeeded by a pigmy report, and up rose the
entire host of water-fowl swans and all the
snow-white plumage of the hoopers standing out
in bold relief against the murky sky. Then a
huge volume of smoke and a bright flame burst
from the prow, followed by the thunder of the
great gun itself off at last ! and as it cleared
a passage through the winged mass between us,
several of the motley crowd fell to rise no more :
almost at the same instant the head and shoulders
of a man were protruded from a covering of sea-
RETRIEVER AND WOUNDED SWAN. 69
weed, under which he had hitherto been con-
cealed, and the next moment he was vigorously
plying his paddles in all the excitement of a
regular cripple chase. My turn had at length
arrived : restraining the ardour of my dog, who
only waited for a word to take an active share in
the pursuit, I turned my attention to a detach-
ment of swans, about five in number, which had
apparently escaped unhurt, and after wheeling
once or twice over the bodies of their dead
companions, uttering all the time their trumpet-
like notes, were now gradually ascending and
nearing my place of concealment. On they came,
but suddenly their leader seemed to have disco-
vered my position and veered round in an oppo-
site direction, followed by all except one, who,
as he was passing overhead, fell a victim to my
long gun. A brent goose almost at the same
instant passed on the other side, and afforded an
easy mark for the first barrel of my heavy double,
while the second was discharged at a venture, but
ineffectually, at a party of pochards the last
detachment of the fugitives, as they hurried back
once more to the tempestuous but less treacherous
waters of the channel.
On proceeding to the spot where my hooper
had fallen, I found that it had been only winged,
and that it had made its way down the further
70 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
side of a sloping bank of shingle, which bounded
this part of the harbour as far as the breakers :
a few minutes more and it would have been far
out to sea. Here my dog proved invaluable :
plunging into the surf, he seized the swan by the
disabled pinion, and after a long struggle, during
which I frequently lost sight of both dog and
bird, he landed it safely on the beach. It proved
to be a male hooper, or wild-swan- cygnus ferus
of authors.
I soon afterwards fell in with the hero of the
gun-boat, and he gladly availed himself of my
water-spaniel's assistance in retrieving many of
his wounded ducks, which had struggled to the
shore and had found concealment among the
rushes on the borders of the muddy coves, with
which this side of the harbour was indented. I
then examined his spoil. He had killed six
hoopers, several brent geese, and nearly twenty
ducks of different species, but none of any espe-
cial ornithological interest. He told me that he
had but lately launched his punt on these waters,
having been tempted by the severity of the
season and the secluded situation of the harbour
to migrate hither from the mud-flats of Poole and
Lymington, which swarmed with rival gunners.
On my way home I skirted the opposite side of
the estuary, and, as the tide had by this time
RETURN. 71
ebbed considerably, the creeks were occupied by
flocks of curlews and sandpipers. By cautiously
approaching these inlets, sometimes making a
wide detour where the nature of the ground ren-
dered it advisable, sometimes crawling on my
hands and feet as I neared the margin, I was
enabled to stalk several of the former birds suc-
cessfully, and to get two or three ' family shots '
at the latter. Before I reached the mouth of the
haven, I found my baggage and artillery rather
heavier than I could conveniently carry in the
teeth of a north-eastern gale ; so leaving my
duck-gun and the greater part of my booty in
charge of my friend, the coastguard-man, until
the following day, I retraced my steps along the
beach, not forgetting to pick up my fairy-fishes
on the way, and slinging the hooper over one
shoulder as a trophy of my sport.
GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
CHAPTER V.
" Officium autem quod ab eo ducitur hanc primum habet viara, quae
deducit ad convenientiam conservationemque naturae, quam si seque-
mur ducem nunquam aberrabimus." CICEKO.
The Pheasant Care and Attention necessary for his Increase
and Welfare Tame Pheasants Outlying Nests Eggs
Foster Mothers Barn-door and Bantam Hens Food
of the Chicks Ants' Eggs Best Mode of Collecting
them Out-of-door Management of the Young Pheasants
( The Gapes' Prevention better than Cure Singular
Instance of its Malignity Origin of the Disease, and
consequent Inefficacy of ordinary Recipes Colonel Mon-
tagu's Cure Pheasants' Eggs The Practice of Pur-
chasing them reprehended Importance of obtaining
them in a Fresh State Experiment to effect that
Object Accident Open Pheasantry The Rivals
The Victor vanquished Nature the best Guide Unex-
pected Result.
ALTHOUGH there is something repulsive to the
true sportsman in the idea of encouraging by
artificial means the objects of his pursuit, yet
there are so many and such peculiar circum-
stances connected with the nature of the phea-
sant that it may justly be considered an excep-
tion to the rule, and unless in certain highly
THE PHEASANT. 73
favoured districts, remote from the busy haunts of
men, and where considerable territorial authority
still obtains, much care, experience, and atten-
tion are necessary at all stages of its existence
for its welfare and preservation.
We must recollect that the pheasant is, strictly
speaking, an exotic as much so as the turkey
or the guinea-fowl and, although many cen-
turies have elapsed since his first introduction
to these islands, yet his absence from our farm
yards and homesteads is not to be attributed
to want of attention or spirit on the part of
our breeders or farmers, but to an innate shy-
ness and timidity which have hitherto foiled
every effort to reclaim him thoroughly from a
state of nature.
He therefore seems to occupy a position mid-
way between the domesticated inhabitants of
the fowl-yard and those wild denizens of the
fields and the mountains, the partridge and the
grouse ; but while it should be the sportsman's
object to elevate him as much as possible above
the ignoble character of a poultry-bird, and to
render him, as far as may be, fera naturd, he
must remember that in these days there are
many serious obstacles to the welfare, nay even
to the existence of the pheasant, in this thickly
inhabited island, which can be counterbalanced
E
74 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
only by having recourse to those artificial aids
which long experience has taught us are abso-
lutely necessary for the increase and maintenance
of the species.
I have no intention here of inflicting on the
reader a long essay on the best mode of hatch-
ing, rearing, and breeding pheasants, but as my
own experience in these matters has been con-
siderable, and, on a few points of importance,
is somewhat at variance with established usage ;
and as during the course of my experiments I
have been Ifed, from accidental circumstances, to
adopt a plan for obtaining the eggs in a fresh
state, more in accordance with nature than had
hitherto been tried, and one moreover which has
been attended with perfect success, I may be
excused for devoting a few pages to the subject.
On the safe principle of leaving everything
to nature where it is possible to do so, I am
clearly of opinion that the eggs of pheasants,
even when found in an outlying nest, should
not be taken for the purpose of placing them
under barn-door hens to be hatched. No foster-
mother or nurse can compare with the natural
parent; and it is surprising, indeed almost in-
credible except to those who have witnessed
it how frequently a hen pheasant will succeed
in bringing up her brood in safety, although the
TAME PHEASANTS. 75
nest may be placed in the most exposed and dan-
gerous situation, within a few inches of a footpath
traversed by hundreds of idle, bird-nesting boys,
and in the immediate vicinity of a common or
waste ground, where the authority of the landlord
is a dead letter, and where, except for the safe-
guard which the quiet and unobtrusive colours
of her plumage afford, the speedy detection of
the bird would inevitably take place. Still there
are circumstances under which it may be de-
sirable to remove the eggs, and in these the
prudent keeper must act according to his judg-
ment. Should he, for instance, have reason to
believe that the nest has been previously dis-
covered by another party, who are only waiting
until the full complement of eggs are laid, that
they may pounce upon the prize with greater
advantage, he will do well to place them quietly
in the crown of his hat, and covering them with
several handfuls of soft, dry grass, and lastly
with his handkerchief, lodge them as soon as
possible in a cool cellar, unless there is a sufficient
number for a sitting, and a domestic hen ready
for immediate incubation.
As the laying season approaches, it is advis-
able for the keeper to look out in all the neigh-
bouring farm-yards and cottages for clean-legged
barn-door hens. Some persons recommend ban-
E 2
76 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
tarns, but although they make excellent mothers,
yet these diminutive birds are incapable of cover-
ing more than eight pheasants' eggs efficiently,
while sixteen or eighteen may safely be confided
to the common dunghill fowl. The large Dork-
ing, from its great size, is often a favourite with
keepers ; but I have seen so many cases of un-
intentional infanticide committed by these huge,
clumsy -legged, five-toed matrons, that I cannot
conscientiously recommend them. The game-
hen, too, has her advocates, and as a careful
mother and watchful protector, none can sur-
pass her ; but woe to the unfortunate little mem-
bers of any neighbouring clutch of young
pheasants that may venture unwittingly within
the rails of her hutch : her hostility to them is
equalled only by her attachment to her own
brood. Now, as the lawn or piece of mowed
grass on which the birds are reared is generally
capable of accommodating several families, and as
the young poults will occasionally wander beyond
the precincts of their own domicile into an ad-
joining stronghold, it is doubtful whether the
truculent propensities of these feathered Ama-
zons are atoned for by their other good qualities.
I have generally found a cross between the
common dunghill hen and the game fowl, the very
best for the purpose ; but where breeding is car-
INCUBATION. 77
ried on on a large scale there is no use in being
fastidious. The grand object is to find hens of
any sort that are ready, or show indications of
being soon ready, to sit. Those which have
* stolen nests ' are to be preferred that is to say,
those which have of their own accord selected a
spot for their nest in some out-of-the-way corner
of a barn, stable, loft, or empty pig-stye. If the bird
is already sitting on her eggs she should continue
to do so until those of the pheasant are ready to
be placed under her. The former may then be
removed. Pheasants' eggs require about five or
six days longer incubation than those of the com-
mon fowl, viz., about twenty-six days, and the
appearance of the chick should be expected about
the twenty-fourth day. Occasionally, as with
domestic fowls, the internal coat of the shell
will adhere to the young bird, and all its efforts
to release itself will prove ineffectual. This is caused
by a portion of the white of the egg having become
dry from the admission of air through the open-
ing which the little prisoner had previously
made with his beak, and being thus suddenly
changed into a gluey substance, the rudimentary
feathers are apt to stick to the sides of the orifice.
Under these circumstances it is advisable to assist
nature. The aperture may be increased by the
application of several gentle blows of any blunt
78 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
substance, and the fracture may be extended
until it comprises the whole circumference of the
egg ; after which, slowly and cautiously, the libe-
ration of the captive may be gradually completed.
I am not now alluding to the system of bring-
ing up young pheasants in aviaries, fowl-yards, or
enclosures, but to the mode which 1 consider the
best adapted for rearing, out of doors, and turn-
ing down at once in game preserves, a number of
healthy poults during the summer, so that in the
ensuing autumn they shall be in as full an enjoy-
ment of liberty as is consistent with the nature of
the country or the local system of preservation.
As soon as the young birds are hatched they
should be left with the mother for a day and a
night, during which time they require no food,
nature having provided nutriment for their im-
mediate sustenance in the yolk of the egg,
the residue of which has been recently drawn
into the body of the chicken and absorbed, but
the genial warmth of her body, under which
they all nestle, is of the greatest importance to
them. The first food that should be given them
is ants' eggs. These are, strictly speaking, the
cocoons of the large rufous ant (formica rufa)
which are tolerably plentiful in most great woods
during the summer. The nests are of consider-
able elevation, coneshaped, and constructed gene-
FOOD OF YOUNG PHEASANTS. 79
rally of very small twigs and leaves of the Scotch
fir. Some persons find it difficult to separate the
eggs from the materials of the nest. The simplest
mode is to place as much as may be required
ants, eggs, and all in a bag or light sack, the
mouth of which should be tied up. On reaching
home a large white sheet should be spread on
the grass, and a few green boughs placed round
it on the inside, over which the outer edge of
the sheet should be lightly turned ; this should
be done during sunshine. The contents of the
bag should then be emptied into the middle,
and shaken out so as to expose the eggs to
the light. In a moment, forgetting all consider-
ations of personal safety, these interesting little
insects set about removing their precious charge
the cocoons from the injurious rays of
the sun, and rapidly convey them under the
shady cover afforded by the foliage of the boughs
near the margin' of the sheet. In less than ten
minutes the work will be completed. It is only
necessary then to remove the branches, and the
eggs, or cocoons, may be collected by handfuls,
unencumbered with sticks, leaves, or any sort
of rubbish.
Many kinds of farinaceous and vegetable food
have been recommended for young pheasants
when they are a little older, such as the green
80 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
tops of barley, leeks, boiled rice, Emden groats,
oatmeal, &c. They are all excellent, but I am
satisfied that they are almost always given at too
early a period. In a state of nature their food for a
long time would be wholly insectile. Now as it is
not in our power to procure the quantity and va-
riety of small insects and larva which the mother-
bird so perseveringly and patiently finds for them,
we are obliged to have recourse to ants' eggs, as
easily accessible and furnishing a considerable
supply of the necessary sort of aliment within
a small compass. Ants' eggs, indeed, are the
right hand of the keeper when bringing up young
pheasants ; without them he may almost despair
of success, and with a good stock of them his
birds will thrive apace and escape many diseases
to which they would otherwise be continually
liable.
A large sward of smooth green turf, planted
here and there with shrubs and evergreens ; or
a small meadow, newly mown on purpose, near
the keeper's house, and bounded by a coppice
or plantation, afford good sites for the nursery.
On this the coops should be placed at intervals
of several yards from each other. These should
be shaped like the roof of a cottage, open be-
neath, boarded at the back and at each gable
end, but with rails in front sufficiently wide to
PHEASANT NURSERY. 81
admit of the ingress and egress of the chicks,
yet so close as to prevent the hen from quitting
it. A lid to fit this part of the coop, or ' rip,'
should be laid over it at sunset every evening.
This will prevent the unwelcome intrusion of
stoats and weasels, and though last, not least
in iniquity, of rats. It should be placed in its
proper position as gently as possible so as not
to alarm the young pheasants, who, as they ad-
vance towards maturity, become exceeding shy
and wary, start from underneath the wings of the
hen at the slightest alarm and betake themselves
to the nearest cover, from which it is frequently
a long time before they again issue, and if the
shades of evening have fallen in the mean time,
they have no little difficulty in retracing their
steps to their own habitation.
The coops should be moved morning and even-
ing, as the hen ought to have a fresh piece of
greensward underneath her twice every day. At-
tention to this point is of the greatest importance.
She may be fed with barley, rye, or oats the
first is the best which should be thrown inside
the coop, but the ants' eggs, and whatever is in-
tended exclusively as food for the chicks, ought
to be placed just on the outside, or she would
have no compunction in appropriating the greater
portion of it to herself. When about a week
E 5
82 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
or ten days old, Emden groats and coarse Scotch
oatmeal may be mixed with the ants' eggs, and
curds made from fresh milk with alum, are an
excellent addition. If ants' eggs cannot be pro-
cured in sufficient quantities, gentles should oc-
casionally be given, which may be obtained in
the following manner. An ox-liver, a sheep's
head and pluck, or the leg of a horse, should
be suspended from the bough of a tree in a warm
sheltered situation. Beneath this a wide shallow
tub, half filled with bran, should be placed. In
a short time the meat will be thoroughly fly-
blown, and in a few more days it will be covered
with maggots, or gentles, which will continue to
drop into the tub, where they soon become
cleaned and purged in the bran. A large spoon
or saucer may be used for removing them. Next
to ants' eggs, these perhaps constitute the best
' standing dish ' for young pheasants, and have
besides the advantage of being within the reach
of every breeder. Wasps' nests, containing the
larvae and pupae, may be procured without dif-
ficulty at a later period of the season, and afford
a most acceptable treat. If the supply of these
should be too great for immediate use, or if it
should be thought advisable to economize the
stock, it will be necessary to bake them for a
short time in an oven. This will prevent the
DISEASES OF YOUNG PHEASANTS. 83
larvae and nymphs from coming to maturity in
fact, kill them and the contents of the combs
will keep for some weeks afterwards. Hemp-
seed, crushed and mingled with oatmeal, should
be given when about to wean them from an in-
sect diet. Hard-boiled eggs also form a useful
addition, and may be mixed for a long time with
their ordinary farinaceous food.
A supply of fresh water is of importance. It
may be placed in wide shallow saucers, which
should be partly inside and partly outside the
coop, so as to be within reach of both the hens
and the chicks. The best sort are made of
common tile clay, in a series of concentric
ridges, each about half an inch wide. These
hold a sufficient quantity of water, and by en-
abling the chicks to walk through them without
wetting their feathers, are superior to a common
plate or pan. They may be had at most country
grocers' or earthenware shops.
Young pheasants are subject to a kind of diar-
rhoea, which often proves fatal. If the disease
be taken in time, boiled rice and milk, in lieu
of any other diet, will generally effect a cure.
To these chalk may be added, to counteract the
acidity which attends this complaint, and should
the symptoms be very violent, a small quantity
of alum, as an astringent.
84 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
But the most formidable disease from which
the young pheasant suffers, is that known by the
name of ' the gapes ' so termed from the fre-
quent gasping efforts of the bird to inhale a
mouthful of air. Chickens and turkeys are equally
liable to be affected by it, and it may be remarked
that a situation which has been used for many
successive seasons as a nursery ground is more
apt to be visited with this plague than one which
has only recently been so employed. Indeed, I
have observed that it seldom makes its appearance
on a lawn or meadow during the first season of
its occupation, and, therefore, where practicable,
it is most strongly to be recommended that fresh
ground should be applied to the purpose every
year, and when this cannot be done, that a quan-
tity of common salt should be thrown broadcast
over the surface of the earth, after the birds have
left it in the autumn. This scourge is not con-
fined to poultry-yards and aviaries. About the
latter end of June, 1848, I visited the pheasant
nursery of a friend, whose head-keeper is perhaps
one of the most intelligent of his calling, and
has had more than half a century of experience
in rearing tame pheasants. Nothing could ex-
ceed the beauty and the natural advantages of the
spot. It was in a large orchard, with a southern
aspect, near a garden well fenced and secure
' THE GAPES.' 85
from the attacks of vermin. The green turf was
kept carefully mowed, and the old apple-trees
were sufficiently far apart to admit the sun-
shine, while their spreading boughs afforded a
cool shelter to the young broods during the mid-
day heats. About fifteen or twenty coops were
scattered here and there, each containing a steady
business-looking barn-door hen. Here, was one
whose sole thoughts seemed to be engrossed with
the care of her newly hatched family, who were
snugly nestled under her capacious wings, while
she seemed to puff herself out to the greatest
possible dimensions, that the prying stranger
might not catch even a glimpse of her precious
little ones. There, was another, apparently in
all the agonies of despair at the sudden flight
of her truant charge, which, having just begun
to learn the use of their wings, had fluttered
into a clump of raspberry bushes in alarm at
my sudden approach. There again, was another
in the full enjoyment of maternal pride, as her
' happy family ' ran in and out under the bars
of the coop and jumped nimbly upon her back
or sat basking between her shoulders. Ants'
eggs were in abundance, and a goodly shower
of gentles were constantly dropping from the
corpses of two grim-looking cats, suspended from
the branch of a pear-tree, who seemed thus, as
86 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
it were, condemned to make some atonement for
their manifold sins against the game-laws. Every
thing, in short, appeared to be prosperous, and
about two hundred young pheasants were in
perfect enjoyment of health and happiness in
that favoured spot. A month elapsed before I
visited the place again. The old hens indeed
were there, but looking shabby and disconsolate,
while a few sickly, gawky poults sat near them,
with half-closed eyes and ruffled plumage, start-
ing every now and then from an apparent state
of stupor, and with open beaks and necks ex-
tended to the utmost, making a long spasmodic
effort to breathe ; while others, among whom the
disease had as yet fallen less heavily, or who were
perhaps recovering from its effects, were lazily
passing between the rails of their coops or loung-
ing outside in the sunshine, like the convalescents
of a fever hospital. Three -fourths of their num-
ber had been swept away during the last fort-
night by that dreadful scourge, the gapes, which,
like certain diseases that affect the human sub-
ject, seemed to have been engendered and fos-
tered by excessive population within a limited
district. The place had been devoted to the
same purpose year after year, and the germs of
the disorder, although occasionally dormant for
a season, were always ready to break out at
CAUSE OF THE MALADY. 87
an unexpected moment with increased viru-
lence.
Dissection has proved that the latent cause of
this malady is a minute worm of the genus
fasciola, which is found adhering to the internal
part of the windpipe or trachea. Occasionally
it may be discovered just within the aperture of
the glottis, but generally it is more than half-way
down, and not unfrequently near the bifurcation
of the trachea. It adheres closely to the internal
membrane by means of two suckers, is almost
devoid of the power of motion, and altogether has
rather the appearance of a small artery or red
muscle than of a worm. Nevertheless, it is
obviously the immediate cause of this distemper
and of death itself, which is the result of suffoca-
tion from the highly inflamed state of the respi-
ratory apparatus. To any one aware of this fact,
it is evident that all attempted modes of cure
which have reference to the digestive organs must
be utterly hopeless, and yet there is hardly a
gamekeeper or henwife who does not boast of
some original nostrum, which, being administered
as food or drink, must of course pass through the
oesophagus, or gullet, into the stomach. I have
seen such remedies tried in hundreds of cases,
but, of course, without success. Tracheotomy,
and the removal of the worm if such a delicate
88 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
operation could be performed on so tender a
subject as a young pheasant without of itself
causing death might be attended with happy
results. I have witnessed its failure even when
attempted by a master-hand, and that of many
other ingenious mechanical contrivances to effect
the same object. Hitherto, I am convinced that
no specific has been discovered, and that the
method recommended by Colonel Montagu is the
only one that promises a chance of success. This
is fumigation by tobacco-smoke, under the in-
fluence of which the poults should remain long
enough to ensure the death of the tracheal worm,
while its effects on themselves should not exceed
the limits of stupefaction. Here, in fact, is the
difficulty. The experiment should, if possible,
be tried at an early stage of the disease. I have
myself frequently performed it with success under
such circumstances, and have as often failed after
it had become firmly established, and when the
constitution of the birds had been weakened by
its ravages. Having said thus much on this
pheasant plague, I shall not allude to any of their
minor diseases, which, indeed, if taken collec-
tively, are not of a hundredth part of the im-
portance of ' the gapes ; ' but as I firmly believe
the tobacco-smoke cure to be the only one that
holds out a probability of success, and as much
COLONEL MONTAGU'S CURE. 89
care and attention to all the details of the ope-
ration are absolutely necessary, to enable the
practitioner to steer the middle course between
stupefaction and suffocation, I shall here tran-
scribe it in the words of Colonel Montagu him-
self, to whose intelligence and ingenuity we are
indebted for the valuable discovery :
" In order to administer this fumigation in
sufficient quantity, there is some care required
that the chickens, which must be confined in a
close vessel, are not suffocated. We have re-
peated this operation with the utmost success by
confining the diseased chickens in a box, with a
door on one side about half the height of the
box, with its hinges so placed as to open down-
wards. By this means the interior can be exa-
mined from time to time, in order to observe the
density of the smoke and the state of the chickens.
To a person in the habit of smoking tobacco there
is no difficulty in lighting a pipe, and by intro-
ducing the bowl through an aperture, the smoke
may be blown in till it appears considerably
dense, which must be examined every two or
three minutes.
" When any of the chickens become stupefied
by the narcotic quality of the fumes of the
tobacco, the operation of blowing the pipe should
cease; and as fresh air will rush in when the
90 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
door is opened, there will be no danger of suffo-
cation. If, however, any should appear to be
more exhausted than the rest, or than is requi-
site, they should be taken out, and they will soon
recover when removed from the smoke. We
have found that the longer the chickens are
confined in the smoke the better, but that a
certain degree of density is required to destroy
the worms by its caustic quality. As dense a
smoke, therefore, as the chickens can continue to
exist in is best, and the criterion is stupefaction
and the loss of the use of their legs ; when that
effect appears, no more smoke should be intro-
duced.
(( As soon, however, as the chickens recover
the use of their legs, they may be suffered to
remain in the fumigating box for two or three
hours ; but remembering that the inhaling of a
large quantity of smoke in half an hour will be
more effectual than a whole day confined in a
small quantity." *
An object of the first importance with all who
are anxious to increase their stock of pheasants,
is to procure a good supply of fresh eggs. I have
already expressed an opinion that even the out-
lying nests, if not exposed to the most imminent
* Supplement to the ' Ornithological Dictionary ' Article
' Pheasant.'
PHEASANTS' EGGS. 91
risk of discovery, should be allowed to take their
chance, trusting to the natural instincts of the
female bird to enable her to escape detection,
while at the same time no pains should be spared
in thwarting the illegal depredations of those idle
vagabonds who haunt the outskirts of every
manor. An adequate number of eggs, therefore,
from his own beat is not to be expected by any
proprietor, and as to purchasing them from per-
sons in his neighbourhood, or even at a distance,
the practice is so reprehensible in every point of
view that it may almost appear unnecessary to
stigmatize it as it deserves. It is alike unworthy
of a gentleman or a sportsman, nay, even of an
honest man ; and yet it cannot be denied that
there are many who have a fair claim to all of
these characters, in their general conduct, their
bearing in the field, and the ordinary tenor of
their dealings, who do not scruple to purchase
pheasants' eggs every year, thus blindly shutting
their eyes to the nature of the transaction, and
indirectly encouraging a system of poaching far
more destructive and degrading than the practices
of the night-shooter whom they themselves, a
few months afterwards, have but little compunc-
tion in consigning to the tender mercies of the
treadmill.
But apart from these considerations, it must
GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
be observed that the eggs obtained through these
ambiguous and uncertain channels are frequently
good for nothing. Half the number are either
addled or contain dead chicks, in different stages
of development, having been abstracted, probably
many days before, from various nests, and kept
perhaps in a cupboard or underneath a bed in
the stuffy cabin of the robber until a sufficient
number had been collected to ensure a profitable
day's sale.
An efficient plan for procuring the eggs in a
fresh state may be adopted by any person residing
in the country who can afford to devote to the
purpose a well fenced piece of ground, in a quiet
situation, with a dry soil and a southern aspect.
The wall or wooden fence ought to be high, and
the top entirely covered with a net, which may
be supported in the centre by one or more tall
poles. A few heaps of dead bushes or dry fag-
gots should be placed in each corner and in dif-
ferent parts of the enclosure, and a supply of
fresh water must not be forgotten. Here may be
lodged from twenty to thirty pheasants, accord-
ing to the dimensions of the place. It is abso-
lutely necessary that they should be what are
called ' tame bred birds,' that is, birds which
have been hatched and reared under domestic
hens, as those which are netted or caught in a
PLAN OF PROCURING FRESH EGGS. 93
wild state will always prove inefficient layers.
The hen pheasant is in her prime at two years'
old. About the fourth season her oviparous
powers begin to decline, although her maternal
qualifications in other respects do not deteriorate
until a much later period. It is, therefore, of
consequence to enlist occasionally a few recruits to
supply the place of those females who have com-
pleted their third year, and who may then be set
at large in the preserves. There are various opi-
nions as to the number of hens that should be
allotted to one cock. Some persons allow as
many as five or six. My own conviction, the
result of long experience, is that three are
sufficient and that the admission of a greater
number will entail the frequent occurrence of
unproductive eggs, although in a state of nature
the relative proportion of the sexes might vary
considerably. Let us suppose then that twenty-
one hens and seven cocks are turned into this
enclosure. They may be fed with barley, beans,
peas, rice, or oats ; boiled potatoes, Jerusalem
artichokes, and Swedish turnips. A large heap
of dry sand, protected by a shed from the rain,
must also be provided, in which they are fond of
dusting themselves indeed, no pheasantry should
be without one as they are by this means ena-
bled to rid themselves of vast quantities of para-
94 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
sitic animalculae, which prove so detrimental to
the health of all gallinaceous birds. The phea-
sants may be allowed to remain together until
March, when the cocks will begin to evince fre-
quent signs of pugnacity the first indication of
the approaching breeding season. The large en-
closure is then to be divided into seven lesser
compartments, by means of tall hurdles or wattles,
to all of which the keeper should have ready
access. Three hens and one cock may be placed
in each of these, water and food should be regu-
larly supplied once, and but once, a day : at the
same time the attendant will have the opportu-
nity of removing any eggs that may have been
laid during the previous twenty-four hours, and
these he ought at once to deposit in a cool cellar
until a sufficient number have been collected for
* a sitting/ which should be placed under a do-
mestic hen. The quantity which hen-phea-
sants will lay during a season in this qualified
state of captivity is very great. The larger the
compartments in which they are kept at that time
the better, so as to admit of sufficient room,
fresh air, a heap of bushes, and a mound of sand
in each. I had been for some years in the habit
of keeping pheasants in a moderately sized
establishment, such as I have described, when
an accident to the netted roof, which indeed was
OPEN PHEASANTRY. 95
almost destroyed by a severe storm, induced me
in the following spring to try an experiment
which was attended with unexpected results.
All my pheasants having escaped on the night
of the accident, I was obliged to commence ope-
rations de novo, and, to avoid the expense of
netting, I pinioned fifteen tame-bred poults,
eleven hens and four cocks, with which the
kindness of a neighbouring friend supplied me,
and turned them all into the enclosure. The
operation of pinioning consists in amputating the
forehand or pinion of one wing at the carpal
joint. The bird is never able afterwards to
ascend in flight more than two or three feet from
the ground, and therefore escape from an enclo-
sure such as I have described would be impos-
sible.* The wounds soon healed, the birds en-
joyed excellent health through the winter, and in
the following March, when the males began to
exhibit the usual symptoms of pugnacity, I was
preparing to locate them in their respective com-
partments for the season, when I was unexpec-
tedly obliged to leave home, and directed that the
pheasantry should remain in statu quo during my
absence. On my return, how changed was the
state of affairs ! Love and war had been running
* Birds thus pinioned are of course unfit for subsequent
liberation in the covers.
96 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
riot within its once peaceful precincts. Three
of the four cock-birds were completely hors de
combat. One of them, indeed, was dying, two
were severely lacerated, but the fourth, who, like
the surviving Horatius in the combat with the
Curiatii, had probably vanquished all his rivals in
detail, appeared, like his classical prototype, per-
fectly uninjured, and strutted in all the pomp
and pride of a conqueror among a crowd of
hens, who seemed to regard matters with perfect
equanimity, passing with contemptuous indiffe-
rence their unfortunate knights-errant, as they
sat moping on the ground with their heads
buried in the friendly shelter of the bushes, but
following obediently in the wake of the victor,
and evidently disposed to admit to the full ex-
tent that ' none but the brave deserve the fair.'
I should have mentioned that the grounds in
the neighbourhood of the enclosure were stocked
with wild pheasants, most of which had once been
' tame-bred birds,' and although always exhi-
biting the innate timidity of the species on any
sudden alarm evinced an attachment to the
place in which they had been reared, and conti-
nued to haunt the garden and evergreens during
the greater part of the year. As I had now no
opportunity of procuring any pinioned male phea-
sants to supply the place of the three discomfited
THE VICTOR VANQUISHED. 97
heroes, I allowed matters to take their chance,
fully prepared to find that most of my eggs
would prove unproductive and almost inclined to
break up the pheasantry altogether, but my half-
formed intention was suddenly arrested by a new
turn in the aspect of affairs. On entering the
enclosure one morning, I was surprised to see a
fine old cock-pheasant, with a tail of portentous
length, take wing from among the midst of the
hens and, with a protracted crow of triumph, fly
over the fence into the evergreens beyond. But
where was Horatius ? Alas ! his days were num-
bered. He had found his match at last. After
a long search, I discovered him squatted in a
corner, his once brilliant plumage torn and co-
vered with blood. One eye was closed; the
other was completely extinguished. His neck
was entirely plucked, and as bare as a vulture's.
His crimson cheeks were sadly lacerated. His
head was absolutely scalped, and where a pair of
purple egrets had lately been so proudly erected,
a bare skull was now alone visible. Poor fellow !
he died the same evening. The rest may be
briefly told. Day after day did the conqueror
visit his newly acquired territory, and many a
youthful rival, too prudent to come into close
quarters with the long-spurred tyrant, would pay
a stolen visit to his seraglio during his absence
F
98 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
and win the favours of his fickle fair ones. T
obtained an immense number of eggs during that
season, which proved unusually productive. No
further care was necessary than to provide the
birds with a sufficiency of food and to remove the
eggs every day which, by the way, were never
deposited in a nest, but dropped here and there
in different parts of the enclosure. Thus, from
what I regarded at the time as a succession of
untoward accidents, I became acquainted with
the most effectual, because the most natural way
of keeping hen-pheasants with a view to obtain-
ing a constant and ample supply of prolific eggs
during the breeding-season. Every gamekeeper's
cottage in the heart of a preserve must possess in
its neighbourhood much greater facilities for the
undertaking than were within my own reach.
My expectations, I confess, were far exceeded;
and if what I have now written should be the
means of inducing others to follow my example
on a larger scale, I shall rejoice, not only in
having been fortunate enough to confer a real
benefit on the preservers of game, but still more
in having been enabled though indirectly to
inflict ( a heavy blow and great discouragement '
on the nefarious traffic of the egg-stealer the
most destructive and unpardonable of all the
numerous devices of modern poaching.
WILD GEESE. 99
CHAPTER VI.
" Nay, I am for all waters." SHAKSPEARE.
Various Species of Wild Geese Grey-lag and White-fronted
Distinguishing Characters Origin of the Domestic
Stock Bean Goose Pink-footed Goose Bernicle
Brent Goose Shieldrake Foreign Ducks and Geese
unadvisedly admitted into the British Fauna Prohable
Cause of the Error Ducks on the British Coasts
Diversity of Haunts, Habits, Food and Structure
Decoys Wild Fowl Shooting Young Water Fowl
devoured by Pike The * Bird-fly' Observation,
THERE are about five or six species of wild
geese usually met with by the coast shooter in
the British islands ; one of the most uncommon
of which, if not the very rarest, is the grey lag
or grey legged goose (anser ferus), once called the
common wild goose, and supposed to be the
origin of our reclaimed bird. Yet there is good
reason for believing that a nearly allied species
of far more frequent occurrence, although bearing
a general resemblance in size, form and plumage
the white-fronted goose (anser albifrons)
has had nearly an equal share in founding the
F 2
100 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
domestic stock. The distinguishing characters
of the first named are frequently met with
among our tame birds, whose colours approximate
to those of the wild type ; such as the wings
being of a lighter tint than the upper parts of
the body, as well as in the pale flesh colour of
the legs, while others again have the orange
coloured legs and white forehead of anser albi-
frons. The strongest presumptive evidence, how-
ever, in favour of anser ferus being the founder
of the family is furnished by a fact mentioned by
Mr. Yarrell. A pinioned wild gander of this
kind, which had never associated with either
bean goose or white fronted goose although
both were kept in the same piece of water with
him at the gardens of the Zoological Society of
London was in 1841 introduced to a female of
the domestic goose, which was selected for the
experiment from the circumstance of her plumage
exhibiting the distinctive marks of the true grey
lag. The two birds were kept together for a few
days, and the result was a matrimonial alliance
and a nest of eight eggs. The bean goose (anser
segetum), again, is very similar in general aspect
to the grey lag and to the white fronted ; but
may be at once distinguished from the former by
the nail at the end of the beak being black instead
of white, by the darker hue of the wings and
PINK FOOTED GOOSE. ', > ;\; ; ',1,01
the orange colour of the legs ;
of the white feathers at the base of the upper
mandible and on the forehead, are alone sufficient
to point out the difference between it and the
latter species.
There is another wild goose which has only
of late years been added to the British fauna,
viz. the pink footed (anser phcenicopus). It closely
resembles the bean goose in form and plumage,
but may be easily recognised by its smaller size,
and the pink or rose colour of the legs. Mr.
Bartlett first pointed out these distinctions from
an example which came into his possession in
1 839. Mr. Yarrell records the occurrence of one
at Holkham in 1841, which was shot by Lord
Coke the present Earl of Leicester out of a
flock of about twenty ; and it would appear, from
the following extract of a letter which I received
from a friend who was staying on a visit at
Holkham in 1847, that there is something pecu-
liarly attractive to this bird in the well preserved
fens of that celebrated estate. " Lord Leicester
tells me that some time ago he shot a wild goose
with pink legs, which Mr. Yarrell considered a
new species. It is singular that since that time
he has met with more of them than of any other
sort. He showed me five which he had just
killed."
102 ,GAJvfE BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
Jberaiole (anser leucopsis) and the brent
goose (anser brenta) are both smaller than any of
those before named, and although differing con-
siderably from each other in plumage, form and
proportions, they yet present so many points of
resemblance as to entitle them, in the opinion of
some authors, to be included in the same genus
(bernicla). They are both met with during severe
weather in large flocks on the shores of the
British islands, but the brent goose is more
widely distributed, being at once the most com-
mon, and the best flavoured bird of the whole
family. In the winter of 1838 39 great num-
bers were killed on the coasts of the southern
maritime counties. I saw many flocks, arid shot
several birds myself at Pagham Harbour, in
Sussex, as well as many rarer anatidce ; but I
did not meet with a single bernicle during the
whole of that severe season. This last indeed
is of more frequent occurrence on the western
than on the eastern or southern shores of Great
Britain; and is still more numerous in Ireland,
where I have seen larger flocks of them than of
any other kind of wild goose. Although a heavier
bird, it is in my opinion far inferior to the brent
goose in a culinary point of view.
The shieldrake, or shelldrake (tadorna vul-
panser), one of the most beautiful of our anatidcs,
THE SHIELDRAKE. 103
is seldom met with in the interior of the country,
even on the largest lakes and rivers, except in a
half domesticated state. It breeds in the rabbit
warrens on the sandy shores of the coast, and is
generally considered a wary bird and very difficult
of approach so much so that in Orkney and
Shetland it has acquired the provincial name of
' Sly goose.' When young, however, it would
appear to be susceptible of domestication. A
friend of mine told me that when at Sandringham
in Norfolk the property of the late J. Motteux,
Esq. he saw an entire family of young shiel-
drakes emerge from a rabbit hole in which they
had been bred, when summoned by the whistle
of the gamekeeper, partake greedily of the food
that was thrown to them, and retire into the same
retreat when their repast was finished. Although
the strong and fishy taste of the flesh of this bird
renders it almost unfit for the table, yet the
striking arrangement of the black, white and
chestnut colours of its plumage, with its bright
red beak and legs, render it a great favourite on
ornamental lakes and ponds in many parks and
pleasure grounds. In such situations, even when
pinioned, it has occasionally been known to
breed ; but the young birds, however carefully
protected from the poacher and their feathered
and fourfooted enemies, too frequently fall vie-
104 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
tims to that fresh-water tyrant, the pike. A
party of shieldrakes were kept for many years
on a trout stream in Sussex, until in process of
time the pike worked their way up from the
deeper parts of the river, and soon afterwards the
ducklings began gradually to disappear from the
surface, until at last not a single young bird was
left. The old ones then wandered down the
stream, and their subsequent fate was unknown.
Although generally classed with the ducks,
the shieldrake would appear in some respects
to connect that portion of the anatidce with the
geese. Like the latter it is of considerable size,
and there is little or no difference in the plumage
of the male and female.
Many kinds of wild ducks and geese, which
have of late years been admitted into the cata-
logue of British birds, can only be regarded as
very rare or accidental visitors. Others, again,
whose usual habitat is in the remote regions of
Asia, Africa, or America, having been occasion-
ally shot or captured in different parts of Eng-
land, the circumstance is frequently noised abroad
a paragraph recording the occurrence appears
in the local papers : the possessor of the fancied
prize pens a highly coloured and plausible notice
to the editor of some metropolitan journal : all at-
tendant circumstances that might militate against
FOREIGN DUCKS AND GEESE. 105
the preconceived notion of its being a genuine
visitor are too often studiously concealed or
slurred over. The probable and frequently un-
mistakeable signs of semi -domestication, afforded
by the state of the plumage, are not observed,
or if observed are not alluded to ; and in this way
it cannot be doubted that many foreign birds may
ultimately creep into the British fauna, unless a
watchful but pardonable jealousy be exercised by
the naturalist.
It is well known that on several lakes, ponds,
&c., great numbers of Oriental and other water-
fowl, which have been imported from abroad,
now exist. Most of these have been pinioned
and are unable to fly. Others, on whom the
operation has been inefficiently performed, occa-
sionally make their escape. But as many of
these detenus breed freely on the islands, and
among the sedgy banks of these ponds, there is
nothing to restrain the second generation from
leaving the spot, and migrating to some other part
of Great Britain; where, if captured or killed,
the poor foundling is announced as a visitor of
distinction, to be henceforth included in our
catalogues. The following advertisement, copied
verbatim from * The Times/ refers to a well
known establishment in London, where hundreds
of foreign, as well as really British geese and
F 5
106 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
ducks are annually procured for the waters of our
English parks. " Ornamental water fowl, con-
sisting of black and white swans; Egyptian,
Canada, China, bernicle, brent, and laughing
geese, shieldrakes, pintail, wigeon, summer and
winter teal ; gadwall, Labrador, shovellers, golden
eyed and dun divers ; Carolina ducks, &c. &c.,
domesticated and pinioned." Some of our private
museums, too, are loaded with continental speci-
mens of anatidce, which are fondly imagined by
their possessors to be ' British killed birds/
because they were purchased in London * in the
flesh : ' but their right to that title is frequently
apocryphal. It is well known that the metro-
politan markets are regularly supplied with water
fowl from France and Holland ; and the evil is
likely to increase every day, under the in-
fluence of railways and accelerated steam com-
munication, There can be little doubt that ere
long the London gourmand may receive the can-
vas-backed duck from America, and probably in
better condition than many of the capercaillie
and ptarmigan that now find their way to the
poulterers from the distant forests of Norway and
Sweden.
The ducks best known to the sportsman and
the shooter on the coast are, The common wild
duck (anas boschas), the teal (anas crecca), the
FRESH WATER AND OCEANIC DUCKS. 107
wigeon (anas penelope), the pintail duck (anas
acuta\ the pochard or dun bird (fuligula ferind),
the scaup duck (fuligula marila), the tufted duck
(fuligula cristata), and the golden eye (clangula
vulgaris). The four first of these belong to the
more typical division of the ducks : their habits
are to a certain degree terrestrial ; they are more
partial to fresh than to salt water; their food,
besides aquatic insects and worms, is frequently
of a vegetable nature, and usually obtained near
the surface beneath which they seldom dive,
except when wounded or pursued while their
powers of flight are very great. In conformity
with these habits is their general structure ; the
legs are smaller, more rounded or less compressed
laterally than among the marine ducks, and
placed nearer the centre of the body ; their necks
and wings are longer; the keel of the breast
bone is deeper; while the stomach approaches
more nearly to the nature of a gizzard, as in
granivorous birds. The other four species belong
to the oceanic division. They are more decidedly
aquatic, and prefer the sea to either lakes or
rivers, except when driven in by severity of
weather. Their food consists almost entirely of
fish and marine insects, and the stomach accord-
ingly is softer and thinner than with their her-
bivorous congeners. Their legs are short, com-
108 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
pressed, and placed far behind ; the feet and
webs large ; and the hind toe furnished with a
lobe. The neck is comparatively short, as are
the wings also ; and the keel of the sternum is
shallow. They are exceedingly expert divers,
and obtain their food at a great depth below the
surface of the water. Of these, the pochard, or
dun bird, is perhaps the best known and the
most in esteem as an article of luxury for the
table ; indeed it is nearly allied to the celebrated
American species, the canvas backed duck, which
has long been in such repute with Transatlantic
epicures.
Pochards are more frequently found in decoys
with mallard, teal and wigeon, than any other of
the marine ducks ; but from their greater shyness,
and propensity to dive back through the mouth
of the pipe at the slightest alarm, they not only
effect their own escape, but frequently disturb
the other birds already congregated there, and
are consequently regarded as unwelcome visitors
by the fowler.
The decoys of Lincolnshire have for ages been
celebrated, and several establishments still exist
in that county ; although from the recent drainage
of the fens, they have been in a great measure
shorn of their honours ; and in process of time
like so much that is still highly prized by the
DECOYS SHOOTING ON THE COAST. 109
sportsman and the lover of the picturesque must
yield to the irresistible pressure of agricultural
improvement. The common wild duck, the
wigeon, and the teal furnish the main supply of
the wildfowl captured in this way. Some notion
of the extraordinary productiveness of the Lin-
colnshire decoys may be formed from a fact
recorded by Pennant, that in one season 31,200
ducks were sent by ten of them to the London
market.
Such of my readers as desire to understand
the exact nature of a decoy, and the complicated
details of its structure and management, will find
an interesting and elaborate account in the Rev.
R. Lubbock's ' Fauna of Norfolk,' elucidated by
several explanatory sketches and illustrations ;
without which, indeed, the subject cannot be
thoroughly comprehended.
To those who are anxious to be initiated into
all the mysteries of wild fowl shooting on the
coast, Colonel Hawker's ' Instructions ' afford a
mine of information. For my own part, although
I have in former days occasionally shivered behind
a stanchion gun for the best part of a long frosty
night, in the shallow waters of a creek, and passed
many an hour on the borders of a lake near the
mouth of a river, awaiting the return, at early
dawn, of wild ducks and wigeon from their feed-
110 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
ing places among the bogs ; and have, on such
occasions, met with as fair a share of success
and disappointment as usually falls to the lot of
any but a professional wild fowl shooter ; yet I
must confess that my predilections are rather
with the fowling-piece or the rifle than with the
heavy artillery of the craft ; and that I have felt
more real pleasure in a day's snipe shooting,
which was varied by an occasional right and left
at a duck or mallard, or an unexpected shot at a
teal or wigeon as they sprang from the sedgy
borders of some sequestered pool ; or in stalking
a flock of wild geese in the middle of a great
Irish bog though perhaps bagging but one of
the party after an hour's patient manoeuvring
than in the greatest success I ever experienced
after waiting for the arrival or passage of water
fowl, or in the best family shot I ever made from
a gun-boat.
The principal destruction of wild fowl in the
British islands takes place on the coast during
severe winters, and although when they have
returned to their summer quarters among the
innumerable lakes of the Arctic regions, far from
the busy haunts of men, it might be supposed that
they and their young would be secure from the
attacks of any very formidable enemies, yet it is
not improbable that a great portion of the broods
VORACITY OF THE PIKE. Ill
are there destroyed by predatory fish, soon after
they have left the egg. "We know that the
Scandinavian waters abound with pike of immense
size, and if we may judge of the propensities and
powers of these monsters from what we see in
our own country, the destruction of aquatic
birds during the breeding season must be very
great. Vast numbers of the young of the com-
mon wild duck are annually devoured on the
ponds or artificial lakes in parks or pleasure
grounds where this voracious fish abounds; or
even where a few of the species have attained a
considerable size, and the quantity of ' feed/ in
the shape of roach and dace, has been much
reduced. In this way about two hundred duck-
lings disappeared from the large pond in Petworth
Park this summer, 1850. Here there was no
lack of small fish ; but to the truculent propen-
sities of certain fresh water leviathans who are
known to dwell beneath, and who are proof
against the seductive stratagems of the most
experienced troller; or perhaps to the circum-
stance of their being already glutted with an
entree of fish, and willing to vary their dietary
with a second course of wild fowl, may be at-
tributed the murder of the little innocents.
Lord G* * *, an observer of nature and an
accomplished angler, was, I believe, the first
112 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
person to avail himself of this epicurean taste in
the pike, by constructing artificial birds rather
than flies varying from the size of a wren to
that of a young duck, and composed of all manner
of gaudy feathers, silk, and tinsel, to attract the
attention of the monster and lure him to the
deadly hook, when his appetite might be capri-
cious or the water muddier than usual. When
this bait is worked a little under the surface
just as they play a salmon fly on the Shan-
non its movements appear exceedingly like
those of a young water-fowl when diving. This
struck me particularly one day, when endea-
vouring to rescue a half-grown moor-hen from
my retriever, who had pursued it through a
thick bed of flags and sedges into a narrow and
deep but transparent brook. The dog was close
behind, and had already caught a glimpse of the
poor bird, who, finding it impossible to escape
down-stream without passing under the legs of
its enemy, had no alternative but to dive against
the current, although it made little or no pro-
gress ; and the manoeuvre would doubtless have
failed, if I had not succeeded at that moment
in withdrawing the dog^s attention and calling
him to heel ; but I could not help observing
that the struggles of the little moor-hen to con-
tinue under water, and its ineffectual attempts
THE 'BIRD-FLY.' 113
at progression in which the wings were chiefly
employed and the legs played a comparatively
unimportant part were admirably imitated by
the movements imparted to Lord G* * * 's fly
by the hand of a practised performer. I have
since had several opportunities of testing its
efficacy, and although I am satisfied that a greater
number of jack may be killed with the ordinary
bait gudgeon, roach, dace, &c. yet I have
invariably found that the ( bird-fly ' took the
largest pike ; to say nothing of the superior style
of the sport, and of its tendency to elevate the
comparatively tame pastime of trolling a few de-
grees nearer to the noble art of salmon fishing.
114 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
CHAPTER VII.
" And mony a weary cast I made
To cuittle the muirfowl's tail."
WALTER SCOTT.
Red Grouse Limits of its Range Natural Enemies, winged
and four-footed The Badger unjustly proscribed
Unsuccessful Attempts to re-establish the Red Grouse in
the South of England Ptarmigan Its Haunts and
Habits British Game Birds Order in which they
arrive at Maturity Annual Importation of Ptarmigan
Highland Moors Mayo Mountains Shooting Expedi-
tionLodge Backward Season Operations deferred
Wild Scenery Youthful Ardour and Veteran Coolness
Variety of Sport.
THE geographical distribution of the red grouse
being strictly limited to these islands, it is more
exclusively a British bird than any kind of
feathered game of which we can boast, all the
others being dispersed over different parts of the
continent of Europe. But as this exists in
Ireland, Wales, and in the North of England,
as well as in Scotland, its specific appellation
Scoticus is hardly correct; and it has been sug-
gested, with reason, that Britannicus would be a
more appropriate epithet. Being essentially a
THE RED GROUSE. 115
denizen of the wild heathery mountain and moor,
it recedes invariably before the face of civiliza-
tion, and may be said, at the present day, to
be extinct in the South of England, very scarce
in the central portion Staffordshire and Derby-
shire being probably its southern limit and
although still found in tolerable numbers on the
moors of Yorkshire, yet it is of less frequent
occurrence there than it was a few years ago,
when Lord Strathmore's keeper shot forty-three
brace before two o'clock in the afternoon, on the
12th of August. The great stronghold of the
species is of course the Highlands of Scotland,
where its preservation is carried to such an
extent, and the rights of shooting let at such
high rents, that in spite of the annual slaughter
during the first three weeks of the season far
surpassing in this respect even the battue of the
southron there appears to be no immediate
prospect of its extermination or even material
reduction, although, speaking as a naturalist
rather than a sportsman, it cannot but be a
matter of regret that the excessive protection of
the grouse involves the indiscriminate slaughter of
so many interesting birds and quadrupeds now
becoming exceedingly rare amongst us.*
* Subjoined is a list of * vermin ' (!) destroyed on the cele-
brated Highland property of Glengary, between Whitsunday
116 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
After the month of August grouse are better
able to take care of themselves, and, although
comparatively safe from the legalized shooter
during the winter, great quantities then fall
victims to the Highland poacher, especially
when snow is on the ground, as they pack
together in considerable numbers, and expose
themselves on any turf-stack, wall, or bank that
happens to rise above the surface of the moor.
They are also snared, and occasionally netted ;
although, from a habit in these birds of scattering
1837 and Whitsunday 1840, previous to the purchase of the
estate by Lord Ward. The slaughter was carried into effect
by numerous keepers, who received not only liberal wages but
extra rewards, varying from 3/. to 51. , according to their suc-
cess in the work of extermination.
The ornithologist will be a little puzzled by the titles given
to some of the Raptores, but the names and epithets applied
to the greater number of them are nevertheless unusually clear
and appropriate, and will leave no doubt on his mind as to the
identity of many of the rarer victims. I will only add, that I
have received this ' black list' from the hands of the gentleman
himself, who was the lessee of the shooting at the time, and by
whose orders the execution took place. Although a good
sportsman and an excellent shot, it must be admitted that his
zeal as a preserver of game far outstripped his sympathies with
other animals.
11 Foxes. 301 Stoats and weasels.
198 Wild-cats. 67 Badgers.
246 Martin-cats. 48 Otters.
106 Pole-cats. 78 House-cats, going wild.
THE RED GROUSE.
117
at the approach of the fowler, this last mode of
capture is less profitable than might be imagined,
and it is certain that various stratagems are then
in vogue when, by the way, the keepers and
watchers are generally dismissed, instead of being
doubled as they ought to be for the London
market is regularly supplied, up to the middle
of March, with birds which exhibit no signs of
having perished from a gunshot wound, but have
evidently been procured by some of the numerous
contrivances of modern poaching.
27 White-tailed sea eagles.
15 Golden eagles.
18 Osprey, or fishing eagles.
98 Blue hawks, or peregrine
falcons.
275 Kites, commonly called
salmon-tailed gledes.
5 Marsh harriers, or yellow-
legged hawks.
63 Goshawks.
7 Orange-legged falcons.
11 Hobby hawks.
285 Common buzzards.
371 Rough-legged buzzards.
3 Honey buzzards.
462 Kestrels, or red hawks.
78 Merlin hawks.
9 Ash-coloured hawks, or
long blue-tailed ditto.
83 Hen-harriers, or ring-
tailed hawks.
6 Jer-falcon, toe-feathered
hawks (?)
1431 Hooded, or carrion
crows.
475 Ravens.
35 Horned owls.
71 Common fern owls.*
3 Golden owls.f
8 Magpies.
* This, I imagine, was the short-eared owl (otus brachyotos.)
Surely not the insectivorous nightjar ! A.E.K.
f Probably the white, or barn owl (strix flammed}.
118 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
Among the natural enemies of the red grouse,
the hooded crow (corvus comix) holds a prominent
place. His depredations are committed during
the breeding season, and are of so wholesale and
destructive a character as to demand the especial
attention of the intelligent keeper. The pere-
grine falcon, it must be admitted, is an occasional
offender, but the number of full-grown birds, on
whom alone he condescends to prey, is as nothing
compared with the amount of silent mischief
perpetrated by the hooded crow. The ash-
coloured harrier, or moor buzzard (circus cerugi-
nosus) in former days, before the species had been
almost swept from the face of the land, might
now and then have been convicted of pouncing
upon a half-fledged poult, as he traversed the
heath in quest of food during his evening flight.
The golden eagle (aquila chrysaetos), when larger
prey is unattainable, will occasionally, but rarely,
stoop to truss so small a quarry as a grouse ; and
the sea, or white-tailed eagle (halicettus albicilld)
is even less frequently an offender, while the
destruction of these noble birds has caused an
unnatural increase in the number of mountain
hares * (lepus variabilis), a result, in the opinion
* I am informed on good authority that, during a single
day in September, 1849, four guns killed, on a mountain near
Loch Ranoch, 574 hares.
NATURAL ENEMIES OF THE GROUSE. 119
of Mr. St. John, to be deprecated by every
sportsman ; as from the extraordinary fecundity
of these animals they become so numerous as to
be "a perfect plague to grouse dogs." The
kestrel, the hobby and the merlin to say nothing
of the harmless habits of the first-named are
of themselves too diminutive to deserve the
hostility of the Highland keeper. The white
owl (strix flammed) and the wood or tawny owl
(syrnium aluco) are comparatively rare in Scotland,
and fortunately for themselves, play an inferior
part in the drama ; while those autumnal visitors,
the short-eared owl (otus brachyotos) and the
rough-legged buzzard (buteo lagopus), who leave
this island in the spring, and are therefore ab-
sentees during the breeding season, are shot and
trapped, during their brief sojourn, without
mercy; although the latter alone deserves to be
classed, and even then with reservation, among
the natural enemies of the grouse.
With a greater show of justice, the fox, the
cat, and the various members of the weasel
family, are proscribed as outlaws ; yet the lover
of the British fauna cannot fail to regret the
rapid decrease which the excessive preservation
of the grouse is entailing among several of our
native quadrupeds. The pine marten and the
wild cat have already disappeared from the south,
2 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
and the same persecution that has banished them
from thence, must eventually extirpate them from
their northern fastnesses. These animals, how-
ever, are notoriously hostile to game of all kinds,
and even the partial toleration of a limited num-
ber is more than can be expected : but what can
be said in defence of the ' war to the knife ' waged
even at the present moment against the poor
badger ? The agriculturist, whose corn-fields
have been damaged by its inroads and there
are few places at the present day where they
exist in sufficient numbers to occasion serious
mischief of this kind or the fox-hunter, whose
temper has been repeatedly tried by the in-
effectual efforts of his huntsman to dislodge an
exhausted reynard from the deepest recesses of
the badger's hibernaculum, can show at least a
plausible ' casus belli ; ' but the game-preserver
has no such excuse. This interesting animal,
the last representative of the ursidce (bears) in
the British islands, rarely so rarely, indeed,
that an offence would prove an exception to the
rule interferes with his concerns. A casual
observer, it is true, on examining his teeth,
would suppose that he was eminently carnivorous,
but such is not the case. The long fangs, which
in most predatory quadrupeds are used to tear
the muscles of their recently killed prey, are
HARMLESSNESS OF THE BADGER. 121
employed by the badger in wrenching out the
tough, interwoven and deeply-imbedded roots
of the trees which impede the excavation of his
den ; a process which is further facilitated by
the immense muscular power of his jaws, and
their peculiar structure and articulation ; and,
although he occasionally devours some of the
smaller quadrupeds, yet his food is principally
derived from the vegetable and insect worlds.
Chestnuts, roots of all kinds, blackberries, beech-
mast, and all manner of beetles, with thfe larvae
of wasps and wild bees, furnish his ordinary
supplies ; while even frogs and snakes contribute
to vary his dietary during the summer and
autumn. It is therefore difficult to palliate the
senseless persecution which, in these islands, has
already doomed the species to a gradual but
certain destruction.
"While black-game seem to require a combi-
nation of wood and swamp, a considerable extent
of open mountain or heathery moor is necessary
for the red grouse ; for, like the Indian of
kindred hue, he recedes before the plough of
the white man ; nor have the many laudable
attempts to re-establish the species in districts
from which it had once disappeared been at-
tended with success. The experiment has been
tried in Devonshire, in Dorset, in Sussex and
G
122 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
in Surrey, with a similar result. The late
Duke of Gloucester, in 1829, turned out eight
brace and a-half on Bagshot Heath. These birds
had been previously kept in confinement for
three years, and it was therefore hoped that the
inducement to wander beyond the precincts of
their new quarters would not be so strong as if
they had been but recently imported from their
native moors. From the day, however, on which
they were turned down, the keepers never met
with one ; but about two years afterwards, in
the month of July, four two old and two young
were seen on Cobham Heath, a larger and
wilder tract several miles distant. These were
subsequently shot as grey hens, of which a few
are still occasionally seen in that district.
The ptarmigan (lag opus mutus) is now to be
found only on the loftiest summits of the higher
ranges of mountains in the central and northern
parts of Scotland, and on some of the western
islands. It was said to have existed in Wales, but
half a century at least must have elapsed since its
occurrence in that Principality. Its haunts are
among the snow-covered peaks and bare rocks,
far above the heathery regions inhabited by its
congener, the red grouse ; and, from the in-
accessible nature of these retreats, the species is
not likely, at least for many years, to be exter-
THE PTARMIGAN. 123
minated by the hand of the sportsman. Nature
has, moreover, provided a safeguard in the tints
of its plumage ; presenting in summer a mix-
ture of black, yellow, white, and grey, exactly
resembling the colours of the mossy lichen-
covered rocks and stones where it lies concealed ;
and which, becoming gradually whiter as the
season advances, at last nearly assimilates itself
to the snows of winter ; although our Highland
birds seldom or never exhibit the unadulterated
purity that distinguishes those Lapland and Nor-
wegian specimens with which the London markets
are so plentifully supplied every year. The
young ptarmigans, too, evince a wonderful in-
stinct, during the summer, even after they have
attained the power of flight, in concealing them-
selves rapidly between the stones, and remaining
perfectly motionless, close to the very feet of the
adventurous tourist, who in vain endeavours to
discover them, so exactly does their colour
resemble that of every surrounding object; and
the task is rendered still more puzzling by the
ready wiles of the mother-bird, who, fluttering
and struggling in well simulated distress, has
distracted his attention for a moment from her
little ones.
There are not many sportsmen who devote
much time to the exclusive pursuit of the ptar-
G 2
124 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
nrigan ; for, though naturally unsuspicious and
easy of approach, yet the toil to be endured
and difficulties to be overcome before these
Alpine heights can be reached, are much in-
creased by the impossibility of following the
birds from one rocky corry to another, separated
perhaps by a giddy precipice, over the edge of
which they have suddenly disappeared from the
view of the wearied shooter. A circuit of con-
siderable extent must frequently be taken, and
many a steep acclivity or dangerous descent
encountered, before they can be found again ;
while there is small chance of relieving this
tedious interval by a stray shot at any other
bird or quadruped, except the grey hare, who
seems to share with the ptarmigan the occu-
pation of these inhospitable regions, while they
both undergo a nearly analogous change in their
seasonal variations of fur and feather.
It is certainly a remarkable circumstance in
the natural history of our game birds, and a
striking instance of the merciful dispensations of
Providence, that those which inhabit the most
northern and inclement quarters are the earliest
in season ; or, in other words, arrive first at full
growth, and are therefore soonest enabled to
brave the rigours of the coming winter. Thus,
the young ptarmigan is able to fly before the red
THE PTARMIGAN. 125
grouse poult can flutter above the heather. The
latter, again, when strong on the wing, has
fallen in thousands before the gun of the sports-
man, ere its report can be legally heard among
the birchen glens and the lower valleys where
the black-cock loves to dwell ; while he, in his
turn, now come to maturity, may be bagged
nearly a fortnight before the partridge; who
has been peppered throughout the length and
breadth of the land for a whole month, before
the gorgeous pheasant who as an exotic might
have been suspected of precocity is considered
ripe for slaughter.
Most persons have noticed the vast numbers
of ptarmigan which appear in the shops of the
London dealers, and in the stalls of the principal
metropolitan markets, during the latter part of
winter and the early months of spring, even as
late occasionally as the beginning of May; but
comparatively few are aware that scarcely one
of these birds has been killed on the Scottish
mountains. They are imported from Lapland
and Norway : the greater number from the
western ports of the latter country. Mr. Yarrell
says, that in the year 1839 one dealer alone
shipped six thousand for London, two thousand
for Hull, and two thousand for Liverpool; and
early in March 1840, a salesman in Leadenhall
126 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
Market received fifteen thousand ptarmigan that
had been consigned fl^him. Sir A. de Capell
Brooke calculated that sixty thousand had been
killed during one winter in a single parish in
Lapland ; and Mr. Lloyd says that a dealer in
Norway will dispose of fifty thousand in a season.
The profit to the importer must be great, as a
single ptarmigan, which is seldom disposed of
in London for less than two shillings or two
and sixpence, is sold in the market at Drammen
for the trifling sum of fourpence. Strange as
it may appear, all these birds are taken in
separate horse-hair nooses during the winter ;
and so brisk a traffic is carried on by the
peasantry at that season, that one of them, we
are told, will set from five hundred to a thou-
sand of these snares.
There is a second species of ptarmigan in
Norway (lagopus saliceti, or subalpma of Nilsson),
It is larger, and found in lower and less moun-
tainous districts, than lagopus alpina of the latter
author, which is identical with the Scottish bird
(lagopus mutus).
But to return to the red grouse. Thanks to
railways and the rapidity of steam communica-
tion between London and Inverness, the acqui-
sition of a first-rate moor is now only a question
of money ; and the opulent citizen who but
HIGHLAND MOORS. 127
yesterday was buried in the pajp of his ledger,
amid the smoke of Threadneedle Street, may
find himself to-morrow regularly located in his
Highland lodge, bracing his relaxed nerves with
the mountain breeze, or despatching baskets full
of grouse for the hospitable tables of his less
fortunate friends in ( the city.' It may be
observed, however, that bitter disappointment
not unfrequently follows in the track even of
the wealthy Saxon. The right of sporting may
comprise many thousand acres, yet not contain
as many score of grouse, which perhaps have
been shot down to the very verge of extinction
by the former tenant, who has probably availed
himself of his right to reap the reward of a
long period of care and protection during the last
season of his occupation. Such a result however
may generally be avoided by a previous inquiry
on the spot, while to obtain a ' well stocked
moor ' in the modern acceptation of the term,
it is advisable to secure the tenancy for several
successive seasons. But with the nature of High-
land shooting almost every young sportsman
is familiar, if not by actual experience, still
by general report. In the sister island, however,
the case is somewhat different. The system of
letting the manors has not yet been introduced.
The admixture of woodcocks, snipe, plover, and
128 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
wild-ducks frequently adds a peculiar charm to
the pursuit; and as in my humble opinion the
character of a day's shooting depends rather
upon the variety of the spoil than upon the
numbers of the slain, I will ask my reader to
accompany me for half an hour to the scenes
of my boyhood in the West of Ireland, where,
in bygone and better days, I made my first
acquaintance with the ' hen of the heath.'*
Many years have elapsed since, with a middle-
aged relative, a cool and experienced yet an
ardent sportsman, I undertook an expedition
to ' the mountains ;' a wild tract of consider-
able extent in the north-western portion of
the island, which had been carefully preserved
under the management of an intelligent Scotch
keeper, who, by the establishment of local
watchers and a judicious reduction of predatory
animals among which the hooded or ' scaul
crow ' occupied his chief attention had succeed-
ed in getting up a fair head of grouse and hares,
and at the same time ensuring to the different
species of wading and swimming birds, which
haunted the streams and lakes of this remote dis-
trict, that quietude and repose which are so im-
portant to the success of the wild fowl shooter.
* ' Cark na fre/ or ( hen of the heath/ the name by which
the red grouse is known in the remote parts of Connaught.
GROUSE SHOOTING IN IRELAND. 129
We had visited the confines of these mountains
about two months before, at the beginning of the
grouse-shooting season, but the weather was sadly
against us. Taking up our quarters on that occa-
sion at the house of an intelligent and enterpris-
ing tenant one of the better class of farmers,
who, as the first pioneer of agriculture in this spot,
had boldly undertaken to reclaim an entire valley
from its primaeval state we sallied forth on the
morning of the 20th of August, with the in-
tention of beating our way across the heart of
the mountains in the direction of the lodge ;
which, although apparently a rude and unpre-
tending cottage, had been lately erected with con-
siderable difficulty, in consequence of its almost
inaccessible situation in a remote gorge of the
mountains and at a great distance from a road
of any kind : most of the materials indeed had
been procured on the spot ; stones from the
neighbouring ravine, heather from the surround-
ing hills, and fir-wood disinterred from the bog,
and conveyed to its destination on the backs of
native ponies, contributed in their turn towards
its construction.
The weather was most unpropitious. A close
drizzling rain had set in the evening before,
and even the nearest mountains were enve-
loped in an Irish mist, which, for persevering
G 5
130 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
and penetrating qualities, may at least claim to
be put on a par with its Scottish namesake.
However we took the field in good time, and
after ranging the moors for some hours, rather
for the purpose of exercising two brace of
promising young setters than with any expec-
tation of sport, and after being thoroughly
drenched to the skin, we returned to the farm-
house with five brace of grouse, whose half-
developed plumage and small proportions con-
vinced us of the backwardness of the season.
This consideration, indeed, coupled with the
continuance of bad weather on the following
day, induced us to postpone our grouse-shooting
until a later period, when the first flight of
woodcocks should have arrived. These make
their appearance about the beginning of No-
vember, and scatter themselves over the moun-
tains, where they may be found in considerable
numbers during that month ; but as the winter
advances they gradually retire from the hills,
and take up their quarters in the natural woods
that clothe the lower slopes of the ridges near
the great lakes; or become concentrated in the
covers of the interior of the island, especially
during hard weather, when additional reinforce-
ments continually drop in from England, Wales
and Scotland. The grand point therefore is to
EXPEDITION TO THE MOUNTAINS. 131
take them as soon as possible after their first
arrival among the mountains. The best shooting
I ever enjoyed was of this description, especially
in the neighbourhood of some small loughs fed
by dark boggy streams from the higher grounds,
where, when the dogs pointed, I could not tell
whether I was about to flush a grouse, a hare,
a woodcock, or a wild-duck from the heather.
Our forbearance seemed likely to be rewarded
on the present occasion. The latter part of
October had been particularly fine, and for the
past week the clear nights, obscured but occa-
sionally by a few light clouds as they sailed
slowly across the moon from the north-east,
promised a grand immigration of cocks. Relays
of dogs, a goodly store of ammunition, and a
supply of creature comforts for a week, had
been despatched on the previous day ; and it
was our intention to put up for the first night
at the farm-house before mentioned, so as on
the following day to carry out our original plan
though under better auspices of shooting aur
way across the hills to our head-quarters at the
lodge.
For nearly eight miles our route was practi-
cable for an Irish car. We passed at first
through a partially cultivated country, gradually
ascending higher and higher as we neared the
132 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
dark mountains, and every now and then obtain-
ing a view of the open sea on our right, or
catching a glimpse of a tremendous precipice
in the distance ; until, on surmounting an ascent
of more than usual tediousness and length, a
magnificent scene was suddenly spread before
us. Beneath lay a valley, through the centre
of which dashed a wild stream, from whose
well known waters, when a boy, I have many
a time filled my basket with the small pink-
fleshed mountain trout. Further on to the
right the hills on either side gradually ap-
proached each other, forming a dark ravine,
through which the little river hurried in many
a foaming cascade on its way to the sea, which
stretched away as far as the eye could reach,
from the Stags of Broadhaven to Killala Bay.
A lofty isolated rock, the abode of myriads of
sea birds during the breeding season, stood at
a short distance from the precipitous coast, whence
it seemed to have been detached by some con-
vulsion of nature, or by the continuous action
of the eternal waves of the Atlantic. Far in
the north-east the blue outline of the Donegal
cliffs was visible on the horizon, while over this
vast expanse of ocean not a sail was to be
descried; but at least a mile from the shore,
although apparently much nearer, a little group
WILD SCENERY. 133
of black fishing yawls, manned by a few rowers,
paddled about like a cluster of water beetles,
all engaged in setting their ( spillets,' or drawing
in their well loaded lines ; as, prompted by the
impulse of immediate want, they were lazily
dabbling in those prolific waters, the finny
treasures of which, like another California, are
doubtless reserved for a future period and a
more energetic people.
Before us, and on our left, rose mountain
over mountain ; no longer grey and indistinct,
but of a rich brown colour, still varied here and
there, even at this late period of the season,
with the purple blossoms of the heather. On
the sides of some of the nearer hills a long
winding strip of the brightest verdure might
be seen, marking the course of some little stream,
which drained the ground near its banks on
either side, and pursued its tortuous and broken
way to become a tributary to the river in the
valley; and here a few stunted rough-coated
cattle were dotted along its margin. All else,
as far as the sight could penetrate into the
interior, seemed to be mountain and bog, without
the trace of a human habitation, and where
apparently nothing but grouse and snipes could
manage to procure a subsistence.
Another hour brought us to our former quar-
134 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
ters at the farm-house. Here the road termi-
nated, and all communication with the lodge
was carried on by means of natives from the
nearest village, whose limbs, unshackled by shoe
or stocking, displayed an enviable activity in
traversing the rough broken grounds ; and whose
light-hearted merriment and good temper con-
tributed not a little to the pleasures of the
expedition. A few of these only were selected
as markers, and ordered to be in their respective
positions among the hills before day-break on
the following morning ; while the rest were
despatched the same evening with sundry articles
of heavy baggage to the lodge, and instructed
to meet us on the morrow, with a relay of dogs,
near the borders of a little lough, which we
expected to reach early in the afternoon.
We started with a good omen. Our breakfast
was hardly despatched and our guns in our hands
before one of the watchers, who had been in
position since the earliest dawn, came running
down with the welcome intelligence that he had
marked two fine packs of grouse in a neigh-
bouring valley, and that, while hurrying with
the news at his best speed, he had flushed several
woodcocks along the brow of the mountain. We
were soon at work. We had four good setters
with us, but two of them were led in reserve
YOUTHFUL ARDOUR AND VETERAN COOLNESS. 135
for the present, and the remaining brace now
scoured the moor in all directions. For nearly
half a mile our beat lay across a boggy plain.
Here we sprung several snipes, which in my
youthful ardour I would gladly have shot, and
even felt strongly inclined to rate the well broken
dogs, as they put them up one after another with
as little compunction as if they had been larks :
but I was restrained by the conduct of my more
phlegmatic relative, who assured me that a snipe-
pointing dog was the worst companion that a
grouse shooter could be cursed with. Further
discussion on this subject was abruptly closed by
a signal from the keeper. Bob and Ranger were
down. The latter had found game, but being of
a deep red colour it was some time before I could
distinguish his head above the heather, while his
black and white coadjutor was distinctly visible,
although, like the former, he always lay down
to his birds. Presently a fine pack of grouse
rose within a fair distance for our four barrels.
How different from the puny poults of August !
These were really grouse. Young birds, it is
true, and unable to bear the weight of their well
conditioned bodies when suspended by the lower
mandible without that portion of the beak giving
way ; but in perfect plumage and full growth.
We had now arrived at the foot of the mountain,
136 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
one side of which flanked the valley where the
two packs had been marked down in the morning;
but we took a wide range over the higher brow,
and presently Bob was down again among the
the heather at some distance above us. This
time it was a woodcock. Several more did we
kill before we descended to the hollow, where
we found the two packs at home, and passed
the best part of an hour in marking down, and
bagging in detail, the stragglers which had been
scattered at the first discharge. For the next
two hours our sport was of a varied character.
Half a dozen more woodcocks, about the same
number of grouse, and two or three brace of
hares, were stuffed into the panniers which our
attendants carried with marvellous ease, like turf
baskets, on their shoulders. At last we came
to the summit of a hill commanding a view over
a bare plain of most unpromising aspect. This,
however, must be crossed, for just beyond it
we could descry the little lake, set as it were in
a framework of green sedgy banks, where we
expected luncheon and fresh dogs. Before tra-
versing this marsh we took up the setters, and
had no hesitation then about shooting two or
three couple of snipes that sprang at our feet,
and in pouring a volley into a small flock of
golden plover, as they dashed heedlessly by
VARIETY OF SPORT. 137
within an imprudent distance. But the best
sport was after luncheon. With the assistance
of a water-spaniel, we flushed and killed several
ducks and teal from the swampy borders of the
lough, and recovered most of what we killed.
Then, with fresh dogs, we again scoured the
brows and mountains in quest of grouse and
woodcocks, of both of which we found a sufficient
sprinkling to satisfy our most sanguine expec-
tations ; and, although once or twice, when
nearly knocked up, I was decoyed by the plausible
point of a young dog far into the rear, and found
nothing for my pains but a diminutive jack snipe,
yet I never more fully enjoyed a day's shooting,
or experienced in a higher degree the associated
charms of wild sport and romantic scenery.
138 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
CHAPTER VIII.
"Aye, springes to catch woodcocks." SHAKSPEARE.
The Woodcock Modes of Capture Net and Gin Wood-
cock trapped Attempts to Rear it in Confinement
Insatiable Appetite of the ' Bird of Suction ' Rapid
Digestion Crepuscular Habits High-road Gunners
Netting Snares, Ancient and Modern The Old Poacher
and his Springe.
ALTHOUGH it is principally to the inefficiency
of the game laws, to the increasing taste for
shooting which pervades all classes of society, and
to the facilities afforded now-a-days for the acqui-
sition of a good fowling-piece, that the scarcity
of partridges and pheasants in many counties
may be attributed; yet the woodcock not being
strictly included in the same category, and a
certificate not being necessary for its legal de-
struction, it is still more persecuted by the gunner
and less sought after by the wirer and trapper
than birds of the gallinaceous order. Being
fortunately a migrant with some exceptions
from the boundless forests of the North, a fair
THE WOODCOCK MODES OF CAPTURE. 139
supply arrives annually on the coasts of the
British islands, and thus the slaughter which
would otherwise tend to the rapid diminution of
the species is in a great measure compensated.
In olden time, when a ponderous matchlock or
a tardy single-barrelled flint gun were the most
efficient instruments the shooter could command,
it was no easy matter for the legitimate sports-
man to bag a couple of these birds when fairly
flushed by his cockers from the coppice or brush-
wood, and to kill a woodcock flying was justly
considered a triumph of the art. Various modes
of capturing it were then in vogue, some of
which are still practised in certain districts even
at the present time, although with the exception
perhaps of the net, they are gradually falling
into disuse, or have been succeeded by the more
elaborate improvements of modern poaching ;
while the fatal double, like the schoolmaster, is
abroad, in whose presence the primaeval weapons
of our ancestors have long since s paled their in-
effectual fire/ and after the lapse of another
generation will probably be regarded as the
clumsy contrivances of a semibarbarous aera.
The gin, or iron spring trap, was much used
formerly to take woodcocks. We find the cir-
cumstance frequently alluded to in Shakspeare.
The haunts of the birds having been ascertained,
140 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
the trap was set in ( the run,' partially sunk in
the soft mud and concealed with a few leaves.
The simplicity and portability of the gin still
render it a favourite with all neophyte poachers ;
and, except in a more delicate and refined style
of workmanship, there seems to have been but
little improvement of late years in its manufac-
ture. I have seen a very ancient one, the con-
struction of which was nearly similar to, and
the principle identical with, the modern rat trap,
which, under various trifling modifications, has,
even in our own days, been contrived to capture
every animal of moderate size, from a man to a
mouse.
The partiality of the woodcock to certain
feeding places which would appear not to possess
any unusual attractions for him, and the perti-
nacity with which he regularly pursues the same
path, are very remarkable. When quite a boy,
I once availed myself of this habit to catch a
woodcock, which I fondly imagined I could suc-
cessfully rear in confinement. The scene was
in a small dell of birch and alder. A common
box trap, such as is used for taking rats and
stoats or weasels alive, was the instrument that
1 thought most likely to suit my purpose. This
I placed exactly in the middle of the run, where
the tracks and perforations were most numerous,
DIGESTION OF THE WOODCOCK, 141
but without taking the precaution of screening
it from observation. On visiting the spot next
morning I found that my first essay had been
unsuccessful: and a short examination sufficed
to show the cause. There were traces of at
least one or two woodcocks close to the trap ;
but instead of attempting to pass through it,
they had inclined a little out of the direct line,
and, apparently without evincing any other symp-
tom of alarm, had, after passing the obstacle,
resumed their course through the swamp. I
now placed a few boughs on both sides so as to
prevent a recurrence of this mishap, but not
without sundry misgivings that my rude fence
might cause the birds to take flight, and perhaps
scare them from their feeding places. My appre-
hensions, however, were groundless, for on the
following morning I found a woodcock safely
incarcerated, which, as a faithful chronicler of
facts, I am bound to confess soon died under my
fostering care ; partly, perhaps, because it was
an old bird, and obstinately refused to insert its
bill into the most tempting dishes of soft mud
with which I liberally supplied it taken more-
over from the very spot on which it had seemed
to luxuriate in a state of nature but princi-
pally, I believe, from my ignorance of its proper
food and the insatiableness of its appetite ; for
142 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
I was at that time impressed with the erroneous
belief, shared by many even at the present day,
that as ' a bird of suction ' it required no sub-
stantial food for its maintenance : but ' experientia
docet.' I afterwards succeeded in rearing a young
woodcock by feeding him plentifully with earth-
worms the species called brandlings, which
abound in old heaps of compost, were the best
these, when mixed with wet mould, he devoured
greedily ; and I found no small difficulty in
furnishing him with a sufficient quantity, while
I varied his diet occasionally with gentles, tad-
poles, and the larvae of aquatic insects. He
became quite tame and reconciled to his place
of captivity, which was an outhouse, the door
of which had been removed and replaced by a
fragment of an old fishing net. Like all pets,
however, he met with an untimely fate. An
inquisitive spaniel managed to creep under the
net one afternoon, and although a speedy rescue
was attempted, it was too late ; his career was
ended. Being in excellent condition he was
handed over to the cook, and a better bird never
appeared upon a table. So rapid was his diges-
tion, that the stomach was perfectly empty, and
the other viscera, or ' trail,' contained only the
peculiar cream-like matter usually found in the
woodcock, while its flavour was positively irre-
CREPUSCULAR HABITS. 143
proachable, although he had breakfasted that very
morning on nearly half a flower -pot full of
worms.
The woodcock being a crepuscular and noc-
turnal bird, that is to say, his active life com-
mencing in the evening and continuing throughout
the night, the regular sportsman meets with him
only when flushed reluctantly from those spots
to which he retires for concealment during the
open day. His organs of vision, like those of
the owls, the nightjar, the great plover, and
other birds that feed principally after sunset, are
large and prominent, and admirably adapted for
concentrating the partial and confused rays of
twilight. At that hour he quits his shady retreats
among the fir and holly plantations or the great
woods, and flying along the open roads and alleys
that lead to the adjoining meadows, swamps,
moors, or lowlands, he passes the whole night
in search of food. It is a remarkable fact that
the impulse to take wing seems to pervade these
birds at nearly the same moment, and during
the protracted twilight of spring, great numbers
fall victims to these pot-hunting gunners whom
the unrestrained use of fire-arms is too apt to
encourage among an idle and unemployed popu-
lation. The facilities for this sport (!) are great.
No trespass is committed ; no game certificate
144 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
is necessary. A high road flanked by a large
wood is usually the scene of operations; the
birds fly within a few yards of the shooters,
sailing down the alleys of the cover and crossing
the road with a noiseless owl-like motion of the
wings, as different as possible from the rapid
dashing flight that characterizes them when
flushed during the winter. They are, moreover,
generally feeble and emaciated, and altogether
unworthy of the attention of the sportsman or
the epicure.*
At this season, and even during moonlight
winter nights a very destructive mode of fowling is
still practised in certain parts of England, but more
frequently in some of the Western counties and
in "Wales than elsewhere. Light nets with wide
meshes are slung across the rides in the great
covers, the ends being either supported on poles,
or slightly attached to the upper branches of trees
on both sides of the ride, or near a gateway over
which woodcocks have been observed to pass.
* I am aware that, by a clause introduced a few years ago
into the game laws, this offence is supposed to be legally liable
to punishment ; but practically the measure is generally found
to be inefficient. A case occurred lately within my own know-
ledge, where a party of these turnpike poachers, although
captured ( in Jlagrante delicto,' were acquitted by the Solons
of a country bench. Yet the case was palpably within the
meaning of the act.
SNARES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 145
The long projecting bill passing easily through
the interstices of the yielding net, the head
follows of course, and every succeeding struggle
tends only to entangle them the more ; and so
unsuspicious of danger are they, or unobservant
of the fate of their fellows, that they will often
blindly fly against a net from which several of
their comrades are already vainly endeavouring
to extricate themselves. This kind of poaching
is very successful when conducted by experienced
hands, who contrive to arrange their nets so as
to answer a double purpose, at the gateways on
the borders of large woods, where many hares
which, like woodcocks, wander in search of food
during the night are captured in the lower
meshes.
But the most ancient mode of taking the
woodcock was by means of the springe, although
the use of this invention in its original simplicity
may now be said to be almost obsolete. Nooses
of platted horse-hair have superseded the single
slip-knot of cord, and instead of the prize being
suspended aloft from the extremity of a tall
rod, its strangulation is effected by a more
secret and quiet process. When its breast has
touched the horizontal stick, which may be
termed the trigger of the springe, the latter is
released from its curved position, and the bird
H
146 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
generally noosed round the neck is dragged
down to a peg half concealed in the ground
through a hole in which the horse hair passes
and forcibly strained against it until life is
extinct. But there was something far more
simple and picturesque in the old springe of
our forefathers : the materials for constructing it
were chiefly to be found on the spot, and, indeed,
consisted of little else than a few sticks and a
string. Perhaps the common contrivance for
taking moles, still used in most of the southern
counties of England, approaches more nearly than
any other to the ancient springe, of which indeed
it may be said to be a subterranean variety : but
this, too, is gradually making way for a successor
in the shape of an elongated toothless gin, which
is much admired by the enemies of this really
useful little quadruped far blinder in their
generation than the animal that they persecute
as no practical dexterity is necessary in its
management ; its principle is within the compre-
hension of a ploughboy, and every tiller of the
soil may now be his own mole-catcher.
I had once, and but once, an opportunity of
seeing a woodcock taken in a real old English
springe. I was staying several years ago with
a friend who resided in one of the most pictu-
resque tracts of the forest range of Sussex,
THE OLD POACHER. 147
where the soil in an agricultural point of view
is poor and barren, and the few arable fields that
meet the eye can hardly repay the labour of the
husbandman. The surface of the country, how-
ever, presents great variety of scenery. Hills
and glens of heather, studded with hollies and
yew trees, are seen in all directions, and contrast
with the russet foliage of the great oak woods
which form the principal feature in the land-
scape ; while extensive commons, covered with
gorse and planted with Scotch fir, are perhaps
succeeded by moors of alders and willows with
dark deep-looking ponds, the margins of which
are hemmed in by reeds and sedges ; and over
this varied and thinly peopled district the black
grouse, the pheasant, the partridge, the wood-
cock, the hare, and the rabbit still roam, almost
in a state of nature, and, with the exception of
the first, in sufficient numbers to reward any
true and unspoiled sportsman.
One morning, just as we were preparing to take
the field, a live woodcock was brought into the
yard by a rough -looking native, whose appearance
strongly reminded me of Leather stocking in ( The
Prairie.' He was a tall and sinewy old man,
with a weather-beaten countenance. His grey
head was covered with a hare-skin cap. He
wore a threadbare velveteen shooting coat, while
H 2
148 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
his lower garments were almost concealed by
long leather gaiters, which reached high above
the knees and bore unmistakeable evidence of
having protected the bony legs of their owner
from many a bush and bramble. He was a sort
of cross between a woodman and a poacher, with
a touch of the keeper ; being occasionally em-
ployed as a beater and nightwatcher, and as a
trapper of all kinds of four-footed vermin, in
which department he was still without a rival
in the neighbourhood. After a few questions,
I found that he had caught the bird in an adjoin-
ing moor, and that his apparatus was evidently
nothing else than the simple springe which had
been in use for centuries, and which in this
remote district had not yet been superseded by
any more elaborate contrivance. As I had long
wished to witness this ancient mode of taking
the woodcock, I gladly availed myself of his
proposal that we should make the trial that very
evening ; so having arranged to meet at the
corner of a certain wood a little before twilight,
I parted from my new acquaintance for a few
hours.
At the appointed time I found him wait-
ing for me. He conducted me along a small
stream which ran between high wooded banks,
until, at last, on clearing the cover, it opened
THE SPRINGE. 149
upon a long narrow moor, which formed the
bottom of a glen, bounded on one side by a
steep declivity covered with heather, and crowned
with a few firs and hollies, and on the other by a
hanger of stunted oaks ; while a thick bed of
osiers, mingled with sedges and tussocks of
coarse grass, bordered the edge of the narrow
stream as it crept slowly through the middle of
the little valley.
We soon found many tracks of the woodcock
on the black mud ; and on one spot these, as
well as the borings of his beak, were very nume-
rous. Here my companion halted, and pulling
out his knife, cut down a tall willow rod, which
he stuck firmly into the ground in nearly an
upright position, or perhaps rather inclining
backwards. On the opposite side of the run he
fixed a peg, so as to project only a few inches
above the surface : to this he fastened a slight
stick about a foot long, attached loosely with a
tough string, much as the swingel of a flail is to
its hand-staff: another branch of willow was bent
into an arch, and both ends driven into the soft
ground to a considerable depth on the opposite
side of the track, and nearer to the tall upright
wand. To the tip of the latter a string was now
fastened, the end of which was formed into a
large running noose ; while, about half-way down,
150 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
another piece of stick, about six inches long, was
tied by its middle. The flexible wand was then
bent forcibly downwards, one end of the little
stick overhead was passed under the arch, while
it was retained in this position, and at the same
time the bow prevented from springing upwards,
by its other extremity being placed against a
notch at the end of the stick which had been
fastened to the peg on the other side of the run,
across which it now lay, two or three inches from
the ground, and supported the noose. This, in
fact, constituted the trigger, which was to be
released when struck by the breast of the wood-
cock.
The old man constructed the trap in much less
time than I have taken and how imperfectly to
describe it. Indeed, I feel that it is a subject
better suited to the pencil than to the pen.
His last care was to weave the sedges on either
side of the run into a kind of screen so as to
weir the woodcock into the snare, and this he
accomplished with much skill and expedition. It
was now nearly dark, and we separated, after
arranging to meet again on the same spot early
on the following morning. I arrived there, how-
ever, some time before him, and found myself
threading my way through the willows just as
the grey dawn was beginning to appear on the
THE OLD POACHER'S SPRINGE.
WOODCOCK CAUGHT. 151
eastern horizon. Nor was I long kept in uncer-
tainty, for on emerging from the sedges, there
hung dangling before my eyes, suspended like a
gibbeted felon in mid-air a woodcock. He was
noosed round the neck, and although still warm
was quite dead; and as I smoothed down his
ruffled, though bloodless feathers, and admired
the exquisite arrangement of his plumage, I
thought he was worthy of a place in my collec-
tion. There he now occupies a conspicuous niche,
and I never look at him without thinking of
bygone days, the swamp in the glen, and the old
poacher and his springe.
152 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
CHAPTER IX.
" Therefore I think my eagle is so justly styled Jove's servant in
ordinary : and that very falcon that I am now going to see deserves no
meaner a title. "Iz A AK WALTON.
Falconry Youthful Attempts in the ' Noble Art" Heron
Hawking The Look-out The Chace An Irish Bog
Fabulous Errors Magpie Hawking Colonel Bonham's
Hawking Experiences Scardroy Peregrine Falcons
Grouse Hawking Russian Setters The Goshawk com-
pared with the Peregrine Their respective Merits How
does the Falcon strike her Quarry ? Woodcock Hawk-
ing Convincing Fact Anecdote The Falcon's last
Flight ' Falcon' and < Tiercel' Wild Duck, Black-
cock, and Ptarmigan Hawking i Playing' the Hawks
The Falcon at Sea Recognition and Recovery.
MY experience with trained falcons has been
comparatively slight, although when quite a lad I
succeeded in reclaiming the peregrine and the
merlin. The field of my operations was in a
remote part of the West of Ireland, where a
great extent of preserved mountain and moor-
land afforded abundance of quarry, and plenty of
elbow-room for the experiment; but the result
never equalled my hopes. Just, perhaps, as one
FALCONRY YOUTHFUL ATTEMPTS. 153
of my most promising hawks would have nearly
completed its course of instruction, an absence of
some months would break the tender tie, and on
my return I had generally the mortification of
finding either that she had perished from neglect
or improper food, or that her feathers were in
such a state as to render her useless in the field
until another moult had taken place. Yet in
justice to these juvenile attempts I must add
that my proceedings were conducted on the most
orthodox system. There was no lack of black-
letter authority. Sundry rare and valuable trea-
tises on ' the noble art of falconrie ' had fallen into
my hands, preeminent among which was a copy
of ' The Book of St. Alban's,' a treasure which
was reluctantly lent to me by a relative who was
curious in mediaeval literature, and who never lost
an opportunity of assuring me that the quaint
old volume was really a diamond beyond all price.
Thus I soon became thoroughly initiated in all
the mysteries of the hood and the leash, and
even learned in a short time to fabricate my own
rude tackle. Uninterrupted leisure from other
pursuits, the aid of an experienced assistant, and
dogs regularly trained to the sport, were never-
theless wanting ; and I soon became satisfied that
without thesehowever great certain local advan-
tages may be any attempt to indulge in the
H 5
154
GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
glorious pastime of our forefathers must be little
else than ' vanity and vexation of spirit.'
I have since seen a few partridges killed by a
cast of well trained falcons, and was once present
at the capture of a heron by the same birds.
The falconer and his party of which I was one
stationed themselves in a deep ditch or drain
which traversed the edge of a large bog, over
which the herons had been observed to fly very
low, when returning from fishing in the neigh-
bouring swamps and morasses, Some of us would
crawl occasionally to the top of the bank, and
straining our eyes to the utmost, endeavour to
catch a glimpse of the quarry in the distance, as,
with heavy flight, it might be seen flapping slowly
along the surface of the moor, gradually nearing
our position, and apparently certain of passing di-
rectly over our heads ; but we were frequently dis-
appointed. One after another did several of these
magnificent birds come within what we supposed
to be a moderate distance, and many and loud
were our remonstrances as the inexorable falconer
still obstinately refused to liberate his hawks, and
persisted in waiting for a more favourable oppor-
tunity. This at last occurred. A devoted heron,
whose approach we had all regarded in breathless
silence, now advanced in a direction which seemed
to satisfy the scruples of even the fastidious
HERON HAWKING. 155
' auceps.' In a second the hawks were unhooded
and turned off, and the next moment were in full
flight after the heron, who, taking advantage of
the wind, was rapidly increasing the distance
between us, and at the same time ascending to a
great height in a wide curve or circular gv ration ;
a manoeuvre in which he was anticipated by his
more active pursuers, who were now seen to rise
above him, but postponed coming to closer quar-
ters for so long, that we were soon running at our
best speed in the vain hope of obtaining a nearer
view of the sport ; while several of the party,
with their eyes directed upwards, appeared to
forget, or to despise the obstacles that were con-
tinually presented to their progress by an Irish
bog, and were soon sprawling in a turf-pit or
floundering, waist-deep, in a quagmire; so that
but very few of us were fortunate enough to be
looking in the right direction when the falcons,
who had already 'bound to their quarry,' were
now seen slowly descending together, like a fea-
thered parachute, to the ground. For my own
part, I was so lucky as to reach the spot a few
moments after the falconer, and found him be-
striding the prostrate heron, whose head he had
secured between his knees, while he appeared to
be anxiously examining his hawks to ascertain
whether they had received any wound from the
156 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL,
sharp beak of their adversary. As to the heron,
with the exception of a slight laceration of the
dorsal plumage, he seemed to have suffered no
injury. He was therefore reserved as a trophy,
and doomed, poor fellow, to be turned out soon
afterwards for the amusement of a larger party of
spectators.
By the way, there are two fables connected
with the habits of the heron, yet both of them
pass current with the greater part of the world as
established facts in its natural history. One is,
that he presents his beak to his enemy so as to
transfix him when the latter is about to ' stoop.'
Indeed the awkward and lumbering movements of
the heron at this critical moment show that
even if he were disposed to try the experiment,
he has no power to bring this formidable
weapon into play against his swift and vigorous
antagonist, whose mode of attack indeed, as well
as the rapidity of its execution, would render
such a result exceedingly improbable ; for the
swoop is made obliquely, not perpendicularly, and
the falcon strikes her quarry from behind. When
the falcons and the heron have reached the
ground, then matters assume a different aspect.
The moment he finds himself on terra firma he
shows a bold front, and struggles to be revenged
on his persecutors by well-directed and quickly
FABULOUS ERRORS. 157
repeated plunges of his sharp and dagger-like
beak. Then indeed must the falconer hurry to
the spot, or he may find that his hawks have
' caught a Tartar.' A mortal wound, serious
laceration, or the loss of sight, might be the price
of victory. The heron always aims at the eye.
I am acquainted with a gentleman who was de-
prived of one of the organs of vision by a bird of
this species which he had incautiously seized after
it had been wounded. I have elsewhere recorded
a narrow escape of my own from a similar misfor-
tune,* and I shot for two seasons in Ireland over an
old pointer and a capital dog he was whose loss
of one eye was attributable to an imprudent attack
during his younger days on a winged heron.
Another popular error in connexion with this
bird is that during incubation it is in the habit
of protruding its legs through two holes in the
bottom of its nest. Now there is no reason in
the world w T hy the heron should assume an atti-
tude so painful and unnatural. Its legs are
certainly long, but the bones of which they are
composed the femur, the tibia, and the tarsus
bear the same relative proportion to each other as
in the generality of waders, and can be as easily
folded up underneath the body as the legs of any
other bird. Perhaps the story may have origi-
* ' Ornithological Rambles in Sussex.'
158 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
nated in the brain of some compiler who was
ignorant of its anatomy, and who had never seen
its nest ; but having noticed the unusual length
of its limbs, took for granted that it would be
impossible for the heron to gather them up in
the usual manner, and therefore as there ought to
be two apertures in the bottom of the nest for
their reception, that he might take the liberty of
boring them forthwith. One of the numerous in-
stances in which preconceived theories are found
to be at fault when tested by the actual opera-
tions of nature.
But besides the noble heron, which formerly
occupied a prominent position on the game list,
and many other birds which are now included in
that category, various species of water-fowl and
wading-birds were favourite objects of pursuit
with the falconer. Nay, even crows and magpies
had their admirers, and in the opinion of the late
Sir John Sebright one of the highest authorities
on that subject the last-named birds afford so
animating a sport that he considered it far supe-
rior to every other kind of hawking. The magpie
always endeavours to make for a thick hedge or
cover. The object of the falconer, and indeed of
all the spectators whose assistance is of import-
ance, and who are thus enabled to take a share
in the amusement is to drive him from these
MAGPIE HAWKING. 159
strongholds into detached bushes, and in passing
hurriedly from one to the other the falcon makes
her stoop, while her quarry exhibits great dex-
terity in avoiding the fatal blow. Excellent sport
of this kind has been afforded by the falcons of
Y. O'Keefe, Esq., at the Curragh of Kildare.
On one occasion the magpie, after having been
successively expelled from various places of re-
treat, made for a distant whinbush, and when
about half way across the intervening space,
seemed to elude the stroke of the falcon by sud-
denly dropping to the earth and disappearing
from all his foes ; for when the party arrived on
the spot the magpie was nowhere to be found.
The ground was carefully examined where he had
so mysteriously vanished, and whips were loudly
cracked by the mounted spectators ; but all in
vain. Here was a puzzle ! The falcon still con-
tinued to e wait on ' overhead, a sure sign that her
quarry was underneath her. At last, after a long
search, he was found snugly concealed in the
bottom of a cart-rut, where, but for his treacher-
ous plumage, he would probably have succeeded
in escaping the observation of his enemies.
On another occasion one of the falcons belong-
ing to this gentleman afforded a remarkable ex-
ample of the extraordinary height to which it will
occasionally compel its quarry to ascend, and of
160 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
the determination and perseverance with which it
will pursue it to such an altitude, before it suc-
ceeds in dealing the fatal blow. This time a
crow was the object of the chace, and ' took the
air' immediately, hotly pursued by the falcon,
and soon rose to such an elevation in spiral
sweeps directly above the head of the spectator,
that both birds were gradually lost to his view.
Another minute elapsed, during which he con-
tinued to strain his eyes in vain in the hope of
catching a glimpse of them in the direction where
they had lately vanished from his sight. At last
a single dark speck appeared, which quickly be-
came larger and larger as it descended, and the
next moment the dead body of the crow fell with
extraordinary force a few yards from the spot on
which he was standing.
Perhaps few men in these degenerate days have
had such opportunities of enjoying the glorious
sport of falconry, with every advantage which art
and nature could combine, as my friend Colonel
Bonham, of the 10th Hussars. Those who know
him are aware that a great portion of the early
period of his life was devoted to ' the noble craft,'
and the same energy and spirit which enabled him
to overcome the numerous obstacles to a full
enjoyment of this animating pastime in the
British islands, has at a later period, since serving
SCARDROY. 161
with his regiment in the East, carried him into
the swamps and jungles of Indostan, in spite of
Thugs, tigers, and fever, and rewarded him with
the acquisition of many a sporting trophy.
Some years ago he rented Scardroy, an im-
mense mountain district in Rosshire, near Strath-
connan, comprising an area of thirty -five thousand
acres. This vast tract of wild ground adjoined, or
' marched with,' as the Highlanders have it
another beat of similar extent, over which he had
free permission to pursue his sport. The whole
was well stocked with grouse, black-game, and
ptarmigan, while even red-deer were found within
its limits ; but although a good shot and a
practised stalker, the gun and the rifle were gene-
rally laid aside for the far more exciting sport of
falconry. Would that others could be tempted
to follow his example! But this is more than
can be expected. I cannot however persuade
myself that a short sketch of his hawking experi-
ences will prove wholly uninteresting, even to
those who prefer to take the field with the
weapons of modern warfare. I therefore avail
myself of his permission to embody from recollec-
tion a few of his notes and observations, sincerely
regretting that I cannot add
" quseque ipse vidi
Et quorum pars magna fui."
162 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
Scardroy Lodge was a long low building situ-
ated in a gorge in the very heart of the Highlands.
In front a broad belt of moorland sloped down to
the clear waters of Loch Benachran, which was
well stocked with trout, and haunted during
certain seasons by wild ducks and various species
of water-fowl. Lofty mountains rose from the
opposite side of the lake, gradually ascending
higher and higher until the heathery brows were
at last succeeded by the grey rocks, where the red
grouse gave way to the ptarmigan. Still farther
to the right the hills appeared to be abruptly
severed, and frowned over the water, in which
their image was distinctly reflected. Opposite to
them, and nearer to the lodge, a rapid river
rushed into the lake, after wandering through a
wilderness of moor in the rear, and watering
many a secluded valley, where the crack of the
rifle was seldom heard, and where the lazy stag
might slake his thirst in undisturbed security.
Such was Scardroy : and here with an experienced
falconer and trusty keepers, his hawks and his
dogs, Colonel Bonham took up his quarters, and
passed a great portion of many years in the full
enjoyment of his favourite pursuit. He had at
one time as many as twelve peregrines, most of
which he had obtained on the northern coast of
Ireland. Certain lofty cliffs in the counties of
GROUSE HAWKING. 163
Derry and Antrim were favourite breeding places.
Some were from the cliffs of Benevenagh, others
from Fair Head, Tory Island, and the Giants'
Causeway. The isle of Arran had at different
times furnished him with fine hawks, as well as
Rathlin Island and Greron Point, and Innishowen
on the coast between LochFoyle and Loch S willy.
He had also procured peregrines from a certain
inland precipice on the property of Mr. Cole
Hamilton ; but although most of them were ob-
tained from Ireland, some came from the North
of Scotland, among which he particularly remem-
bered a favourite bird from Ailsa Craig.
Next to good hawks, an efficient falconer and
plenty of elbow room, well-trained dogs were of
the greatest importance. Long experience had
satisfied Colonel Bonham that a variety known by
the name of Russian setters were better adapted
for this sport than the common setter or pointer.
He found them far more docile and sagacious,
yet equally spirited ; and they possessed the in-
estimable advantage of not being spoiled as shoot-
ing dogs by the unavoidable indulgences and
licences which were permitted during a day's
hawking. This may be best illustrated by a scene
of ordinary occurrence. The setters have found
game. The falconer advances with his hawks un-
hooded and ready to start from his fist. Now
164 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
they are on the wing, and allowed to attain a
considerable elevation before the grouse is flushed.
The dogs are still motionless, or perhaps occasion-
ally avert their steady gaze for a moment from
the crouching bird, and cast a hasty glance up-
wards. At last the falconer kicks up the grouse,
who flies away at his best speed with the hawks
close behind him. Away too go the falconer and
the colonel. Who thinks of ' down charge ' at
such a moment, or who could expect the dogs to
practise such self-denial when their preceptors
have set them so bad an example ? Away go the
dogs also, each pursuer anxious to be in at the
death, and valuable allies do they prove. The
falcons and their quarry have disappeared over
the brow of a hill, and the setters are out
of sight, for the sportsmen are far behind. At
last on arriving at an elevated spot they see
a wide valley beyond them ; but where is the
grouse ? and where are the hawks ? The chace
is over, for the far-sighted falconer can see
nothing of the birds in the air. He now scans
the heather below, and soon perceives old Platoff,
with tail extended and rigid as a statue, backed
by his companion. Hurrying down until within
a moderate distance, he utters the well-known
shout, and tosses his lure aloft ; while he now
cautiously advances towards the spot where, half
RUSSIAN SETTERS. 165
concealed in the heather, the female hawk
or falcon cowers over the fallen grouse, and
cunningly endeavours to screen it from discovery
with her extended wings, while the male or
tiercel waits patiently until his Patagonian
partner shall have so far satisfied her appetite as
to allow him to partake of the repast. Here the
falconer will exercise his judgment. If a second
flight is contemplated he will gradually secure the
quarry, and reward his hawks with a few mouth-
fuls of meat from the lure ; but it will be ad-
visable for him occasionally to leave them in
undisturbed possession of their prey, or they will
contract the bad habit of attempting to ' carry' it
away on his approach. According to Colonel
Bonham three grouse are sufficient to take from a
falcon in one day.
But to return to the dogs, who have acted their
part to perfection, and have been as immoveable
as the surrounding rocks during the process of
feeding and securing the hawks, and releasing the
grouse from their grasp. One might expect that
if taken out with the gun on the following day
their performance would be less creditable. No
such thing. These Russians were capable of dis-
tinguishing and appreciating the nature of the
different characters in which they were alternately
required to appear, and when the game was sprung
166 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
and the bird fell or flew away, no attempt was
made, no inclination was evinced to break the
point ; but they would ' down charge ' as instan-
taneously and perfectly as if the discipline usual
in such cases had never been for a moment re-
laxed. Nay more, two of them used to act
regularly as retrievers when the word was given
to follow a wounded bird. Colonel Bonham said
that both of these were good field dogs, and one
of them the very staunchest that he ever pos-
sessed.
Besides his favourite peregrines, Colonel Bon-
ham obtained a pair of goshawks which were bred
on the Duke of Gordon's estate at Fochabers ;
but he found them of little use in the open
country about Scardroy. The goshawk is short-
winged ; his flight is close to the ground, and,
compared with that of the falcon, tedious and un-
interesting. He is in fact a sparrow-hawk on a
larger scale, and was accordingly included in the
same sub-genus (accipiter) by naturalists, until
Cuvier, observing the comparative shortness and
stoutness of the tarsi and the moderate length of
the middle toe which in the sparrow-hawk is
considerable formed a separate genus (astur) for
its reception. The habits of the goshawk are as
different as its conformation from those of the
falcon. Instead of soaring to a great height and
GOSHAWK AND PEREGRINE. 167
descending in a swoop upon its prey, it pursues it
in a direct line, and after driving it into a bush or
cover, takes up its own position on the nearest
tree, where it waits patiently until hunger or
necessity compels the poor bird to leave its place
of concealment; when cat-like it darts upon its
victim, and secures it without difficulty. It is
accordingly better adapted for a wooded or en-
closed country than the peregrine ; for pheasants
and partridges than for grouse or ptarmigan. Its
character too is altogether devoid of that energy
and perseverance that are so conspicuous in the
falcon. If the quarry should gain an advantage
at the beginning of the chace, it frequently re-
linquishes the pursuit altogether, and settling on
the nearest branch, prepares to dart upon the
next passer by. It was not without reason there-
fore that this species, and some other hawks of
similar structure, habits, and character, were
styled ' ignoble ' by .our ancestors, to distinguish
them from the long winged, high-flying or ' noble '
falcons. The movements of the goshawk how-
ever in cover are exceedingly rapid and effective.
Its short wings enable it to pass more easily
through the intervals of the boughs, while with
its long and fan-like tail it steers its way, and
performs marvellously intricate evolutions as it
pursues the pheasant, the blackcock, the hare, or
168 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
the squirrel through the tangled labyrinths of the
coppice and underwood.
The red grouse was a favourite object of the
chace with Colonel Bonham. Sometimes it would
drop suddenly and take refuge in the heather,
when the falcon would abruptly check her pro-
gress, and ascend rapidly over the spot where the
bird had sought concealment. This in the lan-
guage of the craft is called ' making the point.'
When the falconer perceives this from a distance,
he hastens to the spot, and if the hawk be not
already thoroughly trained, he lures her down for
the purpose of accustoming her to that invaluable
aid, after which he has the opportunity of afford-
ing her a second flight ; but if an old or tho-
roughly broken falcon, he has only to start the
grouse from the heather while she waits on over-
head, and away she goes after it again. It not
unusually happens however that the poor grouse
is so scared and unnerved by the aerial movements
of its deadly foe, that it will suffer itself to be
captured under the very nose of the dog rather
than venture to take wing a second time.
The best chance of escape for the grouse is
when he is sprung near the foot of a mountain,
and continues to work up hill, without deviating
considerably to the right or left. On such occa-
sions the falcon seldom succeeds in striking him
HOW THE FALCON STRIKES HER QUARRY. 169
effectually. On the contrary when he is found
on the higher brows, and makes for the valley,
then his fate is sealed. The hawk is up with him
in a moment, and strikes him like lightning.
The peregrine often showed a repugnance to
pursuing her quarry across a large piece of water.
This was most frequently evinced when wild
ducks were the objects of the chace. Sometimes,
however, a high-mettled hawk would keep within
a certain distance of the bird during the transit,
and if the duck, instead of dropping on the water,
or seeking shelter in the reeds or rushes on the
opposite bank, continued its flight over the moor
beyond, she would resume the pursuit with undi-
minished ardour.
It has often been a question with ornithologists,
in what precise manner the falcon deals the fatal
blow. Some authors have asserted that it is by
means of the foot; others attribute it to the
breastbone, protected as it is by such strong pec-
toral muscles that the concussion which is sup-
posed to deprive its victim of life can have no
injurious effect upon the author of the momen-
tum. My own opinion, which is fully corrobo-
rated by the more extensive experience of Colonel
Bonham, is that it is by means of the powerful
hind talon that the deadly wound is inflicted. If
a grouse, a duck, or a woodcock that has been
i
170 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
thus suddenly killed by a peregrine be examined,
it will generally be found that the loins and
shoulders are deeply scored, the back of the neck
much torn, and even the skull sometimes pene-
trated by this formidable weapon. Now as the
stroke is almost always delivered obliquely, that
is, in a slanting, downward direction from behind,
this laceration could not be effected by any of the
talons of the front toes ; nor would the severest
possible blow from the breast of the falcon pro-
duce such an effect. Indeed, Colonel Bonham
had several rare opportunities of witnessing the
operation distinctly, and his testimony on this
point ought to be conclusive. On one occasion
in particular, when in Ireland, a woodcock, after
a long chace over an adjoining moor, had taken
refuge in a small cover, whither it was closely
pursued by the hawk the falconer and several
assistants following. Colonel Bonham himself
made for a nearer point of the coppice, and had
just taken up his position under a tree at the side
of a ride or alley, when he saw the woodcock
flying towards him, and its enemy close upon it.
As the former passed within a few yards of the
spot where he stood, he perceived by its laborious
flight and open beak that it was much exhausted.
The next moment down came the falcon, and he
could see distinctly that the blow was delivered
ANECDOTE. 171
by the hind talons. The effect was instantaneously
fatal, and precisely such as might have been ex-
pected from the nature of the weapons that were
brought into play. The back of the woodcock
was completely ripped up, and the lower part of
its skull split open.
Sometimes a woodcock would ' take the air,'
that is, endeavour to escape from its pursuer by
ascending to a great height in circular gyrations ;
and being a bird of considerable vigour and rapi-
dity of flight, it was, in the performance of this
manoeuvre, almost a match for the peregrine.
There is much danger of losing the falcon on such
occasions, for as soon as the woodcock has at-
tained a certain altitude, it will especially if
favoured by a fresh breeze strike off in a direct
line, and lead the hawk a distance of many miles.
Of this, Colonel Bonham mentioned a remark-
able instance, which is well worthy of being
recorded.
When hawking for woodcocks in Rossmore
Park, in the County of Monaghan, Ireland, with
the Hon. R. Westenra, a woodcock, after a short
chace, 6 took the air,' closely pursued by the
falcon the property of the latter gentleman
who had her bells and ' varvels ' on, with the
name and address of the owner engraved upon
them. In a short time both birds had attained
i 2
172 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
such an elevation that it was only by lying
down on their backs, and placing their hands
above their eyes, so as to screen them from the
rays of the sun, and at the same time contract the
field of vision, that the spectators could keep
them within view. At last, just as they had be-
come almost like specks in the sky, they were
observed to pass rapidly towards the north-east,
under the influence of a strong south-west wind ;
and were soon completely out of sight. Some
days elapsed without any tidings of the truant
falcon ; but before the week had expired, a parcel
arrived at Rossmore Park, accompanied by a
letter bearing a Scotch postmark. The first
contained the dead body of the falcon : the latter
the closing chapter of her history from the hand
of her destroyer, a farmer who resided within
ten miles of Aberdeen. He was walking through
his grounds when his attention was attracted by
the appearance of a large hawk which had just
dashed among his pigeons, and was then in the
act of carrying one of them off. Running into
the house he returned presently with a loaded
gun, and found the robber coolly devouring her
prey on the top of a wheat-stack. The next
moment the poor falcon's wanderings were at an
end ; but it was hot until he had seen the bells
on her feet that he discovered the value of his
FALCON AND TIERCEL. 173
victim, and upon a more careful examination
perceived the name and address of her owner ;
and while affording him the only reparation in
his power by sending him her remains and the
account of her fate, he unconsciously rendered
the story worthy of record in a sporting and an
ornithological point of view; for upon a subse-
quent comparison of dates it was found that she
had been shot near Aberdeen, on the eastern coast
of Scotland, within forty-eight hours after she
had been flown at the woodcock in a central part
of the province of Ulster in Ireland.
Colonel Bonham has known as many as fifty
woodcocks procured in the same season by one
peregrine. A much greater number had, of course,
been killed by her, but it is advisable to leave
the hawk in undisputed possession of her prize
occasionally, or she would soon acquire the bad
habit of carrying it off on the approach of the
falconer, as however great may be the attractions
of the lure, they are far surpassed by those of the
natural prey which she has obtained by her own
unassisted powers.
In all raptorial birds the female is larger and
more powerful than the male, and in this species
is styled the falcon, par excellence, the male the
tiercel. It is not advisable to fly two hawks of
the same sex at once, but a falcon and tiercel
174 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
who have become accustomed to each other, may
be started together. In such a case, when the
quarry has been struck, the male will give way
to his more potent helpmate, and she will keep
possession of the bird until the arrival of the fal-
coner ; but the result may be very different when
two hawks of the same sex join in the pur-
suit : they may occasionally be found fighting
desperately for the prize, even when it has
effected its escape, after leaving nothing but a
handful of feathers to reward the successful
combatant.
Colonel Bonham found that no bird was so
easily killed by the falcon as the common wild-
duck, which he attributed to its direct and uni-
form flight, unvaried by those sudden shifts and
dodges which are so frequently practised by the
grouse and the woodcock. It was his custom to
mark down a party of ducks at some turn or
angle of the river, where the banks were suffi-
ciently steep to admit of his near approach with
the hawks. When the alarm was given they
sprang from a moderate distance, and a good
falcon not unfrequently killed a mallard at the
very first blow. He had previously observed
that the old male black-cock often contrived to
escape after having been struck, and would
then take refuge in a thick bush or cover, into
PTARMIGAN HAWKING. 175
which a young tiercel would occasionally pursue'
him and hunt him out again : but the falcons
soon became too cunning or too proud to enact
the part of a terrier, and preferred to wait on
overhead until the quarry had been started for
a fresh flight. Grey hens, however, and young
males, were easily killed.
The sport which required most energy and per-
severance, and was attended with greater danger
and difficulty than any other, was ptarmigan hawk-
ing. It might be compared to chamois shooting.
The haunts of the ptarmigan were among the
highest of the rocky peaks that crowned the lofty
mountains near Scardroy. Besides the obstacles
which the precipices and the rugged nature of the
ground presented at every step, it was no easy
matter to find the birds, so closely did they lie ;
and so exactly did their plumage resemble the
colours of the lichens and surrounding crags,
that without good hardy dogs the attempt would
have been unsuccessful. Even after this had
been accomplished, the game started, and a bird
struck down by the falcon, it would frequently
fall over a tremendous cliff; and a detour of some
miles must be performed before the ptarmigan
could be found or the hawk recovered. As in
all analogous circumstances however, where danger
and difficulty beset the path of the sportsman,
176 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
the pleasure of success was commensurate with
the risk encountered.
It was a practice with Colonel Bonham to
6 play * his hawks occasionally, having previously
taken the precaution of ' half feeding them up,'
and allowing the brass swivels by which the
leashes are attached to the e bewits,' or rings, to
remain on their feet, which thus proved a suffi-
cient ballast to prevent them from indulging in
long protracted flights. Nothing, he assured me,
could surpass the calm delight with which on a
fine autumnal evening he used to lie stretched on
the heather near the lodge, and contemplate for
hours the graceful aerial evolutions of his falcons.
Occasionally the passage of an imprudent hooded
crow would excite them to a short chace, and after
a good buffetting they would allow him to pursue
his way without further interruption. Sometimes
two or three would meet together in mimic com-
bat, and with loud screams cleave the air in a
rapid descent, or tumble headlong towards the
ground, until suddenly arresting their downward
course they would reascend to the higher regions
in gradual gyrations, and continue to soar aloft,
or repeat their manoeuvres until it was time to
call them down from their 'play.' Then the
falconer would appear with his lure, and sweeping
it round his head and shouting at the same time
THE FALCON AT SEA. 177
in a peculiar key, the hawks would descend from
above with closed pinions, and having received the
reward of their obedience in the shape of a few
tempting morsels of raw meat, quietly suffer
themselves to be hooded, and once more placed
on their respective blocks.
It has been frequently asserted that the pere-
grine is not susceptible of personal attachment,
that hunger is the sole agent by means of which
the falconer is enabled to reclaim her, and that it
is to the lure, and not to the person who wields
or displays it, that she evinces partiality or regard.
The following anecdote, however, would appear
sufficient to rescue her character from such an
imputation.
A friend of Colonel Bonham the late Colonel
Johnson of the Rifle Brigade was ordered to
Canada with his battalion, in which he was then
a captain, and being very fond of falconry, to
which he had devoted much time and expense, he
took with him two of his favourite peregrines, as
his companions across the Atlantic.
It was his constant habit during the voyage to
allow them to fly every day, after ' feeding them
up ' that they might not be induced to rake off
after a passing sea gull, or wander out of sight of
the vessel. Sometimes their rambles were very
wide and protracted. At others they would ascend
i 5
178 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
to such a height as to be almost lost to the view
of the passengers, who soon found them an effec-
tual means of relieving the tedium of a long sea
voyage, and naturally took a lively interest in
their welfare, but as they were in the habit of re-
turning regularly to the ship, no uneasiness was
felt during their occasional absence. At last, one
evening, after a longer flight than usual, one of
the falcons returned alone. The other the
prime favourite was missing. Day after day
passed away, and however much he may have
continued to regret his loss, Captain Johnson had
at length fully made up his mind that it was irre-
trievable, and that he should never see her again.
Soon after the arrival of the regiment in America,
on casting his eyes over a Halifax newspaper, he
was struck by a paragraph announcing that the
captain of an American schooner had at that
moment in his possession a fine hawk, which had
suddenly made its appearance on board his ship
during his late passage from Liverpool. The idea
at once occurred to Captain Johnson that this
could be no other than his much -prized falcon, so
having obtained immediate leave of absence he set
out for Halifax, a journey of some days. On
arriving there he lost no time in waiting on the
commander of the schooner, announcing the
object of his journey and requesting that he
RECOGNITION AND RECOVERY. 179
might be allowed to see the bird ; but Jona-
than had no idea of relinquishing his prize so
easily, and stoutly refused to admit of the inter-
view, ' guessing' that it was very easy for an
Englisher to lay claim to another man's property,
but ' calculating ' that it was a ' tarnation sight '
harder for him to get possession of it ; and con-
cluding by asserting in unqualified terms his
entire disbelief in the whole story. Captain
Johnson's object however being rather to recover
his falcon than to pick a quarrel with the trucu-
lent Yankee, he had fortunately sufficient self-
command to curb his indignation, and proposed
that his claim to the ownership of the bird should
be at once put to the test by an experiment,
which several Americans who were present ad-
mitted to be perfectly reasonable, and in which
their countryman was at last persuaded to acqui-
esce. It was this. Captain Johnson was to be
admitted to an interview with the hawk who, by
the way, had as yet shown no partiality for any
person since her arrival in the New World, but
on the contrary had rather repelled all attempts
at familiarity and if at this meeting she should
not only exhibit such unequivocal signs of attach-
ment and recognition as should induce the ma-
jority of the bystanders to believe that he really
was her original master, but especially if she
180 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
should play with the buttons of his coat, then the
American was at once to waive all claim to her.
The trial was immediately made. The Yankee
went up stairs, and shortly returned with the
falcon ; but the door was hardly opened before
she darted from his fist and perched at once on
the shoulder of her beloved and long lost protec-
tor, evincing by every means in her power, her
delight and affection, rubbing her head against
his cheek and taking hold of the buttons of his
coat and champing them playfully between her
mandibles, one after another. This was enough.
The jury were unanimous. A verdict for the
plaintiff was pronounced : even the obdurate heart
of the sea captain was melted, and the falcon
was at once restored to the arms of her rightful
owner.
HAUNTS OF THE PHEASANT. 181
CHAPTER X.
" For if a hope of safety rest,
'Tis in the sacred name of guest,
Who seeks for shelter, storm distress'd,
Within a chieftain's hall."
WALTER SCOTT.
Favorite Haunts of the Pheasant in a state of Nature A
more general Distribution of the Species desirable
Inefficiency of the Game Laws Importance of a quiet
and secure Place of Retreat Asylum for Pheasants at
Walton Hall Descriptive Sketch Crowing of Cock
Pheasants Scenery Valley of the Rother Singular
Occurrence Importance of Evergreen Timber Trees in
Preserves.
EXTENSIVE oak forests and woods affording
a considerable surface of ground cover, intersected
by shallow streams, appear favourable to the
pheasant in a state of nature. Thus in parts of
Austria, Bohemia, and Bavaria they have been
known to increase more rapidly and to acquire a
firmer footing than even in some of the agricul-
tural counties of England where every pains has
been taken to establish them. This may be still
further attributable to the greater strictness with
which the game laws and forest regulations of the
182 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
Continent have been generally enforced, as well
as to a comparatively scanty population, and the
absence of those luxuries and incentives to crime
which too frequently follow in the wake of re-
finement.
It is admitted by all who deserve the name
of sportsmen, that a general distribution of the
pheasant throughout the length and breadth of
the land, would tend more to a desirable result
than the concentration of the species within the
narrow limits of an overcrowded preserve. With-
out any reference to the manufacturing districts,
where indeed the thing would appear to be almost
impracticable, there are still vast tracts of country
in the agricultural parts of England where the
bird is almost unknown, and yet where, by a little
care, and the cordial cooperation of all who have
an interest in the soil, it might be established in
moderate numbers. It may be objected that the
strict administration of the existing game laws
inefficient as they are would be attended with
such a degree of odium that the experiment,
even if successful, would not be worth the trial
that ' le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle ' that they
will probably soon be materially altered or re-
pealed. Granted. But as long as they remain on
the statute book, the judicious exercise of their
provisions may generally be safely adhered to, and
ASYLUM FOR PHEASANTS. 183
prospective legislation has nothing whatever to do
with the subject of the present chapter. Even in
an ornithological point of view the pheasant is a
most interesting bird. There is many a walled
and wooded park, to which he is now a stranger,
where he might be easily introduced and estab-
lished, simply by providing him with suitable food
and secure places of retreat and concealment at
all seasons of the year, almost without having
recourse to the modern system of preservation, or
the intervention of keepers and game laws.
During a delightful visit which I paid lately to
Mr. Waterton, at Walton Hall ; among the thou-
sand objects of interest that crowd upon the
attention of the naturalist, I had the gratification
of seeing an asylum for pheasants planted about
twenty years ago, and which now appears to be
the very beau ideal of everything that could be
wished for in that way. Local circumstances
indeed, over which he had no control, induced
him some years since to relinquish the preserva-
tion of those birds on his property, but I re-
joiced to learn from him that it is his intention
shortly to introduce a sufficient number to add
to the interest of a scene that already possesses
so many ornithological attractions, and to occupy
a spot where, as soon as they have arrived
at years of discretion, they may equally laugh
184 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
to scorn the cat, the stoat, the fox and the
poacher.
This paradise for pheasants is situated in an
open part of the park, not far from the lake. A
thick hedge of holly surrounds a clump of yew
trees, in an oval form, and is rendered still more
secure by a ditch which encircles it externally.
This holly hedge is regularly clipped and quite
impenetrable from top to bottom ; being in fact
an evergreen wall, and the only entrance is by a
small gate which is carefully locked. Within, a
narrow space intervenes between it and the yew
trees, which being also constantly cut on the top
and underneath, have so spread and interwoven
their lateral branches as to form a dense verdant
canopy overhead, through which not a single ray
of light can penetrate. To enter this evergreen
grotto it is necessary to stoop very low through a
little archway cut in the thick foliage, but when
once arrived at the interior a man may stand
almost upright. Then, and not until then, the
advantages of the place as an asylum for pheasants
become evident. There is no under cover or
brushwood, and therefore no inducement to the
birds to sleep on the ground where they too
frequently, in less favoured spots, become the
prey of nocturnal four-footed vermin ; while the
horizontal branches of the yew trees afford every-
DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH. 185
thing desirable in a roosting place. Even during
the day it would be difficult to perceive a pheasant
when perched among them. If notwithstanding
all these obstacles to the ingress of an unwel-
come visitor, one should succeed in reaching the
centre of the clump and alarm the pheasants, they
would drop quietly from the branches of the yews
upon the smooth ground, and running through
the hollow space below towards the exterior, ar-
rive at once in the narrow passage between them
and the holly hedge where there is sufficient room
to enable them to start from the ground, and
their first appearance from the outside would be
just as they topped the summit in a rapid flight
to another place of security. Such a spot is of
course secure from the depredations of the night
shooter; and the impenetrable nature of the
hollies, through which even the pheasants them-
selves cannot force a passage, baffles at the same
time the machinations of the wirer and trapper.
I was delighted to see a second clump of the
same sort at some distance, which has been
planted about five or six years, and promises to
equal that which I have attempted to describe,
when it has seen as many summers.
It may be objected that the length of time that
must elapse before it can arrive at perfection, is a
serious drawback to the practical utility of such a
186 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
perfect retreat for pheasants. But surely this
consideration ought not to influence those who
have it in their power to create them on their
ancestral domains, and who have a park or landed
property of any kind to bequeath to their succes-
sors. The first expense and labour are com-
paratively trifling ; and beyond these there is
no difficulty. They may be laid out on any
open space of ground that has the advantage
of water in its neighbourhood ; may be planned
of any size, and multiplied to any extent, accord-
ing to the dimensions or capabilities of the park
or estate. Food should be liberally supplied. It
should be placed inside, under the yew trees.
Jerusalem artichokes, boiled potatoes and beans
are better than barley or buckwheat, not being
liable to be devoured by sparrows and other small
granivorous birds which have a strong predilec-
tion for all kinds of cereal grain.
The importance of evergreen timber trees in
extensive preserves has been too much overlooked
in general. I am not now alluding to yews and
hollies, which take many years in coming to per-
fection, or at least before they can form secure
roosting places for pheasants. Scotch, spruce,
and silver firs ought to be planted liberally. A
well-known and frequently fatal habit of the cock
pheasant that of crowing several times when he
CROWING OF COCK PHEASANTS. 187
first ascends to his roosting place in the evening,
and so giving notice of his whereabouts to the
attentive poacher would thus be in a great mea-
sure neutralized. I speak from personal expe-
rience when I say that it is impossible, even with
the aid of moonlight, to perceive the form of a
pheasant among the upper branches of a fir tree,
while on the darkest night I have succeeded in
discerning his profile against the sky among the
leafless boughs of the oak and the elm. But the
habit of crowing, indulged in at all hours of the
day during the breeding season, is not restricted
to the purposes of love or the hour of rest. The
same note is uttered on quitting his perch at
early dawn, and the sound of thunder or distant
cannon never fails to produce it. How often,
though at a distance of thirty miles, have I heard
it elicited by the booming of the Portsmouth
guns, when the weather was calm, or the wind in
a favourable quarter. But the most remarkable
instance of this kind that ever came under my
notice occurred on the llth of March, 1850. It
was a clear sunny day, the air cold and frosty,
with a gentle breeze from the north-east. I had
been riding through Charlton forest, and had just
begun to descend the northern slope of the downs
by a rugged path above the village of Graffham,
when I was induced to halt for a moment to ad-
188 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
mire the magnificent panoramic view that here
suddenly bursts upon the sight. The dark hang-
ing woods of Lavington clothed the steep hills on
one side, while on the other their natural forms
were varied by smaller clumps of beech and
juniper. Below me lay the long and picturesque
valley of the Rother, extending from the borders
of Hampshire as far as the eye could reach, and
varied with wild, heathery commons, evergreen
woods, brown copses, and cultivated fields. Im-
mediately opposite was the elevated range of the
lower green sandstone formation which forms the
southern boundary of the weald of West Sussex ;
beyond which again, in the distance, might be
seen the blue outline of the Surrey downs as they
stretched far away into the eastern horizon. I
had not gazed long upon this magnificent scene
before a deep hollow booming, or protracted con-
cussion for it was rather felt than heard shook
the earth for some seconds. At the same moment
a pheasant in an adjoining copse announced his
consciousness of the shock by a sudden crowing,
which had hardly ceased before a second explo-
sion, succeeded after another interval by a third
the loudest of all induced every cock pheasant
in the woods of Lavington to sound his note of
alarm. As to myself, I confess I was puzzled
how to account for the phenomenon. It was
EVERGREEN TIMBER IN PRESERVES. 189
quite different from the rumble produced even by
the loudest artillery, and the clear cloudless sky
forbade the supposition of its being caused by
even distant thunder. On my way home I passed
several persons who had heard it, and many of
whom had noticed its effect on the pheasants,
especially one party of labourers who were em-
ployed in repairing a fence near a long hanger
one of the best preserves in the county they told
me that a loud and long continued crowing pro-
ceeded from all parts of the wood for many
minutes after the last explosion. They too were
unable to conjecture the cause of the sound, nor
was the mystery unravelled until the following
day, when intelligence arrived of the awful ex-
plosion and loss of life at Messrs. Curtis and
Harvey's powder mills at Hounslow, nearly fifty
miles in a direct line from the spot where I
heard it.
But to return from this digression. The rapid
growth of Scotch and spruce firs recommend them
to the notice of every game preserver ; indeed the
horizontal branches and dense foliage of the
latter afford at once unrivalled facilities for perch-
ing, and warm situations for roosting during the
most inclement winters. I have seen the advan-
tages of such an experiment in a wood belonging
to a friend of mine, not many miles from the spot
190 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
in which I am now writing. If the ground under-
neath be covered with gorse so much the better.
With gorse below and spruce firs above, the night
shooter is sadly puzzled ; and I have observed that
old pheasants not only prefer these trees for their
roosting places, but resort to their branches at an
earlier period of the evening than to the more
exposed boughs of the oak, as if from a sense of
the greater security that they afford. At any
rate no large cover ought to be selected for the
preservation of pheasants, in a country where
night poaching is prevalent, that is not diversified
with some clumps or patches of firs or pines.
Such a precaution, with a fair supply of stuffed
or wooden pheasants, stuck by wires on deciduous
trees in other parts of the coppice on which
these worthies may be allowed to expend their
ammunition with impunity would greatly facili-
tate the nocturnal preservation of the pheasant in
any district where he is already established, and
might prevent many a bloody affray, and the loss
of many a faithful servant in a deadly encounter
with superior numbers, which must always be
equally deprecated by the sportsman and the
philanthropist.
DANGERS OF THE BREEDING SEASON. 191
CHAPTER XI.
" Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves." VIRGIL.
Injuries inflicted on various Birds during the Breeding Season
Robbery of Eggs Plover's Eggs Eggs of Terns and
Gulls Blackheaded Gulls Preserves of those Birds
Gullery at Scoulton The Gannet or Solan Goose Wild
Geese and Ducks The Eider Duck Its Distribution
and Domestic Economy Plunder of the Eggs and Down
Traffic in the Eggs of Rare Birds Injurious Conse-
quences Scientific and Amateur Collectors Eagles'
Eggs French and Dutch Purveyors Tricks of the
Trade Depredations committed on Game Birds during
Incubation The Red Grouse Feathered Bandits
Grouse and i Scaul Crows' Poachers The Egg Stealer
the most Mischievous and Difficult to Detect Indirect
Encouragement thoughtlessly afforded Pheasants' Nests
Habits of the Hen Pheasant Tactics of the Egg
Stealer Ignorance of Game-keepers Persecution of
comparatively Harmless Animals Duties of a Keeper
during the Breeding Season.
MANY kinds of wading and swimming as well
as gallinaceous birds suffer more during the period
of incubation than at any other season of the
year. The straightforward sportsman, however
successful and indefatigable he may be, nay even
192 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
the punt-shooter with his swivel gun, who bags
his two or three score at a shot, and maims and
wounds even more than he bags, destroys but a
tithe of the members of the feathered creation,
compared with him who plies his trade during the
breeding season in the woods or the swamps, the
heather or the glen, the sea-girt precipices or the
rocky islands where so many species love to rear
their young, whose existence is too often prema-
turely nipped in the bud where the eggs are
sought after as food or for the purposes of traffic
by the neighbouring inhabitants.
As a direct and favourite article of luxury for
the table, perhaps that of the peewit or lapwing
(vanellus cristatus) is the best known in the
British islands. The moors of Scotland and
Yorkshire, the bogs of Ireland, the sandy rabbit-
warrens of Norfolk, the fens of Lincolnshire and
Cambridgeshire, and most of the maritime swamps
of the kingdom abound with these birds in the
months of April and May, and indeed there is
scarcely an extensive common in any part of
England, which has hitherto escaped the draining
improvements of modern agriculture, where they
may not be found during the breeding season, and
where a spring harvest of plovers' eggs is not
annually reaped. The grand emporium is of
course the Metropolis itself, and the trade is
PLOVER'S EGGS. 193
carried on more briskly in those breeding stations
which are moderately near to, or have a direct
communication with large towns, than in remoter
districts. Thus from Romney Marsh alone, two
hundred dozen were sent to Dover in 1839, the
greater portion of which probably found their
way to London. In that part of Kent the traffic
is so profitable that dogs are regularly trained to
hunt for the eggs, a practice which is not confined
to that county. In the remoter districts of Wales
and Ireland, however, I have frequently found lap-
wings during the summer, in the enjoyment of
perfect immunity from man. Among the upland
marshes in the unreclaimed portions of the latter
country, this species as well as the golden plover
and the common snipe, breed in considerable
numbers. Their grand enemy there appeared to
be the hooded crow, who was always on the watch
ready to pounce on any nest that might have
been momentarily quitted by its luckless owner,
and who frequently carried off his prize transfixed
on his beak, in spite of the loud cries and warlike
aerial manoeuvres of whole troops of peewits, who
eagerly combined in their efforts to expel the
common enemy.
Like most birds of this class, the lapwing lays
but four eggs, which are usually deposited in a
slight depression on some partially elevated
194 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
mound or tussock, and lined with dry grass,
sedge, rushes, or twigs of heather. By the way,
the prevalent notion that the eggs of the rook are
frequently sold as those of the plover is without
foundation simply because they bear no resem-
blance whatever to each other, and even the most
unscrupulous vendor would hardly dare to attempt
so palpable a hoax on the least experienced of
purchasers. That of the peewit is pear-shaped
as is the case with most grallatores that is to say,
it is considerably attenuated at the narrower end.
The ground colour is brownish olive, and the sur-
face is blotched with large and irregular patches
of rusty black. It is moreover half as large again
as the rook's, which is of an oval form, the ground
tint bluish green, with slate coloured and darker
marks not unlike those on the egg of a blackbird
which indeed might almost be considered a
miniature likeness of the rook's. The most fasti-
dious epicure may therefore make his mind easy
on this subject.
The eggs of the ruff (machetes pugnax), the red-
shank (totanus calidris), the golden plover, (cha-
radrius pluvialis) and other vermivorous waders ;
nay even those of many species of gulls and terns
bear a much stronger resemblance to the lap-
wing's, and no doubt frequently find their way
into the market under the denomination of ' plo-
BLACK-HEADED GULLS. 195
ver's eggs ; ' but the deception is unimportant :
most of the former are quite as delicate ; and even
of the latter, when new-laid and hard-boiled, the
flavour is unexceptionable, as I can vouch from
personal, experience, having myself taken them
for the express purpose of submitting them to
this culinary test. If gathered when they are
some days old, or in the least degree stale, they
have doubtless a certain fishy taste which would
prove disagreeable to a refined palate.
The black-headed gull (larus ridibundus) still
breeds in immense numbers on some of the
marshy islands which are situated among the
inland lakes of Scotland and the eastern counties
of England. During winter it frequents the flat
shores of the coast, especially near the mouths
of great rivers, but on the return of spring in-
variably revisits its usual inland haunts. In
former days, when the young of these birds, as
well as their eggs, were considered a delicacy, a
preserve of this kind was said to have produced a
rent of from 501. to SOL a year. The latter are
still highly prized, as would appear from an ac-
count of the gullery at Scoulton, in Norfolk, by
the Rev. R. Lubbock, who says that " the swampy
island upon which they breed occupies a great
portion of the mere, and the gulls are indeed in
myriads upon it. The worthy proprietor does
K 2
196 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
not suffer them to be unfairly molested. A por-
tion of the eggs is always taken ; and their num-
bers may be judged of from the fact that an
average season produces more than 30,000 eggs,
Five years back the keeper said they took 44,000.
Parts of their abode are so swampy that no one
can walk there to gather eggs, which of course
tends to the maintenance of their numbers. Now
and then a year of jubilee is given, and no eggs
taken ; this was done lately at the instance of the
neighbouring farmers, who justly value the ser-
vices of these birds in the destruction of grubs."
The gannet (sula bassana) breeds in consider-
able numbers on Ailsa Craig, and on certain parts
of the west and south-west coast of Ireland. On
the Bass rock, at the entrance to the Frith of
Forth, their nests are mercilessly plundered every
year of the young, in a partially fledged state,
from the sale of whose down and feathers, as well
as of their bodies, the person who rents this iso-
lated cliff reaps a tolerable revenue : he has thus
the power and exercises it of preventing
parties of Leith gunners from anchoring under
the precipice and expending their ammunition on
the old ones ; but when we recollect that the
gannet hatches but one egg, that each pair of
adults has therefore but a single young one,
and that great numbers of immature birds are
EGGS OF WILD GEESE, ETC. 197
taken from this spot every year, and even find
their way into the Edinburgh market, where they
are said to be highly prized by certain epicures
of modern Athens while at the same time the
tenant can afford to pay a high rent for his privi-
lege it is obvious that the casualties to which
this species is liable at other seasons of the year
must be comparatively trifling, or that the natural
laws which govern its general increase and dimi-
nution must be very different from those which
influence the various families of the gallinaceous
order.
The eggs of the guillemot (uria troile) and
razorbill (alca torda) constitute an important
article of traffic on various parts of the British
coast, where the lofty precipices, on the narrow
ledges of which these birds deposit their eggs, are
constantly explored during the month of May and
the early part of June by adventurous cragsmen
who have been inured from their boyhood to
this dangerous art. Mr. Water ton, in the first
series of his ' Essays on Natural History/ has
given a graphic description of such a scene, in
which he was himself a principal actor, on the
cliffs which extend from Flamborough Head as
far as the bay of Filey on the Yorkshire coast.
Many members of the great family of anatidce
(ducks, geese and swans) which used to frequent
198 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
the British shores especially the remoter parts
of Scotland during the season of incubation,
have now become exceedingly scarce at that
period of the year even in localities apparently
well adapted to their habits. The high value at-
tached to the eggs of the rarer species, as cabinet
specimens, has mainly contributed to this result,
for the vast quantities that appear in the London
markets during the winter months which are
mainly supplied from the decoys of Holland,
or from the now declining establishments of a
similar kind in our own country have nearly all
passed the preceding summer in the boundless
morasses of Scandinavia or of eastern Europe.
But perhaps of all birds that have been doomed
to contribute to the comforts or luxuries of man,
without at the same time paying the penalty of
death, the eider duck (somateria mollissima) is the
most remarkable, and its history the most interest-
ing. The eider is to the native of Shetland and
to some of the remoter islands farther north, what
the reindeer is to the Laplander, and the seal to
the Greenland fisherman, supplying him at once
with food and raiment. It has been found in the
highest latitudes yet discovered by man, both in
Europe and America, and is abundant on the
coast of Greenland, and on certain islands on
the western shores of Norway, where the birds
THE EIDER DUCK. 199
and their nests are strictly preserved. The state
of Maine would appear to be its most southern
limit in America during the breeding season, and
the Fern Islands in Great Britain in the latter
situation however its numbers have sadly de-
creased but it must be regarded as only a rare
and accidental winter visitor to other parts of
England. It is singular enough that in all these
countries, although so remote from each other,
the value of the down as an article of clothing
and commerce, and of the eggs as food, should be
equally well known to the natives. The eider
belongs to the marine division of the anatidte, in
which section we find a form more adapted for
diving than for rapid flight or terrestrial progres-
sion. The legs are larger than in the true ducks,
and placed farther back, the webs are wider, the
toes longer, and the hind one furnished with a
lobe ; and the keel of the sternum, or breast-
bone, is comparatively of but little depth ; while
the food consists of slugs, insects, and mollusca,
and is not of a vegetable nature, like that of the
teal, wigeon and mallard.
The male eider is a handsome bird, nearly as
large as a goose, his colours black and white, with
a large patch of light pea green on the upper
portion of each side of his neck: the female is
somewhat smaller and clad in more homely attire,
200 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
her plumage presenting a quaker-like mixture of
different shades of brown and grey. Her nest,
which is usually in an exposed situation, is com-
posed of coarse marine grass, seaweed, or bent,
and is invariably lined with a considerable quan-
tity of fine elastic down, which she plucks from
her breast, and in which the eggs, four and some-
times five in number, are more than half con-
cealed. It is even said that she will persevere in
this operation and continue to lay after both eggs
and down have been removed, and that when her
bosom has been at last quite denuded, her faithful
partner will contribute to the stock by drawing
largely on the resources of his own warm waist-
coat, as long as a single egg remains in the nest.
Like every other rare and important article of
commerce, it is apt to be adulterated, and is fre-
quently mixed with that of gulls, puffins, and
divers, by which its value is greatly deteriorated,
but the genuine eider-down is so fine and almost
impalpable, until pressed together, that, according
to Pennant, a quantity sufficient to fill a hat will
weigh no more than three quarters of an ounce,
and another authority (Wilson) states that al-
though three pounds weight may be compressed
into the size of a man's fist, yet such are its elastic
powers, that when shaken out it will expand so
as to fill a quilt five feet square.
TRAFFIC IN EGGS OF RARE BIRDS. 201
Although so wary and difficult of approach
when occasionally met with in the winter by the
wildfowl shooter, yet the tameness of the eider
during incubation is so great that it will fre-
quently suffer itself to be lifted off the nest, and
in certain parts of Greenland, Spitzbergen, and
Iceland, these are so crowded together that it is
difficult for the intruder to avoid crushing their
contents under his feet. The birds however
would appear to be conscious of their value to
man : indeed in certain situations they have been
known to select the ruins of old buildings as the
site of their domiciles ; and although in all those
parts of the temperate and frigid zones where
they are established during the breeding season, a
systematic plunder is carried on every day, yet
they appear to be under no apprehension for their
personal safety. The fable of the goose that laid
the golden eggs would indeed be realized if the
bird itself were to be killed ; but the natives are
wiser in their generation than the clown in jEsop ;
for it is a singular fact that the down on the
breast of a dead eider almost instantly loses its
elasticity and value.
But the traffic in eggs, as an article of food, is
after all limited to comparatively few kinds of
birds. The high price which is given by amateur
collectors has tended far more to reduce the num-
K 5
202 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
ber of some of the rarest ; the anxiety to obtain
such curiosities, and the local temptations to pro-
cure them at all hazards, being of course in the
same ratio as the scarcity of the species.
Besides the active trade carried on in this line
by purveyors from France and Holland ; even in
Orkney and Shetland, and the remote parts of
Scotland, the value of the eggs of the golden and
of the sea eagle are so well known to shepherds
and keepers that there is every probability of
these noble birds especially the former, whose
eyrie is generally on inland cliffs being more
effectually extirpated from this cause than from
any other. Although a recent specimen of ' the
king of the birds ' would always prove a welcome
acquisition to a museum, yet ignorance of the art
of taxidermy in these distant places, the diffi-
culty of preserving the body untainted in the
flesh until a moment of leisure, the probability
of its being too much lacerated by a successful
shot to admit of even a rude process being carried
into effect, and the chance of its falling over the
cliffs and being irretrievably lost ; all combine to
render these worthies less anxious to destroy the
birds themselves than to obtain their eggs, which
are easily blown, are comparatively portable, and
have lately become in such request that they
fetch, on the spot, from a pound to thirty shillings
TRICKS OF THE TRADE. 203
each ; indeed I have known a larger sum given for
a very ambiguous looking specimen in England,
6 warranted from the golden eagle/ but which to
an experienced eye had an unmistakeable look of
having emanated from a Norfolk turkey-yard.
The peregrine falcon, the osprey, the kite, the
black-throated diver, and many others come under
the same category; their eggs are sought after
with the greatest avidity, and the price asked and
frequently given for them would be almost incre-
dible if it were not well authenticated.
To a similar cause probably, as well as to its
large size and the exposed situation of its nest,
the bustard owes its now almost total extinction
in England. In Norfolk, which was, or is, its last
stronghold, the egg has for many years been worth
a guinea to him who was fortunate enough to find
it. As a natural consequence of this state of
things a set of itinerant charlatans have for some
time, and too frequently with success, driven a
thriving business by selling counterfeit specimens
of this and of almost every other valuable species
of egg. The deception is frequently so perfect
as to take in many an honest dealer who hereto-
fore nattered himself that he was ' up to ' all the
' tricks of the trade/ and who would himself have
scorned to foist them in retail upon his own cus-
tomers. The great similarity which the eggs of
204 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
many congenerous birds bear to each other, espe-
cially in the wading and swimming divisions, and
at the same time the remarkable variety in the
superficial markings which even those taken from
the same nest frequently present, has suggested
one simple and easy mode of deception. Thus,
for example, an egg of the great black-backed
gull (larus marinus), differing perhaps slightly in
colour from the more usual type, will be labelled
' Glaucous Gull ' in the travelling boxes of these
crafty pedlars ; that of the common tern, ' Gull-
billed tern,' or ' Roseate tern ; ' a snipe's egg of
unusual dimensions will figure as belonging to
the ' Great, or Solitary Snipe,' while a diminu-
tive example of that of the landrail will be in-
scribed ' Spotted Crake,' or ' Baillon's Crake,' &c.
But the art is carried to a still higher pitch of
refinement. The exterior coat of many of the
commoner eggs among which those of the goose
and turkey play a conspicuous part is first re-
moved by some chemical process. The new sur-
face is then stained of an appropriate ground tint,
and an elaborate and cunningly devised tracery,
exactly resembling the blotches and ramifications
on the egg which it is intended to represent, is
painted upon it, in some adhesive body colour,
which when complete, and coming from the hands
of a finished professor, would not only pass muster
NESTS OF THE RED GROUSE. 205
in the cabinets of the generality of amateurs, but
might deceive even the most learned of our scien-
tific oologists.
It would appear that feathered game, and in-
deed gallinaceous birds of all kinds, are exposed to
more formidable foes than the members of any
other order in this class of animated beings, and
require legal protection and care in a greater or
less degree, not merely to ensure their increase,
but even to prevent their extinction.* Occupy-
ing the same station (rasores) among birds, as do
cattle (ruminantia) among quadrupeds, their con-
siderable size and comparatively defenceless struc-
ture render them an acceptable feast and an easy
prey to their numerous enemies.
The nests of the red grouse and indeed even
of the ptarmigan, suffer from the attacks of a
feathered plunderer, whose depredations on the
heaths and mountains, it must be confessed, far
exceed those of any other. This is the hooded
crow (corvus comix). When we recollect the
nature of the country that these birds frequent,
their immense numbers, the facility with which
* This has once occurred with the capercaillie in Scotland,
where it was strictly indigenous ; and who can doubt that the
pheasant an exotic would eventually share the same fate in
England, if the game laws, deficient arid unsatisfactory as they
are, were to be repealed.
206 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
the nests of moor-game can be detected by even
a less cunning and quick-sighted forager to say
nothing of their own domestic establishments
being often in the immediate vicinity, with a
hungry family crying for food it is only marvel-
lous how the grouse continues to survive on
certain unpreserved maritime tracts of Scotland
and Ireland. Compared with this crow, the eagle,
the buzzard, even the peregrine falcon herself are
almost innocent and at least honourable enemies ;
nay even the fox is harmless when measured by
the same standard. I speak from experience.
After an absence of several years I found myself,
during the autumn of 1848, among some of the
wildest mountains of Mayo. There first in early
boyhood I loved to gaze at the eagle as he
soared among the clouds, or peeped with thrilling
interest over the stupendous precipices peopled
with myriads of water-birds, whose discordant
cries mingled with the roar of the Atlantic.
There first I learned to climb the heathery hill,
to point the gun, or mark down the dusky pack
under the guidance of my Highland preceptor,
and enjoyed many a day's grouse shooting to say
nothing of hares and woodcocks that might not
have disgraced Caledonia herself. Well, the
eagle was still there ; so was my old friend the
peregrine ; their ancient eyries were still occupied
.,. ,
;* Jn
GROUSE AND ' SCAUL CROWS.' 207
either by the same birds or their descendants, and
no rival stronghold had been established on the
cliffs ; even the fox had not materially increased
as I learned from the best authority, the wives
of the poor squatters who were quartered on the
outskirts of this wild region, and whose whole
wealth consisted of their pig and their poultry
but the grouse were sadly reduced ; in fact they
had almost disappeared, and in their place vast
numbers of the hooded crow were scattered over
the face of the country. Not a turf-stack or pro-
jecting rock but was occupied by groups of these
banditti-looking birds, not a clod or tussock even
partially elevated above the heath but one of
them was perched on the summit ; vigilant, wary,
and shy, as if ever on the watch to escape the
punishment due to his misdeeds. With his nest
securely lodged on the inaccessible shelves of the
precipices, he laughs at open warfare, and it is
only by stratagem that man can be a match for
him. In former times you might have traversed
these mountains for an entire day without seeing
a dozen ' scaul crows ; ' the trap, artfully set in .
the mock nest of a grouse and baited with the egg
of a gull or any other bird, was an infallible de-
vice ; or the shell, emptied of its contents, and
filled with melted fat and nux vomica was too
strong a temptation to be resisted, and thus the
208 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
numbers of this prolific and really mischievous
crow for he occasionally varies his sport by dig-
ging out the eyes of young lambs were kept
within due limits.*
In many parts of Scotland and the north of Eng-
land, the blackcock and the partridge also suffer
from his depredations, but in the central and
southern portions of the island, he is fortunately
only a winter visitor, although in an open country
where extensive downs and flat table-land prevail,
with wide fields and stone fences, the partridge cer-
tainly finds a dangerous neighbour in the magpie,
to whose malpractices such districts are peculiarly
favourable ; nevertheless, his arch-enemy is the
human poacher, and there is no period through-
out the whole year when so much injury is done
to this bird and to the pheasant as during the
early laying season. Keepers are wont to attri-
bute all robberies of this kind to what they call
6 vermin,' winged or four-footed, and accordingly
wage an implacable war against every bird and
* Mr. St. John, in his ' Field Notes and Tour in Sutherland/
says that even the osprey during nidification is closely watched
by the hooded crows and the nest frequently plundered in the
absence of the female ; and he remarks, with true sports-
manlike feeling, " The hooded crow is the only bird against
whom I wage constant and unpitying warfare. I have so often
detected them destroying my most favourite birds and their
eggs that I have no pity on them."
EGG STEALERS. 209
quadruped which is not included in the game-
list. It cannot be denied that the guilty suffer
on these occasions as well as the innocent, and
where the intention of the proprietor is to raise
an unnaturally large head of pheasants, the de-
struction of magpies and carrion crows, as well
as of stoats and weasels, will tend to promote
that object : but there are one or two points of
importance which seem to have escaped the atten-
tion of these gentlemen and their myrmidons,
in the neglect of which they ' strain at the gnat
and swallow the camel.' In the first place, while
it is freely admitted that a predilection for new-
laid eggs the natural food at this season of some
animals which have been placed by Providence
as a check upon the excessive increase of others
will cause many an overt act of petty larceny on
the part of certain feathered bipeds, yet it is
to man himself that the most serious and whole-
sale depredations, at this time of the year, are to
be attributed. Of all the varieties of the genus
poacher and their name is legion the egg-
stealer is at once the meanest as well as the most
mischievous and difficult to detect. Without a
spark of the mere brute courage that animates
the night-shooter, or the skill, and talent for
evading discovery, which characterize the suc-
cessful wirer or trapper, he possesses not a single
210 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
redeeming quality, and can have no claim what-
ever on the sympathies of even the most tender-
hearted philanthropist. That his trade is a pro-
fitable one there can be no doubt : the high price
asked and given for pheasants' eggs by London
dealers and their customers, is sufficient testimony
on this point. The modern rage for the battue
has mainly contributed to the success of this
degrading traffic. The comparative facility with
which a head of pheasants may be ' got up '
now-a-days in some suburban grove, by having
the eggs hatched under barn-door hens, and the
chicks reared in a state of partial domestication,
long after they are able to fly, has induced many
a worthy citizen, who would blush at the idea of
being the second-hand receiver of stolen goods, to
give an indirect encouragement to this branch of
crime. The pheasant is by no means fastidious
about his quarters so long as his daily rations
are liberally supplied : he will make himself as
much at home in a close shrubbery of laurels
and lilacs as in the wildest holt. It signifies not
that the plantation be of small extent, or even
destitute of ground cover or brushwood ; he is the
most accommodating bird in all these matters,
and modern invention has supplied a cheap and
simple substitute. So long as the place is fenced
and undisturbed, the rest is easy. A few wag-
PHEASANTS' NESTS. 211
gon loads of faggots, deposited here and there
in the copse, afford a ready shelter for the
more timid birds, who betake themselves at once
to this retreat at the first alarm from the ap-
proaching beaters, while a large heap at the
farthest corner serves as a temporary asylum to
the main body, and furnishes a grand finale to
the host and his gunner guests, who thus acquire
a better appetite for their turtle and turbot in
the afternoon, than a knowledge of fair play or
real British sport in the morning.
But to return. It cannot be denied that dur-
ing the laying season game-birds require at least
as much attention as is paid to them at other
times of the year ; and it would not be difficult
to show that an increased share of activity and
vigilance is then necessary on the part of their
protectors. It is true that Nature, ever kind,
has clothed the hen pheasant in a homely
garb, which in many an instance enables her
to elude observation, and thus renders her
better service than a coat of mail under similar
circumstances; but the practised thief has no
occasion to search for pheasants' nests. The eggs
are usually deposited in rank grass on the sides
of hedges and ditches, in narrow plantations, or in
meadows, clover, or corn-fields ; and very rarely
in the heart of great woods or covers, to which
212 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
localities the keeper is generally too apt to con-
fine his attention. When suddenly disturbed,
the hen will sometimes rise at once, as she would
if leaving the nest voluntarily in search of food,
and thus expose her treasure to the eyes of any
wandering clown who may have unintentionally
stumbled on the spot; but more frequently she
has recourse to artifice, and on the approach of
danger quietly slips off her eggs, and runs with a
noiseless pace for a considerable distance before
she takes wing. On returning to the nest, how-
ever, she adopts a different manoeuvre, and if
her only enemies were of that class usually de-
nominated vermin, it would almost invariably be
attended with success. She continues on the
wing until she arrives immediately over the nest,
and then drops at once upon it, thus leaving no
beaten track through the long grass by which
the indefatigable stoat or the prowling cat could
find a ready clue to her citadel, or which would
at once catch the eye of the cunning magpie or
the hungry crow while sailing over the field on a
foraging expedition. With the poacher, how-
ever, the case is different. He has only to secrete
himself under a tree or, it may be, to sit leisurely
on a neighbouring stile, immediately after feeding
time in the early morning or in the afternoon,
and watch the female bird as she returns to the
IGNORANCE OF GAME KEEPERS. 213
fields in the vicinity of the preserves. He fixes
his eye on her as she comes skimming over the
hedge and marks the exact spot where she drops
among the weeds, grass, or clover. If this should
happen not to be in the middle of the field, and
if anxious to secure his prize immediately, he
walks round with apparent unconcern keeping
close to the hedge all the time, and never once
taking his eyes from the spot until he arrives
at the point nearest to the nest, and then
stepping up quickly, bags the eggs as expe-
ditiously as possible : but should he think that
his tactics have been observed or his intentions
suspected, he coolly ' takes an observation ' by
means of trees, or any other prominent objects,
and accurately marking their relative bearing to
the situation of the nest, he is then at leisure
either to watch for a fresh arrival in the same
quarter, or to pursue his avocation in a differ ent
direction until the shades of evening enable him
to complete his work in security.
Against such wholesale depredations nothing
can effectually contend but a shrewd and intelli-
gent keeper, aided by honest and vigilant assist-
ants ; yet it is at this season that most preservers
are in the habit of dismissing many experienced
persons, who have been in constant employment
as watchers during the autumnal and winter
214} GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
months, when their services were comparatively of
little value. Considerable expense is frequently
incurred, and much pains taken, in endeavouring
to detect the night-shooter who confines his at-
tention to the birds themselves, and who, even
with every chance in his favour, can only secure
his plunder in detail and many accidental circum-
stances may lead to his discovery and punishment
while great facilities are blindly afforded to the
sneaking miscreant who plies his trade during the
season of incubation, and carries off with pro-
voking impunity a future family of pheasants or
partridges in the bottom of his pocket or in the
crown of his hat.
Again, to say nothing of his senseless and
cold-blooded persecution of many innocent birds
at this time of year such as the woodpecker, the
cuckoo, and the nightjar the keeper is too apt
to rely on his gun alone for the destruction of
those which are the natural enemies of game, as
well as of others whose depredations in that way
are but partial, but whose character may never-
theless have been compromised by an occasional
peccadillo. Accordingly, the fowling-piece is
seldom out of his hands during the breeding
season. Instead of showing himself on the out-
skirts of his beat at irregular periods and when
least expected, after having visited his traps in
PERSECUTION OF HARMLESS ANIMALS. 215
the early grey of the morning, he spends the
greater part of the day in the covers and planta-
tions, blazing away at the unfortunate squirrels
as in all the energy of early May, and little
anticipating their fate, they bound joyously from
spray to spray among the spreading branches of
the oak or cunningly imitating the call-note of
the merry jay an accomplishment, by the way,
on which the young aspirant especially prides
himself, and to the acquisition of which he devotes
a considerable portion of his time he attracts
numbers of this social bird to his place of conceal-
ment and shoots them without remorse ; thus at
once assisting in the extermination of a beautiful
and now rapidly diminishing species, alarming the
game and driving it either into a neighbouring
preserve, or still worse, perhaps to an adjoining
waste land or common the territory of the gypsy
and the tramper and proclaiming his own where-
abouts to the surrounding population of evil-
doers.
I have no wish to enter on an indiscriminate
defence of all my feathered favourites, or to shut
my eyes wilfully to the misdeeds of the carrion
crow, or the magpie. Their predilection for eggs
is undeniable ; it is strongly implanted in them by
nature, and amply do they suffer for the indul-
gence of this inherent propensity : but I firmly
216 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
believe that one ' unplumed biped ' * of a poacher,
possessing a moderate share of experience, and
in the unrestricted exercise of his calling, will
purloin a greater number of pheasants 1 eggs from
a preserve in a couple of days than all the un-
happy members of the genus corvus which the
keeper may shoot during an entire summer. In-
deed, a familiarity with firearms, except as re-
gards the art of cleaning his master's gun, is
perhaps the very last accomplishment that a
gamekeeper need possess. The trap is the pe-
culiar implement of his calling. An acquaintance
with the nature and habits of those animals that
are really detrimental to the objects of his care
and for which he possesses so many facilities will
enable him to adopt the most direct and effectual
modes of capturing them. He will discover for
the truth must be told that the abstraction of
eggs from that pheasant's nest, so snugly, and,
as he fondly imagined, so securely concealed
under a thick canopy of fern, and fenced with
impenetrable briars, was not the work of the poor
jay, or even of the vagrant crow, or the roving
magpie, but of the hypocritical hedgehog, the
most insatiable of all ovivorous British quadru-
peds whatever his well-meaning and amiable
* "Animal bipes implume" Plato's definition of man.
HINTS FOR GAMEKEEPERS. 217
defenders may say to the contrary. He will
learn that hawks do not meddle with eggs, and
that the mother-bird, during the process of incu-
bation, is secure from the attacks of the smaller
falconidce. The popular errors of his craft and
the fables of local tradition will be gradually ex-
posed to him as he prosecutes his inquiries and
learns to judge for himself. He will read in the
book of Nature, and without having recourse to
the pages of Aristotle, that the cuckoo is never
metamorphosed into a hawk ; that the barn-owl
never trespasses on his territory, and is besides
the most efficient of mousers ; that the services
of even the wood-owl amply atone for his occa-
sional misdemeanours, and that the sparrowhawk
and kestrel are birds of widely different habits,
and deserving of very opposite treatment at his
hands : he will learn to distinguish the guilty
from the innocent ; to punish the former and to
spare the latter ; and instead of being a noisy and
blundering persecutor of many harmless and even
useful animals, he will become a valuable servant
to his employer, and a rational member of the
community.
218 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
CHAPTER XII.
" Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And e'en the bare worn common is denied."
GOLDSMITH.
The Capercaillie Characteristic Habits Nature of the
Country suited to it Unsuccessful Attempts to Natu-
ralize it in England Restoration of the Capercaillie to
Scotland Mode of Management and Propagation
Present Condition of Capercaillie at Taymouth The
Black Grouse Its introduction into Ireland desirable
Natural facilities for its establishment there Obstacles
to its Increase in England Plan recommended Diffi-
culties to be surmounted Unity of Interest and Mutual
Advantage.
THE noble Capercaillie, or cock of the wood
(tetrao urogallus), after having disappeared from
the Scottish forests about sixty years ago, has
now been restored through the spirited exertions
of a few large landed proprietors, among whom
Lord Breadalbane stands preeminent.
The successful establishment of the pheasant
in England, though a native of the distant shores
of the Caspian sea and even of the yet more
remote regions of Cathay, might appear to en-
THE CAPERCAILLIE. 219
courage the hope that a similar attempt would,
under certain restrictions, prove equally so with
the great game bird of the North. But the
wild and roving habits of the capercaillie are
less favourable to naturalization in the highly
cultivated districts of England than those of the
comparatively docile Colchican. The capercaillie
is essentially a forester. He shuns the open
plain, and scorns such a limited range as could
be provided by any artificial plantations for which
the heaths and commons of the southern parts of
England might be adapted, while in the pine-
woods, and extensive tracts of the Highland
forests he can yet find space to roam compa-
ratively at large. Even the craggy mountains
of North Wales would not appear to offer him
a favourable resting place, for though their wild
grandeur and lofty peaks would seem to have
tempted the ptarmigan so peculiarly a moun-
taineer in his habits yet from some cause,
as yet imperfectly understood, this member of
the grouse family seems to have abandoned the
Welsh hills ; and even their loftiest eminences,
being so bleak and destitute of trees, would fail
to attract the capercaillie. Nevertheless, as
numerous wide-spreading plantations of larch
and fir have of late years been formed on the
hill sides, in some of the larger estates of Caer-
L 2
220 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
narvonshire, Merionethshire, &c., it is not
perhaps too much to hope that they may be
tenanted in some future day by the gigantic
Norwegian.
Some English proprietors have indeed at-
tempted the introduction of the cock of the
wood but ineffectually. So many circum-
stances must combine to conduct the experiment
to a happy issue, that the absence or failure of
any of these conditions has in several cases led
to disappointment of the most sanguine expecta-
tions. One of the most essential requisites how-
ever, and that which is absolutely the ( sine qua
nonj is a vast range of pine forest : a moderate,
or even a wide, extent of moor and heath, though
interspersed with large plantations, is insufficient
for the bold range of the capercaillie. He is not
to be restrained within ordinary boundaries, but
soon wanders beyond the circuit of any limited
protection ; when his large size, comparatively
defenceless habits, and tempting singularity of
appearance, expose him to many casualties,* and
* A friend informs me that "in 1842, or in 1843, Mr.
Drummond, M.P. of Albury Park, Surrey, turned down six
capercaillie, three cocks and three hens. One cock was killed
by a fox the same night that he was turned down, and two
hens were shot in the neighbourhood by mistake as unknown
birds."
CAPERCAILLIE AT TAYMOUTH. 221
thus it has but too often happened that the
endeavours to establish this species, by the intro-
duction of a few birds of both sexes into a cir-
cumscribed territory, have been, by some unlucky
disaster, crushed in the outset.
Through the kindness of a relative of Lord
Breadalbane, I am enabled to add a few particu-
lars connected with the present state and condition
of the capercaillie at Tay mouth (July 1850),
furnished by the intelligent head keeper, Mr.
Guthrie, to whose judicious management their
establishment and preservation are in a great
measure to be attributed. Ample details of the
most approved method of keeping the birds in
a state of confinement and of rearing the chicks
nearly similar to that pursued by Mr. Guthrie
are given in Mr. Yarrell's ' History of British
Birds'; but Mr. Guthrie found that the treatment
of the chicks, after the eggs had been hatched
under domestic hens, was attended with much
more difficulty than in the case of the pheasant.
Experience showed him that it was necessary
to move the coops to different parts of the forest
according to the state of the weather; placing
them, on a sunny day, under the shadow of
trees or among tall grass or fern; but during
damp or wet weather removing them to dry, bare,
or sandy spots. While transporting them from
222 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
one place to another he "put the chicks into
a small woollen bag, and the hen into a basket
covered with a cloth to keep her in the dark."
When a fortnight or three weeks had elapsed
he did not think it necessary to move the coops.
He remarks, " After a time I gave the young
birds very little food out of hand, except wild
berries, and as soon as I got them to feed on the
larch branches, I considered them safe. The
Scotch fir is rather hard for their bills when
young."
In 1838 and 1839, Lord Breadalbane received
from Norway fifty-four adult capercaillie : about
two-thirds of which were females. Some of them
were liberated in the forest, and others kept in a
large aviary for the purpose of procuring the eggs.
The plan of placing these in the nests of grey
hens, subsequently pursued by Mr. Guthrie,
proved eminently successful. The birds have
steadily increased of late years, and now " all the
old woods about Taymouth Castle are full of
capercaillie, such as Drummond Hill, Kenmore
Hill, Croftmorraig Hill, &c. Several migrate
every season down to Strath Tay, Blair Athol,
Dunkeld and the woods about CriefF;" so that
the truly noble enterprise originally undertaken
by Lord Breadalbane has been crowned with per-
fect success, and the king of the game birds may
THE BLACK GROUSE. 223
now be said to be restored to his hereditary do-
minions.
The black grouse or black game (tetrao tetrix]
is firmly established in Scotland and the north of
England. It belongs to the restricted genus
tetrao, of which this and the capercaillie are the
only two representatives in the British islands ;
the red grouse and the ptarmigan having been
placed in a separate genus (lagopus*) from the
peculiar nature of the foot, which is entirely
covered with short thick plumage.
In many respects the black cock would appear
to occupy a station intermediate between the red
grouse and the pheasant. Like the former it is par-
tial to the heather and the moors, but prefers the
lower valleys and the neighbourhood of water and
wood to the higher brows of the mountains ; and
although the tarsi are covered anteriorly and on
the sides with short feathers, yet the toes are
naked, and the external margins of each are fur-
nished with a series of short, comb-like teeth,
directed outwards, while the soles are remarkably
soft and elastic a peculiar conformation which is
still more distinctly developed in the capercaillie,
and which is admirably adapted for enabling him
to preserve a firm footing on the slippery boughs
* From Xcryos a hare, and TTOVS a foot.
GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
of the fir trees, during the severe storms and pro-
tracted frosts of a Scandinavian winter.
Again, unlike the red grouse, the black cock is
polygamous, as the pheasant is, and, in common
with all birds that evince similar Mahomedan pro-
pensities, the adult male is larger than the female,
and clothed with a shining metallic plumage,
while the latter is attired in a homely suit of
brown and grey, rendered nevertheless exceed-
ingly pleasing to the eye by the beautiful arrange-
ment of its tints and their occasional admixture
with transverse bars of black and white.
Extensive moors and swamps, with glens of
birch or covers of spruce or Scotch fir, are his
favourite haunts, while the hardy nature of the
bird, and his shy and wary habits during the
winter and spring months, have tended to prolong
his existence in many counties where even for
ages he has been but thinly distributed.
It is to be hoped that when better days dawn
upon the landed interest in Ireland, the in-
troduction of the black grouse will not be for-
gotten, and that the trial will be made upon
a larger scale, and upon a better system than
has yet been attempted. A few enterprising
sportsmen have indeed occasionally endeavoured
to lead the way in this undertaking, but their
isolated efforts have hitherto proved unsuccess-
PHEASANT AND BLACK GROUSE. 225
ful : and yet how great are the natural facilities
for the establishment of black game in that coun-
try ! Vast tracts of heather-clad, boggy moun-
tains require nothing but plantations of birch,
hazel, willows or alder among their lower glens,
to render them everything that could be desired
in a natural point of view, yet at this moment not
an individual of the species, I believe, exists in a
wild state throughout the entire island.
There have been many and more successful
attempts there of late years to encourage the
pheasant, as a park or shrubbery offers a field
sufficiently large for the experiment on a small
scale, whereas with black game a tract of moun-
tain, bog, or moor in combination with wood, is
necessary. Yet the former is, strictly speaking,
an exotic, and a wet climate is peculiarly unsuited
to him. The latter on the contrary requires a
swampy soil, and a sufficient extent of quick
growing cover might be easily raised for him
among the mountain valleys, while large woods or
forests of timber trees are more necessary for the
permanent establishment of the pheasant. Again,
the black grouse would soon possess that invalu-
able charm of which the pheasant could never
boast, that of being strictly fera naturd in those
wild and thinly inhabited regions a meet com-
panion for the moor fowl and the woodcock and
L 5
GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
how many causes, social and political as well as
natural, must tend to retard the increase of the
pheasant in that country ! Besides the dampness
of the climate and the scarcity of timber, the great
amount of population in the cultivated districts,
and the general disregard of all legal restrictions,
are far more serious obstacles ; and although from
its very rarity it is well suited as an ornament to
the park or pleasure grounds of a nobleman or
country gentleman, and may even serve, as a last
resource, to relieve the dulness of ' a blank day/
yet as an old woodcock and snipe shooter, I,
for one, should be sorry to see it occupying too
large a share of the attention of the Irish sports-
man.
On some of the well-wooded and extensive
estates in Wales, Scotland, and the north-east of
England, the pheasant has certainly been on the
increase of late years; and among the birchen
glens and moors, affords, together with black
game, a delightful combination of sport which the
southern shooter must generally sigh for in vain.
It is true that black grouse are still to be found
in a few highly favoured spots in Devonshire,
Dorsetshire, Hampshire and Sussex and even
there, the privileged sportsman who is permitted
to take the field can seldom depend on bagging
more than a brace or two after the first fortnight
RESTORATION OF BLACK GROUSE.
of the season but I have not been able to learn
that their numbers are augmented, as they might
be, by either of the two modes usually adopted
for the increase of pheasants viz., frequent im-
portations of fresh birds from a distance, or
having the eggs hatched and reared under do-
mestic hens, and the poults subsequently turned
down. It may be objected that the first of these
modes is attended with considerable expense, and
that the latter requires too much trouble, care,
and attention, to ensure its general adoption : but
it has often occurred to me that another, and very
different, plan might be tried with advantage, and
would be the more likely to prove successful be-
cause it would require but little interference on
the part of man, and almost the entire proceeding
might be safely left to the guidance of Nature
herself.
The idea first struck me when conversing some
years ago with a Scotch landed proprietor, who
told me that he had introduced the pheasant
among his black grouse by placing the eggs which
had been previously laid in an aviary in the nests
of grey hens.* One or two only were put into
each nest, in which about half the usual comple-
* The reader will have observed that the same system has
since been successfully adopted at Taymouth with the caper-
GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
ment had already been deposited by the rightful
owner. This was done during the temporary
absence of the female bird. The young pheasants
grew up with their foster brothers, partaking of
the same insect food, and showing a similar predi-
lection for most kinds of berries and certain
bulbous and tuberous roots during the latter part
of the summer ; and although disregarding the
tender shoots of the heather and bog myrtle,
which the black grouse devoured with avidity,
yet evincing of course a strong partiality for the
corn fields during the autumn, and for all kinds
of cereal grain, in which their sable friends
were ever ready to participate at the same
season.
It must be admitted that the chief obstacle to
the existence or increase of the black grouse in
the south of England is the genius of modern
agriculture. The rage for enclosing and draining
waste lands and commons where the soil, fre-
quently sandy and poor, can never repay the first
outlay of the wealthy experimentalist or the
subsequent labour of the husbandman has ex-
pelled it from many districts where it was of
frequent occurrence, even within the memory
of the present generation. But besides the
ancient forest moors, there are still several ex-
tensive heaths as for example, in West Sussex
PLAN SUGGESTED.
which, from their peculiar situation and the
present depreciated state of all farming produce,
are not likely, at least for many years, to be
absorbed in the surrounding tillage. Many of
these are intersected by clear streams, and broken
here and there with clumps and plantations of
alder, birch, hollies and fir trees, and adjoin,
or are included in, the manorial rights of exten-
sive neighbouring preserves. Pheasants, par-
tridges, a few snipes, and even woodcocks, are
found during different periods of the shooting
season ; but the black grouse is unknown.
Doubtless he was here the representative of the
tetraonidte in former days, but the very memory
of his existence has since faded away. Now,
reasoning from analogy, it has often struck me
that he might without much difficulty be re-
stored or introduced into these beautiful wastes
by simply reversing the process that has already
in the case to which I have alluded proved
successful in the North with the pheasant. The
food of the two species,- if not identical, is yet
sufficiently alike to render any objection on that
score unreasonable. The eggs are nearly of the
same size, and require about the same period
for incubation. Both birds are polygamous, and
so far from evincing any hostility to each other,
there are numerous instances of hybrids having
230 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
been produced between them.* The moors of
which I speak abound in plants which furnish
the favourite food of black game, such as whortle-
berries, bog myrtles, heather, dwarf willows,
young Scotch firs and birches; .and besides the
ample autumnal gleaning provided by the neigh-
bouring cornfields, the same barley-stack that
the keeper now raises for his pheasants in the
plantations, would prove equally attractive to
the northern emigrant during the winter season.
Indeed there seems to be but one important
though, I trust, not insuperable obstacle. Estates
in the south of England, however extensive, are
seldom included in ( a ring fence.' Many a little
tongue of moorland, or cover, or arable ground,
protrudes its unwelcome presence into the pre-
serves of the large landed proprietor, and proves
a thorn in the side of himself and his game-
keepers. These frequently belong to persons
in the middle class of life, who, although too
thrifty or penurious to assist in the main-
tenance or protection of game, are ever ready
* Mr. Yarrell has recorded thirteen examples, some of
which are illustrated by beautiful woodcuts. There is another
in the Chichester Museum which partakes strongly of the cha-
racter of both parents, and I have seen a very beautiful speci-
men at Hollycombe the residence of Sir Charles Taylor,
Bart. which was shot in Wolmer forest.
OBSTACLES TO ITS SUCCESS. 231
to destroy it : whose guns are never idle
during the shooting season, and whose larder
amply repays them for the unavoidable expense
of ammunition and a certificate. Such neigh-
bours must prove serious stumbling blocks in
the way of introducing any new species of the
gallinaceous order of birds, but, as I have already
ventured to hope, not insurmountable obstacles.
No true sportsman will regret the absence of the
isolated, overstocked preserve, if he can see a
fair sprinkling of different species of game birds
scattered over the face of the country. To
effect this the small proprietor should have a
direct interest in the matter, and the tenant must
be convinced that that of his landlord is in some
degree identical with his own. When this feeling
has once been established but not until then,
I fear will the farmer condescend to become
an ornithologist ; to listen calmly to reason ; to
perceive that the partridge and the pheasant are
really his friends during nine months out of the
twelve, and to admit the injustice of attributing
to them the injuries that have been committed
on his crops by hares, rats, and rabbits.
But even as matters stand at present. If the
borderers on the large estates could be made to
see that the introduction of the black grouse
would eventually tend to increase their own
232 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
share of the sport as soon as it was once
firmly established, the experiment might be
tried at once. If they would abstain for a few
seasons from shooting down any stray poult that
might wander into their beats, how amply would
they be recompensed for their forbearance !
There need be no excuse of mistaking the im-
mature bird for a young pheasant ; still less for
a partridge ; the shortness of the tail, on the one
hand ; and on the other, the length of the neck
which is protruded in flight after the manner
of a wild duck ought to be sufficient to pre-
vent the chance of such a mishap ; and in a few
years they might with due regard to sex
venture to pull the trigger without any conscien-
tious scruples, and congratulate themselves on
having been instrumental not only in making a
most valuable addition to the local list of game
birds, but in introducing one of the finest and
most palatable species of grouse into their own
larders*
THE ' RANDOM SHOT.' 233
CHAPTER XIII.
' Not dead ! Not yet quite dead ?
I that am cruel am yet merciful ;
I would not have thee linger in thy pain."
The 4 Random Shot' Field Sports Cruelty tempered by
Mercy Museum Lectures Maxims for Young Sports-
men Destructiveness of a Bad Shot A Case in Illus-
tration Retriever over-matched Evil Consequences of
Careless Shooting and Random Shots The best not infal-
lible Necessity and Use of a good Retriever The most
promising Breed Experiments and Observations Im-
portance of Discipline A Field Day.
WHO that has seen it can ever forget the emo-
tions of pity which a contemplation of Landseer's
exquisite picture of ' A Random Shot ' never
fails to produce. Yet how simple are the mate-
rials that the great master has called to his aid.
Here is an incident of ordinary occurrence in the
early experience of a thoughtless deer stalker.
A hind who has received her death wound from a
rifle that was perhaps hastily discharged at one of
the antlered lords of the herd, lies dead upon the
snow. She has apparently strained every nerve
234 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
to continue her retreat as long as possible, and
her deep and bloodstained tracks are visible up to
the spot where she has fallen. At her side stands
her shivering calf, destined, poor thing, to a cer-
tain and lingering death. It has followed its dam
to the last, and now, unconscious of the cala-
mity that has befallen her, is vainly endeavouring
to extract a drop of nourishment from her rigid
carcase. Many and many a sportsman who, as he
gazed on this beautiful work, has experienced a
pang of remorse, and readily acknowledged its
benign influence, is, alas ! too apt to forget in the
field the moral lesson which it inculcates, and to
prove, by his reckless expenditure of powder and
shot in the ensuing season, that other animals
besides red deer are doomed to the miseries en-
tailed by a random shot.
It would be useless to deny that all field sports,
even when conducted on the most humane prin-
ciples, are attended with a certain degree of
cruelty, but it is obvious that none should ven-
ture to prefer such a charge except those who
rigidly, and from conscientious motives, abstain
from all kinds of animal food. All other persons
afford an indirect encouragement to the depriva-
tion of life, and are as deeply implicated in the
culpability as the actual perpetrator of the deed.
How unjust, then, to abuse the grouse shooter
FIELD SPORTS. 235
and the angler while we encourage the poulterer
and the fishmonger, or to condemn the deer-
stalker while we patronize the butcher.
An instinctive love of the chace seems to be
innate in man. It prevails equally amongst the
most barbarous savage tribes and the most en-
lightened cultivated nations, and exists as strongly
at the present moment as in the days of Nim-
rod. But while, on the one hand, the maudlin
complaints of modern sentimentalists may be
treated with contempt or derision ; on the other,
it must not be forgotten that ' the quality of
mercy ' is the noblest attribute of the ' true
sportsman/ an appellation of which the mere
bird murderer and the cold-blooded pot-hunter
are utterly unworthy, while even the well mean-
ing but thoughtless gunner who indulges in a long
range where game is sufficiently plenty to admit
of his picking out his birds within a moderate
distance and ' killing them clean* must aban-
don the cruel though occasionally tempting
custom before he can justly lay claim to the
title.
I am aware that it is easier to preach than to
practise, and readily admit that ' in my hot youth '
I was no better than my neighbours ; but the
very recollection of these juvenile delinquencies
renders me now the more anxious to make some
236 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
amends by endeavouring to dissuade others from
a habit so mischievous yet so easily corrected.
With this view I have occasionally, during the
last few years, preserved a specimen of a pheasant
or partridge, which at some period prior to its
death had been mutilated or disfigured by a ran-
dom shot, and whenever a youthful visitor to my
museum shows symptoms of sporting propensities
by a marked admiration of the game birds, I
generally venture to read him a lecture on the
subject, and to draw his attention to my assem-
blage of cripples which I call the ' Chelsea Hos-
pital ' of the collection. I also tell him that it is
a bad practice to fire at a pheasant the moment
it rises from the ground, if it springs within a few
yards of him ; for the shot not being spread until
it reaches a certain point, the bird in all like-
lihood receives the whole charge or none of it ;
and the consequence is that it is either woefully
mangled or missed altogether. On the other
hand, if a bird should rise out of distance, it
is essentially wrong to let fly at it on the chance
of a stray shot bringing it down ; for the probabi-
lity is very great that, if hit at all, it will only
be wounded and lost.
Most of my specimens furnish examples of the
former error. There is one miserable looking
hen pheasant in particular which never fails to
EFFECTS OF CARELESS SHOOTING. 237
attract attention. Her entire beak had been
shot away. Indeed, both mandibles and the
tongue were gone, leaving a wide aperture, the
edges of which, under the healing influence of
dame Nature, had hardened into a pair of horny
lips ; and thus the poor bird unable to procure
- its usual insect food, or to pick up any scattered
grains of corn was compelled to haunt a small
barley stack, near the keeper's house ; the sheaves
of which being loosely placed together, she con-
trived to extract the ears separately, and to pro-
vide herself with sufficient food, for she was by
no means in bad condition when killed by chance
at the close of the season.
But the number of birds thus maimed or dis-
abled, are as nothing compared with those which,
appearing scarcely to wince under the effects of a
long shot, are fated to perish miserably in some
remote corner of a wood, unless the fox or the
stoat should fortunately discover the spot, and
charitably anticipate their wretched end. The
amount of mischief occasionally perpetrated by
the novice, who is thoughtlessly permitted to
shoot at every thing, because he seldom succeeds
in bagging a bird and is therefore erroneously
supposed to commit less havoc than a good shot,
is really incalculable. The lord of the manor, if
he is himself no sportsman, but merely preserves
238 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
a head of game for the amusement of his friends,
will perhaps say to his keeper. " Now, Smith,
here are Captain Hawthorn and Lord Tyro going
out to-day. You will take them to the hanger,
where the tame birds were turned down this year.
I don't want more than ten brace killed in that
quarter, as I wish to leave a good stock for next
year. The Captain is a dead shot. Put him on
the hill at the top of the cover ; none but old
birds will fly that way, and they will run to the
end, and perhaps be off before he gets there. So
much the better. As to Lord Tyro, he is only a
beginner. Place him in the bottom between the
hanger and the gorse, where you have the barley
stack. Most of the birds will go over his head.
He will have two guns, and you may let him
blaze at every thing. I am told he can't touch a
feather ; but I wish him to have plenty of shoot-
ing." " Very well, sir," says Smith, who perhaps
knows his master's temper too well to venture an
expostulation, while at the same time an expres-
sion of care and anxiety shows that he enter-
tains some doubt as to the prudence of this
arrangement.
Away they go. On arriving at the cover the
shooters are placed in their allotted positions,
Captain Hawthorn an old sportsman soon sees
6 how the land lies,' and perceiving that the cocks
CASE IN ILLUSTRATION. 239
have begun to run at the first movement of the
spaniels, he loses no time in getting forward, and
stations himself quietly at the end of the copse,
where he bags his ten or dozen cock pheasants
before the beaters have come up with him. In
the meantime, what has Lord Tyro been about ?
The birds are flying before, across, and over his
head, presenting every imaginable variety of shot
at easy distances. The keeper who had entered
the cover along with the beaters now pauses, and
leaning over the fence on the lower side of the
hanger watches his performance with an anxious
countenance. The gentleman has evidently seen
a gun before, for he handles the weapon with an
easy familiarity, and brings down his first bird
only winged however and as it runs across the
meadow towards the gorse-field, he seems in
doubt for an instant whether to pursue it, or to
take his second gun from his attendant, when a
sudden burst of five or six pheasants at some dis-
tance settles the question. He is evidently bewil-
dered, and cannot make up his mind which to
select until all are nearly out of reach. At last
he fires at one rather a long shot a slight shud-
der, unnoticed by him or his man, does not escape
the practised eye of the keeper, but the bird
continues its flight and drops apparently unhurt
into the furze. In the meantime two more bar-
240 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
rels have been discharged with a similar result.
A few feathers indeed are floating on the air,
which seem to afford some consolation to the
unsuccessful gunner, as he turns round exultingly
to his loader and cries, " I hit her, John, how-
ever." "That you did, my lord, she's a dead
bird." " Mark her down, John." " Look out,
my lord, there 's another over your head." Bang
bang " She has left her tail at any rate con-
found it I can't account for it I made out
much better with the pigeons last week I 'm
sure the powder must be damp load away,
John." Bang. " There 's one down this time.
Where's the retriever?" " Not come back yet,
my lord." " D n the dog, he 's not worth a
halfpenny run after her yourself make haste,
she '11 get into the gorse if you don't. Holloa !
stop ! come back ! you Ve got the caps and the
wadding " But John is out of hearing, and
Lord Tyro having no ammunition in his own
pockets, a respite is fortunately afforded, of which
Smith, the keeper, promptly avails himself, and
makes the best of his time to hurry the beaters
and spaniels to the end of the cover for the final
'bouquet' before the guns can be reloaded
much to the mortification of his lordship, who is
now running at his best speed to the corner of
the hanger and soon afterwards Captain Haw-
IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD RETRIEVER. 241
thorn closes the performance with a right and
left at two cock pheasants which fall dead at the
feet of his less successful companion.
Such a scene as this, if frequently repeated,
must be attended with the worst consequences.
When a certain number of hens are to be killed
for the purpose of replenishing an empty larder, if
possible let the blow be struck by a sure hand.
It is astonishing how many are annually rendered
unproductive, or receive their death wounds from
persons who, although fully deserving their repu-
tation of being ' bad shots,' contrive to aim suffi-
ciently straight to send a few grains into almost
every bird at which they fire. Where such licence
is permitted nay, even encouraged how can
the proprietor of the manor wonder at the steri-
lity of his hen pheasants next year, or conscien-
tiously lay the blame at the door of his keeper !
For my own part I never knew an honest fellow
of this sort who did not rejoice to see the birds
* killed clean ;' even when the execution was
carried on without sufficient regard to the pro-
spects of the ensuing breeding season.
But even fair sportsmen are not all 'dead
shots.' The best are not infallible, and, where
there is much shooting, a pheasant may now and
then not fall at once, or if it falls, may prove
* a runner.' In such cases a good retriever is a
M
24*2 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
valuable acquisition, and if the party is large or
more especially at a battue, two or three dogs of
this description, thoroughly under command and
well up to their work, may really be denominated
' angels of mercy.' For the grouse or partridge
shooter it is sufficient, nay, even preferable, that
his setters should be good fetchers as well as
finders although few are so fortunate as to pos-
sess such dogs as unite the double accomplish-
ment in perfection, or admit of the inculcation
of the one without detriment to the other but
for cover-shooting, where a team of spaniels or
a party of beaters are employed, a regular re-
triever is necessary.* There is great diversity of
opinion as to the best breed. Most persons prefer
the Newfoundland, not only from his docility but
from his size and strength, which enable him to
carry hares with great ease through the tangled
brushwood, and even over gates and fences, which
* In hazarding this opinion I am aware that it is at variance
with that of many who have had more experience in canine
tuition than myself. While on this subject I cannot refrain
from congratulating the sporting world on the appearance of
Colonel Hutchinson's little work on " dog breaking." In all
that relates to the training of setters and pointers it fully
carries out the promise on its title page, of presenting " the
most expeditious, certain, and easy method." It is indeed a
perfect text-book on the subject, arid its price, as well as its
dimensions, ought to ensure it a place in the pocket of every
sportsman and gamekeeper.
VARIOUS BREEDS.
would oppose formidable obstacles to the speedy
return of a smaller dog. Others, again, recommend
a cross of the sheep dog or setter ; while some
advocate a touch of the greyhound or lurcher. I
have myself bred, broken, and tried them all
during the last ten years, and have besides had
many opportunities of witnessing the perfor-
mances of retrievers of various breeds in the
possession of others ; and the conclusion at which
I have arrived is that a cross between the broad-
shouldered, short-legged Newfoundland and a
thoroughbred setter, is more likely than any
other to answer the expectations of the sports-
man. Dogs of this description possess the
strength, aptness for receiving instruction, and
general steadiness of the one, combined with the
fine nose, quickness, and accuracy in following
on the track of feathered game, which characte-
rize the other. No doubt good retrievers have
been obtained of almost every sort ; but this cross
affords, in my opinion, the best chance of suc-
cess where time is an object, and where the puppy
as is too generally the case is consigned to
the care of an indifferent trainer.
My first experiment with the greyhound was
the produce of a powerful dog of that kind, and
a capital retriever, who was herself the offspring
of a Newfoundland and a setter. I kept two
M 2
244 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
of the puppies and gave the others to four
friends, who were as sanguine as myself in their
expectations, and looked forward to bagging
every hare that they might happen to wound
during the following season. One of my dogs
turned out a useful ally in that department ; but
his power of scent was comparatively bad, and
he was always apt to overrun his birds. He was
also naturally hard-mouthed, and time which
alone will frequently tend to correct this serious
fault seemed in his case rather to aggravate it.
It was, moreover, impossible to keep him at heel
without a leash when a hare was started. The
same faults and propensities probably derived
from their sire * were developed to a still higher
degree in the dogs that I had given to my friends.
Their keepers were in despair, and, with the con-
sent of their masters, soon knocked them on the
head ; as they all agreed that ' though not worth
their keep for a gentleman,' they might become
dangerous enemies in the hands of a regular
poacher. Indeed, the lurcher which was so
much used formerly by persons of that calling,
and by whose assistance such great destruction was
committed among rabbit warrens was originally
a cross between a greyhound and a sheep dog,
* Mr. Youatt a high authority says that " whatever be
the cross, the greyhound will predominate."
THE GREYHOUND CROSS. 245
exhibiting all the speed and love of the chace ap-
pertaining to the one, combined with the sagacity
and intelligence of the other.*
It is a common practice with keepers to lead
the retriever in a leash until the moment when his
services are required, and then to liberate him
suddenly. This may be necessary where the dog
is badly broken. In short, when he cannot be
* The late Sir Thomas Thompson, Bart. R.N. had a dog, the
offspring of a lurcher and a thoroughbred greyhound. He was
therefore three parts a greyhound, of which he possessed in a
high degree the characteristic qualities, together with the cun-
ning and acuteness derived from his more remote ancestor. In
appearance he was like a Scotch deerhound on a small scale.
He would walk quietly at heel on a high-road or footpath, but
as soon as his master opened a gate, he would instantly start off
and make a circuit of the entire field at a slow canter, keeping
his eye all the time on the hedge. If he discovered no run, or
meuse, he would resume his position behind his owner, who
during this time had been watching his manosuvres from the
gate. If on the contrary the dog had perceived a run in the
fence, he would suddenly check his career and sit down along-
side of it. This was a hint to Sir Thomas to commence his
part of the proceedings, which was nothing more or less than
to walk up and down the field until he had started the hare,
which, as it endeavoured to escape at the meuse, was generally
snapped up by the dog with unerring dexterity. Occasionally
however she would make for a second run which had escaped
the previous notice of the greyhound, but before she could
carry her intention into effect he would be up and close at her
haunches, ( turning' her once or twice, killing her 'in the
open,' and finally bringing her to his master to receive the
reward of his successful exploit.
246 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
kept at heel by a sign or word of command. It has
been said, and with truth, of setters and pointers,
that they ought to be the constant companions of
the person who has the charge of training them,
that they should be hunted exclusively by him,
and that therefore, when practicable that is to
say, when he can afford the necessary leisure and
at the same time possess the indispensable qualifi-
cations of patience and good temper the sports-
man should break his own dogs. This remark
applies with still greater force to the case of the
retriever. He should never be confined in a
leash. He should follow close behind his master
or trainer. No temptation should be sufficiently
strong to induce him to quit his heels after he
has been once completely broken without receiv-
ing the signal or word of command to do so. But
to effect this he must be carefully educated by
the same person from an early age, and accus-
tomed to follow without leash or strap.
The most effective retrievers I ever saw are
those belonging to a time-honoured friend of mine
a thorough-bred sportsman of the old school
and their merit consists rather in the perfect
manner in which they have been trained, and can
be hunted by the respective keepers to whose
care they were consigned at an early age, than
from any facilities or advantages afforded by the
A FIELD DAY. 247
breed; for many of them are, in appearance,
short-coated nondescripts, and required far more
care and trouble in the training than if some at-
tention had been paid to procuring dogs of purer
blood ; but this deficiency is amply counter-
balanced by the admirable way in which they are
managed. I well remember the first time I ever
had an opportunity of witnessing their perform-
ance. On arriving at the cover's side an im-
mense wood in the weald of Sussex we found
the head-keeper already there with the spaniels.
A regiment of beaters were drawn up at a little
distance, and at intervals in their ranks were
five under keepers, who subsequently assisted in
maintaining the line of march and preserving dis-
cipline. Each of them was attended by his dog,
who followed close at his heels, unrestrained by
string or leash. As we advanced through the
cover, any one of these, at a word from his
master, would instantly enact the part of a
spaniel, and where a thick bed of black-thorn
happened to intervene, which was impenetrable
to the beaters, he would work his way through
it, and flush a hare or a pheasant, but, with-
out attempting to pursue it, return the next
moment at the well-known signal to his for-
mer position. When a pheasant was wounded
and fell at a distance, the dog would endeavour
9AS GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
to mark the place if possible, and then look round
at his master as if for permission to * go and fetch
it.' This, however, was not always granted, for
if the spot where it had dropped lay more directly
in the line of one of the other keepers on either
flank, his dog alone would be despatched in pur-
suit, and thus the common occurrence of a
pheasant being mangled by the joint efforts of
two rival retrievers was avoided, and the utmost
expedition at the same time attained in bringing
the bird to bag. Many a winged pheasant and
wounded hare was recovered on that day, which if
matters had been conducted upon the ordinary
system, must have been infallibly lost. The ex-
ample indeed is well worthy the imitation of all
preservers, and may be strongly recommended to
the admirers of the battue, not only for its ob-
vious and easily appreciated effect upon the game-
bag, but on the higher principle of mercy and
humanity, as affording a means of rescuing many
suffering animals from the tortures of a lingering
death.
FOUR-FOOTED ' VERMIN.' 24-9
CHAPTER XIV.
" Hse tibi erunt artes : pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos."
VIRGIL.
Four-footed Vermin Less Destructive than the Human
Poacher The Fox Conflicting interests of the Fox-
hunter and Game-preserver Wild Cat Its Predatory
Habits and Ferocity House Cats running Wild A
Retriever Cat The Marten The Polecat, Stoat, and
Weasel Utility of the Weasel Anecdote The Hedge-
hog Devours Eggs The Mole Not only Harmless but
Beneficial Witnesses to his Good Character The
Squirrel unjustly Accused Trial without Jury.
IT must be admitted that game of all kinds
suffer more from man than from any other sort of
' vermin ' winged or fourfooted ; nevertheless the
human poacher is on the increase, while most of
the latter are diminishing or have disappeared :
thanks, in a great measure, to the unsatisfactory
state of our existing code of protective laws, the
discussion of which, however, is rather the pro-
vince of the journalist and the legislator than of
the naturalist or sportsman. To say nothing,
therefore, of the encouragement which the pro-
M 5
250 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
fession of poaching has received of late years from
the misapplied sympathy of morbid humanity-mon-
gers and the verdict of many a magisterial bench,
it may be observed that the decrease of game in
many parts of the British islands is to be attri-
buted rather to the interference of man, than to
depredations of certain native quadrupeds a
fearfully reduced list, alas ! on whose devoted
heads the full wrath of the keeper has for years
been indiscriminately poured.
How is it that in newly discovered countries
and in thinly inhabited regions, various kinds of
gallinaceous birds are found to flourish in a wild
state, to ' increase and multiply ' though exposed
to the unrestrained attacks of various predatory
animals, furred and feathered, whom Nature
ever just has placed as salutary checks on the
excessive augmentation of their numbers, while,
conversely, the increase of population and the
diminution of all kinds of game are simultaneous ?
Look at the wild turkey in America. See how
he has receded before the destroying breath of
civilization. The same has once occurred with
the capercaillie in Scotland, and the laxity of the
game laws in Sweden has already banished him
from many of the Scandinavian provinces. The
bustard is an example at our own doors. The
pintado, or Guinea fowl, in certain maritime
THE FOX. 251
parts of Africa, and the red grouse in the central
and southern counties of England.*
Let us now consider calmly the case of some
of our proscribed quadrupeds, a certain portion
of whom, it must be allowed, are sinners against
the game laws ; while others again offend but in
a limited degree, or are wholly innocent of the
crimes laid to their charge. To begin with the
former.
The fox, from his hereditary cunning a matter
of notoriety in the earliest ages of the world
his habit of prowling by night, and above all,
the insatiable and merciless character of his ap-
petite, which prompts him at the moment of suc-
cess to sacrifice every victim within his reach, is
perhaps the most formidable four-footed enemy to
game birds ; but as, in the estimation of every
admirer of the noble and truly national sport of
fox-hunting, reynard himself is pre-eminently
entitled to protection, and therefore ought to
stand at the very head of the game list, he is in
no want of strenuous advocates or admirers in the
* It is an ascertained fact, that in Ireland grouse, par-
tridges, and hares have greatly increased within the last two
years ; and looking at the question statistically, there seems
no reason to doubt that this circumstance is due to the reduc-
tion of the population, partly by the late famine and partly by
extensive emigration.
GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
British islands. However, in those districts where
his favourite prey, the rabbit, has been greatly
reduced or exterminated, security to the pheasant
and partridge, and immunity to the fox, are quite
incompatible. In such cases the keen foxhunter
and the zealous game preserver can seldom be
called ' birds of a feather/ and unless they recur to
the alternative of keeping up a moderate supply of
rabbits which the fox will always take in prefer-
ence to any other food perhaps the best thing
they can do is to pitch their tents respectively in
such districts as, from natural or local circum-
stances, may afford to each the unrestrained
indulgence of his favourite sport.
The real wild cat (felis catus) is probably no
longer a denizen of the southern or central parts
of England, is very rare in the northern counties,
and of less frequent occurrence in Wales and even
in Scotland than formerly. In short, notwith-
standing the inaccessible nature of his retreats
among the rocky glens in the Highlands, he is in
a fair way of following in the footsteps of the
bear and the wolf, and the facilities afforded for
his destruction by the modern fowling-piece will
doubtless accelerate his fate one that will meet
with little commiseration except from the
naturalist.
Not only have game birds, poultry, and young
THE WILD CAT. 253
lambs fallen victims to the wild cat, but even man
himself has occasionally been vanquished in a
personal encounter with ' the British tiger.'
There is an instance on record of a shepherd
having been mortally wounded in Scotland, and
several of severe injuries having been received
from imprudently coming into close quarters with
this formidable quadruped. Although compara-
tively rare in Ireland, the species still exists
among some of the mountains of Connaught.
Mr. Maxwell, in his usual felicitous manner, re-
lates an anecdote characteristic of its truculent
propensities, the scene of which was in that re-
mote district.*
House cats are frequently known to run wild ;
and although there is an obvious tendency in
these animals, when they have taken to the woods,
to assume the grey, or tabby, colour after the
second or third generation, yet they must not be
confounded under any circumstances with the
real wild cat. The two species are manifestly
distinct. Besides the superior size of the latter ;
the comparative smallness of the head and the
far greater development and different form of the
tail are well marked characters, which are suffi-
cient to upset the once favourite theory ih&tfelis
* ' Wild Sports of the West/ vol. ii. p. 107.
254 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
catus was the original founder of our domestic
race.*
Gamekeepers need not be told that a more in-
corrigible poacher does not exist than a common
cat which has been bred in the woods, or which,
although originally an efficient mouser and a
useful occupant of the barn, has gradually ac-
quired the habits of a vagrant. The strength and
size which a male cat will sometimes attain under
such circumstances is extraordinary although he
never arrives at the proportions of his irreclaim-
able congener.
In the parish of Bignor in West Sussex, there
lives a cottager whose thrifty housewife possesses
a valuable ally in the person of a gigantic tom-cat.
The most efficient of foragers is he, and ' many a
time and oft* have his poaching expeditions pro-
tracted the too lavish expenditure of the treasures
of the pork- tub. His ordinary victims are half-
grown rabbits, which he captures in the dusk of
the evening, and which he invariably conveys in
retriever fashion to the residence of his owner.
It is only marvellous how he has hitherto escaped
the snares and traps of a neighbouring keeper
one of the wiliest of his calling. However, his
foraging expeditions have as yet, I believe,
* For some interesting particulars on this subject, see
( Bell's British Quadrupeds.'
THE MARTEN. 255
been chiefly confined to a furzy common in the
immediate vicinity of his master's cottage, where
young rabbits,
" and such small deer,
Have been Tom's food for seven long year."
But woe betide him if an ornithological fit
should tempt him to extend his researches into
the adjoining preserves. His fate will then be
sealed, for his sagacity and self-denial must indeed
be greater than fall to the lot of other cats, to
enable him to resist the varied temptations of
fish, flesh, and valerian, with which his arch-
enemy has decked the path to destruction.
Of the weasel family (mustelidce) the marten
(martes foina\ commonly, but erroneously, called
the marten cat, has been almost exterminated in
England. Although in former days its depreda-
tions among game were of no trifling character,
yet it is surely to be regretted that the species
should since have been persecuted down to the
very verge of extinction. There are many cir-
cumstances that would appear to favour the toler-
ation, if not the preservation, of a limited number
in the woods of England. The odour that pro-
ceeds from a glandular secretion of this animal,
and of the pine marten probably a variety of the
same species so far from being fetid or offensive,
is singularly agreeable. Mr. Bell says, " The
256 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
aspect and attitudes of the marten are perhaps
more elegant than those of any other of our native
quadrupeds. Endowed with great liveliness and
activity, its movements are at once rapid and
gracile. Its limbs are elastic, its body lithe and
flexible, and it bounds over the ground with equal
speed and grace. * * * If taken young it is
susceptible of great docility ; and the remarkable
elegance of its form, the beauty of its fur, and the
playfulness of its manners, render it one of the
most pleasing of pets."
The polecat (mustela putorius). The stoat
(mustela erminea), and the common weasel (mustela
vulgaris), are neither so prepossessing in appear-
ance nor so attractive in manners ; while our
olfactory nerves especially in the case of the
first prompt us to pronounce at once a hasty
verdict against them. The last two are very ge-
nerally distributed, and, although hostile to game
birds, yet perform good service to the agricul-
turist in the destruction of four-footed vermin.
The weasel is eminently useful in the granary and
the straw -yard ; far more efficient than a cat, and
a worthy ally of the white owl. Indeed besides
the quantity of rats which it destroys, even during
a temporary sojourn in such situations, a still
greater number of those noxious animals are
frequently induced to migrate from the spot
THE WEASEL. 257
where it has once permanently established its
quarters.
A large barn in my neighbourhood had for
years been infested by rats, and a regular auto dafe
used to take place there about Michaelmas every
year. Having heard of the extraordinary ' sport '
furnished on such occasions, I particularly solicited
an invitation to one of these ' battues.' The
eventful day at last arrived. The great gates
were closed. Every hole was carefully stopped.
A pack of expectant terriers, with cocked ears
and determined visages, looked on patiently as
sheaf after sheaf was pitched from one side of
the building to the other, without a single rat
being exposed to view. At last the floor was
visible. Not even a mouse had been seen. The
last truss was lifted, and there a solitary little
weasel was discovered, who sad to relate fell a
victim to the disappointed dogs before his rescue
could be effected.
In a former chapter I have endeavoured to
espouse the cause of the poor badger, and to de-
precate his persecution at the hands of the game-
preserver. With far greater justice, I regret to
say, the hedgehog (erinaceus Europaus) has earned
for himself a bad character during the breeding
season. No one was ever more reluctant than
myself, for many a day, to credit the evil reports
258 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
that continually reached me, touching his robbery
of pheasants' nests and even now I am satisfied
that his destruction of worms, insects, mice and
snakes, fully atones in a general sense for his
poaching offences ; but as an egg-devourer he
stands pre-eminent among British quadrupeds.
To a superficial observer his structure would ap-
pear to be rather of a defensive than an offensive
character, but e facts are stubborn things.' I
speak from personal experience when I say that
if a steel trap be set over night in any wood where
hedgehogs are known to exist, and baited with an
egg, the capture of one of those animals will, in
nine cases out of ten, be the result.
The weasel frequently pursues moles into their
subterranean habitations, and is then occasionally
caught in the springes which are in ordinary use
for their destruction. I have received two speci-
mens from my own neighbourhood within the last
few years which had been killed in this way.
Here, I am inclined to think that these particular
weasels perhaps met with their deserts, for they
were engaged in the pursuit of an animal scarcely
less useful than themselves, in many points of
view, to the farmer. This may appear a bold
statement to those cultivators of the soil who have
all their lives been engaged in the persecution of
the mole ; who only regard the partial injuries
UTILITY OF THE MOLE. 259
committed by him, and obstinately refuse to look
at the other side of the picture. Much conflict-
ing testimony might certainly be adduced. My
own observations, I confess, lead me to believe
that in this case the good far preponderates over
the evil, while in order to arrive at the truth it
may be necessary, as Mr. Bell observes, " to
divest our minds as well of the prepossessions of
the naturalist, as of the prejudices of the agricul-
turist." Let us first hear what an enlightened
individual of the latter class says on this subject.
I quote from a letter of the Rev. G. Wilkins to
whom I have already referred at page 5 which
appeared in the ' Essex Herald,' in May 1848,
and was addressed " to a farmer who had written
to him inquiring how the wire worm had been
exterminated in his land," "and contains," ob-
serves the editor, " much sound, though we dare
say unpalatable, doctrine to the owners of smooth
lawns and trim bedded gardens."
" Some ten years since, when I came to my
living, and commenced cultivating the little land
I hold, it was, I may say, full of wire worms.
Nothing could have been worse, for my crops
were in some places ruined by them entirely.
What then did I do ? I adopted a plan which I
recommended and published in periodicals many
years since, viz., encouraging moles and partridges
260 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
on my lands. Instead of permitting a mole to be
caught, I bought all I could and turned them
down alive ; and soon my fields, one after another,
were full of mole hills, to the amusement of all
my neighbours, who at first set me down for half
a lunatic; but now several adopt my plan, and
are strenuous advocates of it. My fields became
exactly like a honeycomb ; and this continued
even among my standing, and growing, and ripen-
ing crops ; not a mole was molested, but I still
bought more. This summer I had fourteen
brought, which I turned down, but they were not
wanted ; I have nothing for them to eat : all that
moles live upon is destroyed, and so, poor things,
they must starve or emigrate to some distant land,
and thus get bowstringed by savage men whom
they aim to serve. Adopt my plan and it will be
sure to answer."
This, then, is the advice of a practical agricul-
turist. Let us now hear Mr. Jesse, who with
that benevolent feeling that characterizes all his
writings, thus advocates the cause of this pro-
scribed little animal.
" That moles were intended to be beneficial to
man, there can I think be no doubt. I have been
assured that where old mole-hills are most abun-
dant on sheep pastures, the latter animal is gener-
rally in a healthy state, as it feeds on the wild
THE SQUIRREL. 261
thyme and other salubrious herbs which grow on
these heaps of earth. Where these have been
levelled and cleared away, sheep are not found to
thrive as well as they did previously. This fact
was confirmed to me by Mr. Hogg, the Ettrick
shepherd, who deprecated the practice of re-
moving mole-hills. In Leicestershire, where old
mole-hills are extremely abundant in the fine and
extensive pastures which are to be found in that
county, sheep thrive well and are generally
healthy. In further confirmation also of what has
been stated, I have been assured that in conse-
quence of the mole-hills having been destroyed in
a park which formerly belonged to the present
Earl of Essex, in Herefordshire, the deer in it
never afterwards throve well."*
But although there may still be room for dis-
cussion as to the utility or hurtfulness of the
mole in its bearing upon the affairs of the agricul-
turist, the game preserver can hardly contrive to
pick a quarrel with it on his own account ; and
the poor squirrel might be supposed to deserve at
least equal immunity. But alas ! such is not the
case. More than one instance of some half-
starved incarcerated individual having partaken of
raw meat has been cruelly adduced as a proof of
its blood-thirsty propensities ; nay, it was once my
* Gleanings in Natural History, 1st series, vol. i. p. 280.
262 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
misfortune to meet with a keeper who coolly as-
sured me that he had lately shot a squirrel in the
act of devouring a half-grown pheasant, which it
had carried, in spite of its struggles, to the sum-
mit of a tall tree with as much ease as if it had
been a filbert. This man was in the employment
of an uncompromising preserver of game, at
whose hands all other ' fowls of the air and creep-
ing things ' found but little mercy, and squirrels
and stoats were included in the same black list.
A subsequent cross-examination, however, con-
vinced me that his story was a pure invention of
the brain, got up at the moment as a conclusive
argument to repel my attempted vindication of
his little victims, several of which were lying
about the gravel-walks in various stages of de-
composition for the ferret-hutch had been already
glutted, and there was no room on the gable end
of the barn for another culprit. My expostula-
tions, I grieve to say, were equally fruitless with
master and man. In that extensive and thickly
wooded district the species may survive for many
years in spite of all this persecution. The real
offence is, the nibbling off the upper shoots of the
Scotch fir during seasons of scarcity : a plausible
casus belli is thus established against it, and every
other crime, possible and impossible, is laid to its
charge : ' the wish is father to the thought : ' the
HARMLESSNESS OF THE SQUIRREL. 263
keeper is a ready witness against the accused ;
and under such circumstances the master being
at once prosecutor and judge, and the servant
both witness and executioner the poor squirrel
obtains but slender justice. That some of the
Rodentia will occasionally indulge in animal food,
there can be no doubt ; the rat is a familiar ex-
ample he indeed is an insatiable devourer of
eggs, and a pitiless enemy to young partridges
during a sickly season but I firmly believe that
the squirrel rarely or never exhibits carnivorous
propensities. As to the conduct of animals when
kept in confinement, their nature becomes so
completely altered by durance vile, and the igno-
rance or neglect of their captors, that it can never
be considered a fair index to their habits in a
state of nature. If half a dozen field mice were
put into a cage and left without food for a couple
of days, the weakest would be devoured by the
others ; and if the cruel experiment were pro-
longed, the same result would follow, until none
survived but the strongest individual of the party.
Under nearly similar circumstances, even civilized
man himself has become a cannibal ! That the
squirrel may during long, dry summers, when
the verdure of the woods, and on the surface of
the earth has been parched by the burning sun
when the dead leaves of the previous year have
264 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
been all explored over and over again for acorns
and beechmast, and not another nut remains
have been detected occasionally in the act of de-
vouring the eggs, or even the unfledged young of
a small bird, is just possible ; although after
much patient observation and diligent inquiry, I
am bound to say that I have seen nothing of the
sort, nor met with a single well-authenticated^
instance of the kind. The list of our indigenous
quadrupeds is already too restricted to admit of
his extermination ; and I, for one, earnestly hope
that the day may be far distant when the eye of
the British naturalist is no longer to be gladdened
by the contemplation of his beautiful form and
his sprightly bounds. Then indeed will our
woods and groves be deprived of one of their
greatest ornaments.
FINIS.
LONDON:
Printed by SAMUEL BENTLEY & Co.
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
Lately published, uniform with this Volume,
A NEW EDITION OF
ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES IN SUSSEX :
WITH A
CATALOGUE OF THE BIRDS OF THAT COUNTY,
AND REMARKS ON THEIR LOCAL DISTRIBUTION.
BY A. E. KNOX, M.A., F.L.S., &c.
"A. E. Knox, Esq., is well located on our southern coast for observations on the
migratory birds, and bestows time and great attention to the subject." YarreWs
History of British Birds, vol. i. page 404, second edition.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
" There are still too many sportsmen who need to have their slumbering
senses aroused, and to be taught the interest they might find in a converse
with Nature. Such a one is not Mr. Knox. He is manifestly a sportsman,
and a keen one Already our readers perceive that we are introducing
to them a genuine enthusiast. In truth, though written by a man whose
profession and habits differ in many respects from his, the volume continually
reminds us of our old delight, White of Selborne. Like White, Mr. Knox
is a scholar bred at Oxford, and like White he is a close observer of
Nature, who jots down what he sees in his own neighbourhood or excur-
sions from mere love to that of which he writes, and not to make a book."
Quarterly Review.
" The pleasant pages before us are evidently the work of one who has
studied Nature in her most attractive form. A sportsman, a naturalist, and
a gentleman, he enters on his subject with all the ardour which a love of his
favourite pursuits inspires, and with a freshness of feeling seldom found but
among those who, like himself, have followed over hill and dale those manly
sports in which our countrymen generally excel." Morning Post.
" We must say that Mr. Knox is one of the most agreeable guides it has
been our good luck to accompany in these excursive rambles. Patient obser-
vation, good feeling, gentlemanly manner, scientific cultivation, and a very
taking style, recommend his volume to every reader of taste and discern-
ment." Literary Gazette.
" This is a delightful book, written by a man of talent and a genuine lover
of Nature." Brighton Herald.
" The author is a man after one's own heart, regardless of a little fatigue
or inconvenience when in the pursuit of natural-history lore The
subject of migration is treated with much skill, and ornithologists are deeply
indebted to Mr. Knox for his capital and novel observations on this subject."
Zoologist.
Opinions of the Press (continued).
44 Every book club should order this delightful volume." Critic.
" We are always inclined to listen to a man who gives us the fruit of his
own observation and experience. We like to have our flowers with the dew
upon them Mr. Knox's book is a storehouse of these self-gathered
facts." Brighton Guardian.
44 A most interesting and instructive book." Sussex Advertiser.
" We have now to notice Mr. Knox's ' Ornithological Rambles in Sussex,'
and give this work most unqualified praise." Morning Herald.
" Our woods and coast offer to the ornithologist treasures which many will,
for the first time, learn from the pages of Mr. Knox, whose * Ornithological
Rambles in Sussex ' are a rich repertory of information on this most attrac-
tive subject The book is adorned with some clever illustrations from
sketches by Mr. Knox himself." Brighton Gazette.
44 A delightfully readable little volume We find ourselves, how-
ever unaddicted to Mr. Knox's favourite pursuit, imperceptibly interested in
the fate of a wagtail or the fortunes of a crow." Sussex Agricultural Ex-
press.
* 4 Mr. Knox, we need scarcely say, is an ardent lover of the country, and
for that reason he paints rural scenery with exquisite truth, and points out
some of the finest rambles to be met with in all merry England." Britannia.
44 Written with spirit and care." Hampshire Telegraph.
44 This little book has all the merit of genuine out-of-door observation ; and
the sportsman as well as the ornithologist may derive entertainment from its
pages. All records of instinct made from personal inspection must have
interest ; and to a love of that sort of research our author adds a talent for
humorous narration." Globe.
44 Tlhe work before us contains the observations of an acute and intelligent
mind Mr. Knox is evidently a disciple of the school of White, pos-
sessing much of the same kind of knowledge and the same benevolence of
disposition." English Review.
" A delightful book The author is as good a sportsman as an orni-
thologist." English Churchman.
44 The author has brought to his work the two great elements of success
acute observation and an enthusiastic love of his subject." Church of England
Quarterly Review.
44 It is a genial, good-tempered book. Mr. Knox is equally spirited with
pen and pencil." Christian Remembrancer.
44 In the writings of Mr. Waterton we have essays on natural history
worthy to be placed by the side of those of White : and in the letters of
Mr. Knox before us, we observe the same spirit and the same love of Nature.
.... Although this book contains a list of birds found in the county of
Sussex, the most delightful parts of the volume are the author's personal ad-
ventures and observations in pursuit of his favourite objects." Athen&um.
JOHN VAN VOORST, 1, PATERNOSTER ROW.
A HISTORY OF BRITISH BIRDS.
BY WILLIAM YARRELL, F.L S., V.P.Z.S., &c.
This Work contains a History and an Engraving of each species of
Bird found in Britain. The three volumes contain 535 Illustrations.
Second Edition. 3 vols. demy 8vo. 41. 14s. Gd. A Supplement to
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7s. 6d.
JOHN VAN VOORST, J, PATERNOSTER ROW.
A HISTORY OF BRITISH FISHES.
BY WILLIAM YARRELL, V.P.L. AND Z.S., &c.
Second Edition, containing a History and an Engraving of every
British Fish, and many accessary Illustrations ; in all nearly Five
Hundred. Two Vols. 8vo., price 31. A Supplement to the First
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JOHN VAN VOORST, 1, PATERNOSTER ROW.
LONDON, March 1850.
A CATALOGUE OF THE BOOKS
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BY H. ft. &tt0telr, M.A., F.R.S., Professor of Geology in King's
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A MANUAL OF BRITISH BOTANY; containing the Flowering
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Artists. Post 8vo. 9s. A Polyglot Edition of this volume, with
inter-paged Translations in the Greek, Latin, German, Italian, and
French languages. 1 2s,
GRAY'S BARD. With Illustrations from Drawings by the Hon.
Mrs. JOHN TALBOT. Uniform with the Elegy of Gray, to which it
forms an appropriate companion volume. 7s.
SHAKSPEARE'S SEVEN AGES OF MAN. Illustrated by WM.
MULREADY, R.A. ; J. CONSTABLE, R.A. ; SIR DAVID WILKIE,
R.A. ; W. COLLINS, R.A.; A. E. CHALON, R.A. ; A. COOPER,
R.A. ; SIR A. W. CALLCOTT, R.A. ; EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A.;
W. HILTON, R.A. 6s. A few copies of the First Edition in 4to.
remain for sale.
WATTS' DIVINE AND MORAL SONGS. With 30 Illustrations
by C. W. COPE, R.A.; engraved by JOHN THOMPSON. Square
8vo. 7s. 6d. 9 or 21s. in morocco.
WHITE'S NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. A New Edi-
tion, with Notes by the REV. LEONARD JENYNS, MA., F.L.S., &c.
With 26 Illustrations. Foolscap 8vo. 7s. 6d. ;
GOODSIR'S (R. A.) ARCTIC VOYAGE.
ANSTED'S (PROFESSOR) ELEMENTARY COURSE OF GEO-
LOGY, MINERALOGY, AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
JOHNSTON'S (DR.) INTRODUCTION TO CONCHOLOGY.
LATHAM'S (DR. R. G.) NATURAL HISTORY OF MAN.
KNOX^S (A. E.) GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL.
The Illustrations to the Works enumerated in this Catalogue have been de-
signed or drawn and engraved expressly for the Works they respectively
embellish, and they are never used for other Works.
JOHN VAN VOORST, 1, PATERNOSTER ROW.
9S4743
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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