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A YEAR OF SPORT
AND
NATURAL HISTORY
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A YEAR OF SPORf
AND
NATURAL HISTORY
SHOOTING, HUNTING, COURSING, FALCONRY
AND FISHING
WITH CHAPTERS ON
BIRDS OF PREY, THE NIDIFICATION OF BIRDS
AND THE HABITS OF BRITISH WILD
BIRDS AND ANIMALS
EDITED BY
OSWALD CRAWFURD
1 1
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
FRANK FELLER, BRYAN HOOK, CECIL ALDIN, A. T. ELWES, E. NEALE,
JOHN BEER, P. VIENZENY, STANLEY BERKELEY,
AND G. E. LODGE
LONDON CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED
1895
LONDON :
GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD.,
ST. JOHN'S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C.
PREFACE.
WHILE superintending the literary Department of Black and
White, I prevailed upon a number of competent writers on Sport
and Natural History to deal week by week, the whole of one year
round, with these two topics. We called the series " Field Sports
and Field Studies," and as the writers knew their business and
how to write upon it, the papers were exceedingly popular.
Among the authors were such sportsmen and naturalists as
Mr. Aubyn Trevor-Battye, who has since achieved fame in
Arctic lands, Mr. George Lindesay, a classic in sporting litera-
ture, Mr. H. H. S. Pearse, the admirable writer and referee
on hunting of all kinds, and Mr. Sachs, a known and notable
angler and writer on angling, with many others of high local or
special authority as sportsmen or naturalists. As regards the
artists engaged on this book their work is all so praiseworthy that
I hardly like to pick and choose from the list, and elect, instead,
to print their names in full on our title-page.
I claim for this book, in forty-five parts or sections, that it is
not a mere jumbled collection of articles, but a consecutive work
dealing, in their due sequence, with forty-five consecutive and
most interesting seasonal phases of Sport and Natural History in
the British Islands.
OSWALD CRAWFURD, Editor.
January, 1895.
681310
CONTENTS
JANUARY.
I'AGK
FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES ... I
FOX-HUNTING OUTSIDE THE SHIRES ... 9
SNIPE SHOOTING. ...... .18
WILD SWAN SHOOTING 25
HUNTING WITH BEAGLES ...... -33
FEBRUARY.
THE WILD GOOSE .... . 41
RABBIT SHOOTING . . .... -49
SPRING SALMON FISHING .... -56
MARCH.
OUR BIRDS OF PREY. I. THE OWLS . . . . 64
OUR BIRDS OF PREY. II. HAWKS, BUZZARDS, KITES AND HARRIERS . 72
OUR BIRDS OF PREY. III. EAGLES, FALCONS AND OSPREY . . 82
APRIL.
BIRD NESTING. I. SEA-BIRDS . 9 2
BIRD NESTING. II. MOOR BIRDS . 104
BIRD NESTING. III. TREE NESTING BIRDS m
TROUT FISHING IN MOUNTAIN STREAMS . 118
MAY.
THAMES TROUT FISHING . 126
THE TRICKS OF POACHERS . '33
FISHING WITH THE DRY FLY . H 2
OCTOBER
XXTING .....
CUB-HUJSTING
x CONTENTS.
JUNE.
SCOTCH LOCH FISHING . . .
BASS-FISHING . . -153
JULY.
OTTER HUNTING. . . -158
SEA FISHING FROM PIERS . . . ... 164
AUGUST.
THE WHITE TROUT ... ... ^ 172
CHUB FISHING , *g
CHAR FISHING ....... jg-
THE HABITS OF THE WILD RED DEER .... 105
FLAPPER SHOOTING .... . 200
SEPTEMBER.
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING ......... 207
HUNTING THE WILD RED DEER . . 2I2
RABBIT HAWKING . . ... .219
PHEASANT SHOOTING . ... ..... 227
..... 235
PARTRIDGE HAWKING . -...... 243
ROUGH SHOOTING ....... . 2SI
NOVEMBER.
CHANTREY'S FAMOUS SHOT . ... 2Sg
TWEED SALMON FISHING ..... . 266
HARE HUNTING ON THE BRIGHTON DOWNS . . . 271
DUCK-SHOOTING ON THE BROADS ... ... 283
COURSING ........... 2 g^
ROE SHOOTING ...... .
DECEMBER.
DECEMBER SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS . . . 302
A COCK DRIVE IN SCO
'LONGSHORE SHOOTING
GAMEKEEPERS ..
PIKE FISHING ............ 327
A COCK DRIVE IN SCOTLAND . -310
HOOTING . ^
GAMEKEEPERS ...... ...... 320
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
The Wild Red Deer . Frontispiece
Hunting in the Shires . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Hunting outside the Shires . . . . . . . . . .11
Snipe Shooting ... ........ 21
Wild Swan Shooting . . . . . . . . . . -27
Hunting with Beagles. . . . ... . . . . -35
Flight Shooting ... ........ 43
Rabbit Shooting ... ....... 51
Tawny Owl . . ......... 64
Barn Owl ............. 65
Long-eared Owl . . . . . . . . . . . -67
Short -eared Owl ............ 70
The Sparrow- Hawk (Accipiter Nisus) . . . . ' . . . -73
The Common Buzzard (Buteo Vulgaris) ..... -75
The Kite (Milvus Ictinus) 77
The Hen-Harrier (Circus Cyaneus) . . . . . . . -78
The Marsh-Harrier (Circus yEruginosus) ....... 79
The Golden Eagle . . . . . . . . . . -83
The Osprey ............ 85
The Peregrine ............ 87
The Hobby . . . . 89
The Kestrel ............ go
The Tern .... ........ 93
The Lesser Gull ........... 95
The Puffin . . . 97
Kittiwakes ............. 99
Guillemots on the Needle Rock, Lundy Island ... . . 101
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
I'AGF,
The Common Peewit, or Lapwing . 105
The Woodcock . . I0 7
The Great Northern Diver . I0 9
The Rook . . ' T 2
The Heron "4
The Woodpecker ll6
Trout Fishing in Mountain Streams . 121
Thames Trout Fishing I2 9
Tricks of Poachers . , 137
Loch Fishing . T 49
Bass-fishing . '55
Otter Hunting . l61
Sea Fishing from Piers l6 7
White Trout Fishing . J 75
Chub Fishing . ' 8l
Char Fishing . .191
Flapper Shooting 20 3
Hunting the Wild Red Deer 215
Rabbit Hawking 221
Pheasants . . 22 9
Cub-hunting . 2 39
Partridge Hawking . 2 47
Rough Shooting . 2 55
Chantrey's Famous Shot . z6r
Tweed Salmon Fishing 269
Hare Hunting on the Brighton Downs 2 79
Duck -Shooting on the Broads
Coursing . 28 9
Roe Shooting . 2 97
December Sport in the Highlands 35
A Would-be Poacher .... 3 2 3
A YEAR OF SPORT
AND
NATURAL HISTORY.
JANUARY.
FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES.
BY H. H. S. PEARSE.
PACE, with all the wild rapture that word conveys, and nothing
else, has made midland pastures the favourite hunting-grounds of
English men and women who have means to justify and health to
enjoy the perfection of pleasure in field sports. None but those
who have hunted with the Quorn or Pytchley, the Cottesmore,
Billesden, or Belvoir in their best country, when all Melton's
bravest and fairest are inspired by keen rivalry, can know what
that delight is. The merry men of Lord Eglinton's Hunt will say
that their wide stretches of Ayrshire grass lands hold a better
scent, that their Foxes are stouter than any to be found in
Leicestershire, and that their hounds run as fast ; yet they know
no crowds like those that congregate at a fixture near Melton
Mowbray or Market Harborough. Followers of the Blackmore Vale
have been known to hold very similar views as to the claims of
B
2 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
Dorsetshire ; and the fox-hunters of many countries that are
classed as " provincial " refuse to admit the superiority of the
shires in any point worthy to command the admiration of true
sportsmen. There is one hunt in the West certainly not less
distinguished for historic associations or the social celebrity of
those who assemble at its fixtures than any in the Midlands,
The " blue and bluff " of Badminton must be known to fame all
the world over ; Dukes of Beaufort for many generations have
been acknowledged leaders in the hunting world, and the " badger-
pied beauties " as they skim over the open in full chorus, or
spread like a rocket to recover the lost scent for themselves or
stoop to it with a joyous whimper after Lord Worcester has lifted
them forward in one of his masterly casts, make a picture that
might well impress the imagination of the coldest critics. Their
followers are to be numbered by hundreds, and yet sport with
them differs essentially from that of the shires. The Warwick-
shire hounds are of the best also, and can go fast enough, as
every man must confess who ever tried to hold his own with them,
when Lord Willoughby cheered " the dappled darlings " over the
strongly-fenced pastures of Shuckburgh Vale. This hunt is
nearest to the shires geographically and in methods of sport,
yet fashion has not admitted it to membership of the guild, pro-
bably because Lord Willoughby though he loves pace no less than
the hottest blooded Meltonian will be master of his own pack,
and will not let a hard-riding field dictate terms to him.
It may be granted that all hounds go fast enough at times to
run clean away from horsemen, but a brilliant episode of this kind
is not quite what one means by pace in the Meltonian sense,
which depends rather less on scent than on system. A certain
FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES. 5
happy combination in the first place doubtless gave special
distinction to Leicestershire, and the counties bordering on it.
No ploughshares at that time fretted the fair surface of those
old pastures. For miles in every direction there was nothing to
interfere with the dash of a clamorous pack in hot pursuit. Nearly
all the fields afforded good galloping ground, and the fences,
though few, were big enough to add a strong spice of danger to
other pleasures of the chase. These were natural advantages,
however, of which the Midlands had not a monopoly, and they
alone would not have made Melton the hunting centre of the
world. But when the great Hugo Meynell began, at Quorndon
Hall, to breed hounds for speed, and to handle them with a
quickness that had been previously unknown, the fame of Quorn
sport attracted aspiring youths from all quarters of England.
They vied with each other in hard riding, until their keen rivalry
became an embarrassment to the master and a danger to his
hoilnds. Then the system that had been adopted for pleasure
became perpetuated and intensified as a necessity. No hunts-
man or hound that showed a tendency to dwell upon the line
could be tolerated longer. The avalanche of horsemen would be
upon them the moment they hung about, and so they got into a
habit of flinging forward with a dash whenever scent failed. To
have a pack that would bear to be lifted without becoming wild,
even amid a bewildering maze of hoofs in rapid motion, became
imperative then. The new conditions demanded quick resolution
and magnetic power of command in a huntsman ; high courage
and the quality known as " drive " in hounds. These were
developed in time, an'd by scientific system they have been trans-
mitted from generation to generation. Nowhere out of the shires
6 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
does one see a similar display of eager, restless activity all round.
The mighty rush of squadrons, where every horseman strives for a
lead, apparently reckless of what may befall himself or anything
that comes in his way, would seem the very ecstasy of madness to
one who had never played a part in such stirring scenes. Steeple-
chasing, some critics say it is, but perhaps they are moved to
envy by the thought that they can no longer hold their own with
the boldest. He must be cold, indeed, whose blood is not stirred
to rapture, or who can stop to criticize when Tom Firr, with clear,
shrill blasts of the horn that Quornites know so well, is getting
his hounds out of Cream Gorse on the line of a Fox whose neck is
set straight for the glorious vale of Twyford, or the Cottesmore
are streaming like a torrent in foam down the slopes from famed
Ranksboro' Gorse, or Pytchley men are charging the bullfinches
that raise their thorny network across the vale between Lilbourne
and Crick, or the Belvoir tans are racing over the Lings from
Freeby Wood to Croxton Park. Mere memory of such a moment
makes the face of an old Meltonian flush and his nerves tingle
with excitement. Call it wild helter-skelter confusion, fit only for
boys or savages to take part in ; say that it is more like the
tumult of a barbaric fantasia than sport for civilized beings ; hurl
what epithets you will at it ! But who that has once been in such
a burst would not give a cycle of Cathay for those brief, rapture-
laden twenty minutes over the beautiful grass lands of the shires ?
Think of the throb of pulses, as a Fox breaks cover ; the beating
of your heart while you wait in breathless excitement for him to
cross the first field; the " Tally ho! gone away!" ringing like a
trumpet call, and then the answering chorus of hounds, at sound
of which, like a cavalry regiment in full charge, two hundred
FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES. 7
pursuers with teeth set hard are racing for the nearest fence, and
eight hundred hoofs thunder on the turf. The men who would
keep in the first flight must sit down and ride then. Whatever
may be of barbarity in sport dwindles to nothingness at such a
moment, when noble horse and perfect horseman are inspired by
common sympathies. The lightest touch of bit on mouth or a
firm pressure of knees against saddle-flaps is enough to tell the
sensitive animal madly excited though he may seem what his
master asks of him as they near a blind bullfinch or treacherous
oxer. To feel the heave of a clever fencer's quarters, as with neck
outstretched, ears set forward, and nostrils quivering, he rises at
the obstacle, is to realize why English men and women " risk neck
and limb and life "in the pleasures of the chase day after day.
Sweeter music man cannot hear than the rhythmic beat of hoofs
on springing turf as one lands over a big fence well ahead of the
charging throng and finds oneself for a moment alone with the
hounds, that are skimming like sea birds across the green waves of
ridge and furrow. After going for fifteen minutes at best pace, and
such a pace, half the horses that were so eager at the outset have
been left far behind, others are already faltering in their stride, and
can only be kept going by skilful riders who know when to give them
a pull, and many begin to chance their fences, crashing through
quicksets or rapping the stiff top rails harder than a cautious man
likes to hear. Perhaps a brief check may give breathing space
to blown horses before the pack in joyous chorus hits off the
scent, and men of the first flight with thinned ranks race on
again for the sluggish brook " where the willow trees grow." The
keen east wind bites shrewdly, and the muddy stream looks
coldly grey, as if frost had already begun to grip it, but he who
8 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
holds the lead at such a moment would be faint-hearted indeed if
he turned aside for fear of an icy bath. Some of us don't like water,
and are not ashamed to confess as much ; but craven thoughts
seldom come to those who can ride straight as hounds run over
Leicestershire meadows when the Quorn are close upon a sinking
Fox. With the excitement of rivalry thrilling every fibre of their
frames, they take firmer hold of the reins, sit tighter in their
saddles, give one touch of the spur, and go at it. A horse here
and there may refuse ; one, losing heart too late to save himself,
will perhaps plunge into mid-stream, sending the spray like a
fountain upward, as for a moment he disappears. The others,
landing safe on the rotten banks, cast but a glance behind to see
that he is not in danger of drowning, and then gallop on to where
the hounds clamour fiercely over a fallen victim, and the shrill
" Whoo ! whoop ! " tells that the brilliant burst is at an end.
Such runs on a breast-high scent do not come every day, but
the quickness of a huntsman in the shires will often make things
merry when in slower countries hounds would be walking their
Fox to death. To hunt six days a week from Melton or Market
Harborough, therefore, one need be well mounted and have two
horses in the field every day. With a stud of six or eight hunters
one may get along very well if none of them go aTtiiss. With
more a bold horseman ought to see all the best of the fun,
but with less a man had better be content to take his sport amid
less stirring scenes, and not aspire to distinction in this region of
fashionable fox-hunting.
JAXUAKY.
FOX-HUNTING OUTSIDE .THE
SHIRES.
BY H. H. S. PEARSE.
IN England there are a hundred hunts or more that can only be
described as unfashionable in a relative sense. The habitual
followers of every pack among them may be numbered by scores,
or in many cases by hundreds, and as each affords sport enough
for the amusement of lords and squires and ladies of high degree,
they lack not the attraction that a certain air of fashion gives,
though none of them can pretend to vie with the more distinguished
shires. For some other packs, however, not so much can be said.
Their followers make no pretence to being the arbiters of fashion
in any sense. On the contrary, they treat conventionality in
matters of costume .with a freedom that would have made Beau
Brummel shudder, and have shocked the artistic susceptibilities
of a Hammond, a Tautz, or a Bartley in their most fastidious days.
In such countries a man's claims to consideration are not
estimated by the correct cut of a coat, the faultless fit of breeches,
the exact height of a polished boot, or the way in which a bow is
tied above the tops. The tailor does not make the man there, nor
does anybody care one jot about the colour of his neighbour's
c
10 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
cords, whether they be snowy white or dingy as a London fog.
One point they are nearly all tenacious of, however, is that
every prominent member of the hunt, unless he happen to be a
parson, should appear in " pink " as a sign of respect to the
Master. But it need not be the pink of perfection, and no matter
how much the coat may be empurpled by weather stains, if in
the original colour it conformed to regulation as by custom
established. The least fastidious man in other details of personal
adornment is often the most scrupulous in his observance of the
respect due to the M. F. H. in this particular, and intolerant of
any departure from it. Farmers, who still form a large proportion
of fox-hunters in unfashionable countries, are not supposed to
dress for the part. They may wear whatsoever taste dictates,
though none of them would care to appear in the colour that
is accepted as a badge of hunt-membership. The Meltonian
is less punctilious about the sportsmanlike correctness of his
costume than its style and finish, while the "provincial" exactly
reverses these standards. In his opinion a man who, though
entitled to wear the hunt buttons, comes out in a stable jacket,
would not show a proper sense of the .fitness of things ; but
whether the scarlet coat be old or new, the breeches immaculate,
or the boots wrinkled like a Magyar's, he might not take the
trouble to note. Costume, by whatever canons regulated, is,
however, an untrustworthy indication of a sportsman's character-
istics. Fox-hunters, like the horses they ride, go well in all
shapes, and it is never safe to generalize, as Mr. Bromley
Davenport did when he " held the swell provincial lower than
the Melton muff." The wider sympathies and more varied
experiences of Whyte Melville led him to say of the many
FOX-HUNTING OUTSIDE THE SHIRES. 13
countries in which he had hunted that " each has its own claim
to distinction ; some have collars, all have sport." Happy the
man who can take his fill of the pleasure that every phase of fox-
hunting affords, without discounting it by comparison with some
other that comes nearer to his ideal of perfect bliss. Colonel
Anstruther Thomson, who in his day was unrivalled as a rider
to hounds over any kind of country, will, if I mistake not, say
that he has seen quite as good sport with a rough moorland pack,
the Master of which never put on a scarlet, coat, as with the
well-bred Pytchley, when Tom Firr and Dick Roake whipped
in to him. That would be the opinion also of many a good
man who has followed Jack Parker's trencher-fed hounds over the
wild hills of Kirby Moorside, or heard the Blencathra chorus
echoing among the fells of Cumberland. One need not, however,
go so far a-field or select the very antithesis of Leicestershire
sport in order to illustrate the charms that belong to unfashionable
fox-hunting.
Between such extremes as the Badminton, Warwickshire,
Atherstone, Bramham Moor, Grafton, and Cheshire, which
even a Meltonian would not despise, and the obscure hunts of
some woodland districts wherein vaulting ambition finds little
scope, are many varieties of hunting country that offer attractions
sufficient for all modest requirements. Their fixtures are not
difficult to get at, and anybody who cares for a day with sportsmen
who take more delight in the work of hounds than in steeple-
chasing need not journey very far from London. He had
better, however, select a country in which pheasant preserves
are not plentiful, or he may only experience the disappointment
of a blank day. At the trysting place he will find probably
14 A YEAR Of SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
not more than fifty followers assembled, but nearly all of them are
sure to be keen fox-hunters, from the veteran whose grey
hairs and bent shoulders tell of three score and ten winters
past, to the boy whose pony is rejoicing in its emancipation from
the leading strings. A dozen farmers, young and old, who
know every cover, and nearly every Fox that haunts it, are there
in homely garb. The few ladies present do not affect novelties
in habit skirts or eccentricities in head gear, and the horses
they ride are more distinguished for cleverness than good
looks. The Master, whose appearance is welcomed by all with
courteous salutations, wears a hunting-cap as the outward sign of
authority, instead of the silk hat which so many of his brethren
have adopted since Leicestershire set that fashion. The huntsman,
a weather-beaten veteran, whose wiry frame and keen face
bespeak untiring energy in pursuit, has his hounds in perfect
condition, and though some among them are of a type that would
not find favour with judges at a Peterborough Show, they all look
as if no day would be too long for them. At a signal from
the Master old Jim trots away to a ride through the big woods,
where his hounds, spreading right and left, are soon hard at
work among the bracken and brambles of tangled undergrowth.
The long succession of larch plantations and oak copses, closing
here and there into deep shadowy valleys where hounds are
for a time completely lost to view, would break the heart of a
Leicestershire huntsman, but Jim plods on patiently from end
to end, relying on himself and hounds to drive the Fox out of
these strongholds if they find one here. His voice or horn is
only heard at long intervals, and just loud enough to keep the
hounds under command. At the first note of a light tongue
FOX-HUNTING OUTSIDE THE SHIRES. 15
thrown far ahead, he pauses for a moment with every faculty
on the alert, and then, as the welcome tidings are confirmed, he
cheers the pack with a shrill " Hark to Falstaff, hark ! " In a
minute the dead leaves are shaken with a rush and a rattling
chorus, and with a few clear touches on the horn he proclaims
a find. Then the old man becomes a boy once more in his
enthusiasm. To force a cunning old Fox through an apparently
endless chain of thickets is no child's play, but Jim's eye is quick
to note every sign when the hounds are at fault, and with cheer
after cheer he keeps them on the line of his hunted one. For
twenty minutes they stick to the woodlands, and then an inspirit-
ing " Tally ho ! gone away ! " tells that we are in for a run at last.
Horsemen and horsewomen dash along the rides at headlong
speed, eager for a start. Some crash through the copse to leap
the low palings of its boundary fence. Others make fora stile, in
anxiety to distinguish themselves while their horses have the
courage that hot rivalry gives ; but the more knowing ones, who
want to see the finish, however far off that may be, head for a gate
that commands wide views of meadow and fallow. There is in
truth no great need for hurry. A field freshly ploughed has brought
hounds to their noses. They falter, then check, and Jim, who will
not have them hurried at a moment so critical, gives time while
they fling round in a wide self-cast. He is not of " the let 'em
alone " school altogether, and knows full well the difference
between hare-hunting and fox-hunting, but he never meddles with
the hounds until they have done their utmost. Then his casts are
made with quick decision and at no laggard's pace. The Master
makes no effort to restrain impetuous pursuers. Jim's uplifted
hand and politely persuasive " Hold hard, gentlemen, please ! " are
1 6 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
sufficient. Before all followers have found their way out of cover
a trusty hound begins to feather on the line, gives a low whimper,
then throws his tongue gaily, and all, rushing together at that
challenge, drive with a merry chorus towards a valley where level
meadows give promise of scent. The promise is not belied, and
for ten minutes the hard riders have a taste of joy that makes them
envy not the fate of Leicestershire men. Master, huntsman, and
followers, however, knowing this is too good to last long, keep
their eyes bent on the leading hounds, who, topping a thorn fence,
speed up a swelling slope towards the flinty ridges. Into a deep
goyle they plunge, and then up the far side to where a ploughman
has halted his team that he may watch the sport. There the
hounds come to a check suddenly. Jim, by some path known only
to himself, gets to them quickly. The foremost riders, finding
their way barred by a ravine too big to be jumped at one stride,
make the clever hunters creep down to where the further bank
affords firm space for landing on. But a young horse-dealer,
whose four-year-old rushes at the goyle blindly, jumps almost on
the top of Jim's favourite hounds, and only escapes the torrent of
well-merited abuse by rolling backward among the bushes. This
is a warning to all other impetuous folk, who are content to seek
more easy ways of getting over. Some, finding a practicable bank
on the higher ground, scramble over it, and rush in where more
experienced sportsmen would fear to tread. Jim's self-control is
sorely tried when a portly gentleman proffers advice on the
assumption that our Fox must have been headed by the ploughman.
Some hounds apparently thought the same, for, after a fling
forward, they have come back to try the goyle. Jim, meanwhile
sits grimly silent, keeping his eye on one old hound and his horn
FOX-HUNTING OUTSIDE THE SHIRES. 17
%
upraised ready for a blast. " Hoick forward, boys ! " he shouts
joyously, as Vulcan's deep note proclaims a recovered scent.
The Fox, too stout-hearted to be headed from his point, has
slipped along a hedgerow unseen by the ploughman, and is setting
his neck straight for some earths three miles off. But that check
has given him a long start, and scent is cold on flinty hills. The
hounds can hardly own to it at times, but they keep driving
steadily on, and a true sportsman may well take delight in every
exhibition of their sagacity, as, in their rivalry, one after another
takes up the thread of pursuit. Presently their pace quickens, and
we must gallop fast to catch them. They crash through a narrow
shaw and race up hill towards a belt of trees. But it is too late.
The Fox has found shelter in an open earth, and there one may be
content to leave him with hounds baying about his stronghold.
Digging for a Fox is often a necessity when the pack needs blood
to give it encouragement, and to such conclusion a fox-hunting run
in an unfashionable country often leads ; but not every sportsman
can take pleasure in it.
n
JANUARY.
SNIPE SHOOTING.
Bv J. MORAY BROWN.
SNIPE shooting has one great advantage ; it can be enjoyed by
the poor man as well as the rich. No high rents, no keepers, no
army of beaters, no highly preserved ground are necessary for its
enjoyment nor could the veriest curmudgeon of a farmer make
any claim for damages inflicted by Snipe. All that is necessary is
wet marshy ground, and the rest must depend on the caprice of
one of the most capricious of birds. The Snipe comes and goes
as the season or the weather changes, or perhaps at the ruling of
some still more mysterious influence. He is here to-day, gone to-
morrow ; now frequenting ground where you make certain of find-
ing him at home ; at other times, and under apparently most
favourable circumstances, deserting it. In fact his pursuit has
always that concomitant amount of uncertainty which enhances the
delights of sport. Then, too, Snipe offer as a rule such difficult
and sporting shots that the knocking down of two or three couples
will, in the eyes of most men not satiated with bird slaughter
be more appreciated than the bagging of many partridges or
pheasants.
The charm, therefore, of this particular form of sport, lies in its
SNIPE SHOOTING. 19
uncertainty, its essentially wild surroundings, and the satisfaction
of finding one's game, and holding one's gun straight. I may be
unduly enthusiastic, but to me there is a charm in the mere
splashing through a bit of snipe bog, a thrill engendered by the
" sc-a-a-pe" of a Snipe, as he shapes his tortuous flight, that the
whirr of "twice twenty thousand cock pheasants on wing"
never awakens. I know that my game is thoroughly wild. 1 have
looked for him in the proper place, and approached him in the
right direction, and if, as I catch a glint of his white under-wings
I have " straight powder'' why, I glow with pride and pleasure.
Foolish, perhaps, to let a little bird of some 5 oz. in weight
influence one so ; but brother sportsmen will back me in my
assertion, and those who know not the delights of shooting the
Snipe can, at any rate, testify to his value as a dish. Though in
other climes there exist many varieties of Snipe, in Great Britain
only three are commonly known : the Great or Solitary Snipe, the
Full Snipe and the Jack Snipe. The first of these is a very rare
bird, for few sportsmen have so much as seen the Solitary Snipe,
and though some are recorded as having been shot or seen every
year, they are few and far between. I will therefore dismiss him
from the list with the hope that when one gets up before any
reader of A Year of Sport and Natural History, he may " hold
straight," and thus earn distinction as having shot one of the
rarest of British birds ; and here I may add that such good fortune
once fell to my lot some eighteen years ago. The place was
Cove Common, Aldershot, and on that occasion I expended five
cartridges, and bagged one Solitary Snipe, two Full, and two Jack
Snipe.
Though in Scotland and Ireland, and, indeed, in some parts of
D 2
20 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
England, many a Snipe is shot during the months of September,
October, and November, it is not till the first week in December
that he can be said to be abundant anywhere in these islands ;
and after the first frosts he is a very different bird from what he
was previously, for he is then sharper and quicker in his flight,
and in better condition. By January he will be found in fair
numbers ; and in nearly every patch of marshy ground, every
warm spring, or tiny rill we may expect to find our little long-billed
friend. But beware how you search for him in some places, or
your enthusiasm may place you in an awkward predicament, for
the Snipe loves quaking bogs, and if you venture too far you may
souse in up to your armpits in mud, weeds, and water, and find
some difficulty in extricating yourself. Under such circumstances,
and having to exercise due caution in advancing on his stronghold,
the difficulty of making good shooting will naturally be consider-
ably enhanced, for there is no standing still whilst the birds are
driven to you, and you have to look out for two things, your safe
footing in a treacherous bog and your game. Snipe frequent queer
places at times, places that border so closely on civilization and
traffic that one would hardly expect to find such essentially wild
birds in them. I can, as I write, recall several such incongruous
localities, notably one spot on the Fossil Estate near the Maryhill
Barracks, Glasgow, where one day, but a few years ago, I bagged
twelve couples of Snipe besides a teal. The place was an old
flooded coal-pit, and abutted on to manufactories, coal-pits and a
railway whilst there were many buildings almost within gun shot.
Probably by now it is drained and built over, but even at the time
I mention it was sufficiently unlikely looking ground. Another
capital bit of snipe ground was a strip of marshy land covered at
SNJPE SHOOTING. 23
high tide, which lay between the River Clyde and the railway that
runs between Bowline and Dumbarton Castle. It was not more
than about 500 yards wide, if as much, and extended I speak
from memory about three-quarters of a mile. Trains and river
steamers were constantly passing and re-passing, and yet Snipe
during August and September used to frequent this spot in con-
siderable numbers, and many was the day's sport I had there.
In Snipe shooting many men affect an indifference as to how
they work their ground, and this indifference affects their success
in a very marked degree. If you walk np-wind you give the Snipe
an advantage. At first sight this may appear an absurdity, for
most birds take advantage of the wind and fly with it, or down wind.
There are two birds, however, that do not do this blackgame and
Snipe. They always rise against the wind. Let the sports-
man bear in mind that if he wants to get the better of Snipe and
what is woodcraft but approaching your game under the most
favourable circumstances to yourself ? he must approach the
bird's haunt down wind. Then, when the bird rises he will try to
face the wind and give a crossing shot, which will naturally expose
more of his body than if he went straight away. Besides, the
bird has then little chance of indulging in those corkscrew twists
which make so many otherwise good shots miss him. As to the
moment when a Snipe going straight away should be fired at,
opinions differ. Some hold that you should fire directly he rises,
others that you should wait till he has ended his rapid twists.
On this point I will offer no advice, but merely observe that, by
adopting the latter plan, you may four times out of five wait too
long, and allow your bird to get out of range before the trigger be
touched.
24 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
Really good Snipe shooting in Great Britain is now difficult to
find, and the bags of some thirty years ago or more are difficult to
make. Drainage has, no doubt, had much to do with this, and
the man who now kills his twenty couples of Snipe looks on the
achievement as a great one ; and yet there are places where such
bags, and even better ones, may still be made.
Two or three couples of Snipe make a very agreeable addition
to any bag and there are, I fancy, few men who, when it is
suggested during a day's shooting that, " we will just try a field or
two for Snipe," do not feel their blood warm, and experience a
sensation that the probability of any number of shots at pheasants
and partridges will have failed to arouse. How anxiously on such
occasions we scan every little patch of rushes in a badly drained
field ! How cautiously we approach the spot, and then, when the
Snipe rises with his strange, familiar cry and twisting flight, how
pleased we feel when we artistically cut him down !
Snipe shooting has certainly great charms, and if, after a day
devoted to it, you return home wet and cold, you will not return
dissatisfied, for even though your bag be a modest one, you will
know that you have had a difficult bird to shoot, and a very wide-
awake one ; and, if you be a gourmet, you will look forward to a
bonne bouche in the shape of Snipe trail on toast.
JANUARY.
WILD SWAN SHOOTING.
BY GEORGE LINDESAY.
A COUPLE of evenings ago old Bob, the keeper, came in from one
of his moorland excursions to inform me that there were wild
swans on the Black Lochs, and that, therefore, we were in for
severe weather. He and the swans were right, for it is now
blowing a whole gale from the north-east, accompanied by a
heavy snowstorm, and I know that the wild fowl will be coming in
by thousands, and that before long Bob and I will be among
them.
The Black Lochs are five in number, and are distant from
my home a good ten miles. There is an abominably bad peat road
as far as a lonely uninhabited cottage, where we occasionally sleep
when shooting the outlying beats. As far as this we can drive
at any rate, we can progress on wheels for the remaining five
miles we have to tramp it through desolate swampy flats, inter-
spersed here and there with low hillocks.
Severe weather may with safety be predicted when the swans
are seen on these most unattractive-looking tarns, but when they
do arrive they are never in a hurry to leave (there being plenty of
feeding), and before they do go we generally manage to get two
E
26 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
or three. It is now three years since they paid their last visit,
and then we had one of the heaviest storms known in the north
for many years ; but the duck shooting was grand, and besides
the smaller birds we got a good many geese and swans.
After blowing with unabated fury for thirty-six hours, the gale
has suddenly dropped, and at an evil hour on a bitter February
morning, I begin the pleasures of the day by smashing, with the
assistance of a boot-jack, the ice in my bath. Breakfast is not a
lengthy meal, for Bob has been putting the pony in the cart and is
now waiting at the door, as keen now for sport as he was in the
days of his youth, nigh forty years ago. Each of us is indulged
with a cup of steaming hot coffee with a strong admixture of
brandy, and, muffled from head to foot in wraps, we emerge from
the warmth of the cosy parlour into the darkness of the night.
Jenny, the pony, does not at all like being dragged from her warm
stable at such an unearthly hour, and exhibits her disapproval by
various antics. At last, however, she discovers that she has to go,
and we start off along the road with such sudden speed that
'* Garry," the retriever, is shot out behind with a dismal yell, and has
to foot it alongside until we get a pull at our steed at least a mile
further on.
Ere long the grey dawn begins to cast a little light on the
desolate scene. A lot of snow has fallen, but, except under the
lee of certain hillocks where the drifts lie deep, there is but little on
the ground, and what there is is flattened out by the force of the
wind. Some three miles from home the road approaches the head
of an inlet of the bay, and here we can distinctly hear the calls of
the wildfowl out at sea, the whistling of the widgeon, the " quack,
quack, quack " of the mallard, the wild cry of the geese, and the
U'lLD SWAN SHOOTING. 29
clear and bugle-like note of the swans. As the light increases we
ever and anon catch glimpses of the fowl circling in clouds above
the sea, and when we reach the cottage there is about as much
light as we are likely to have so long as the dull and leaden clouds,
which look full of snow, remain.
Much to her satisfaction, Jenny is made comfortable in the
little stable, the gun? are carefully seen to, and the creature
comforts removed from the dog-cart, and, with pipes in our
mouths, Bob and I start on our tramp across the moors and
swamps. Even with our local knowledge of the country, great
care has to be exercised, some of those bog holes being very deep,
and as they have a thin layer of ice over them, the snow lies
unmelted there as on the more solid ground. Not long ago one
of the shepherds got in, and would most certainly have perished,
had it not been for his dog, who, seeing its master's danger,
started off for the cottage, where, fortunately, we happened to be
spending a few days. The dog's manner told us there was
something wrong, and when we showed signs of following it
exhibited unmistakable delight. When we reached the spot
there was nothing to be seen of the unhappy man but his head
and neck : the bog had very nearly secured a victim ; even
his arms, which he had very wisely stretched out when he first
went in, were invisible, and certainly in another ten minutes all
would have been over. As it was, we managed to rescue him in
a greatly exhausted condition, and with no small difficulty, from
his perilous position, and the collie's delight .when at last we
dragged his master on to firm ground was a sight to see.
We ascend a certain low sandy hillock, which commands a fair
view of the Black Lochs, and, with the glasses, proceed to inspect
3 o A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
the water. As luck will have it, on the nearest loch, the shore of
which is not two hundred yards from us, are some thirty swans
and an immense number of ducks mostly widgeon all mixed up
together, and deeply intent on making a meal off the grass and
weeds with which the tarn abounds. A powerful pair of glasses
enable me to scrutinize their every movement, and for nearly
half an hour we watch the scene with interest. Although a noble
bird, the wild swan is not nearly so graceful or majestic on the water
as its tame brother; when swimming it does not push out its wings
as does the latter, nor has it the same proud carriage of head and
neck. As the largest of wildfowl, it is, of course, an object of
ambition to every sportsman, but it is of no use for the table, and
only fit for stuffing or for a present. Some folk assert that a
young cygnet roasted is not bad eating, but personally I had
rather go without. Of the five Black Lochs, three are too deep
to form good feeding-ground for swans, even their long necks
cannot reach the grasses and weeds at the bottom ; the other
two are much shallower, with low grassy islands and banks, but
one of these is practically useless, there not being a bit of cover
for a distance of at least one hundred and fifty yards all round.
There remains, therefore, only the other shallow loch further on,
on the surface of which there are no big birds, as we. see with our
glasses. Bob and I being pretty well frozen, retire from the ridge
of the hillock, and as a result of the council of war then held,
"Garry" is sent forward toward the loch; instantly the air is
alive with the fowl, and resounding with their various cries of
alarm ; but although we sit very tight and close, not a single
swan comes within shot, and all make off to sea.
Then we stretch our stiffened limbs, have a stiff dose of raw
WILD SWAN SHOOTING. 31
whisky, light our pipes, and step out for the further shallow loch
without further delay (having first of all taken the precaution to
put up close to the water's edge a mild sort of scarecrow).
Within ten yards of its brink there is an old " peat hag," the
upper surface of which extended so far that it forms an admirable
shelter for the stalker, the difficulty of course being (when there
were birds on the loch) to get there unseen. On the present
occasion, beyond a few ducks which fly off at once, there is
nothing on the moss-brown water of the tarn to interest us, and
we take up our quarters underneath the overhanging turf without
any elaborate precautions.
The snow begins to descend, and I suggest to Bob the propriety
of his remaining with me in the comparative shelter, but he won't
have it. " If, when the swans come back, they chance to settle at
the other side of the loch, they'll want drivin' towards ye," he
sapiently remarks, and after a frugal meal away he goes, leaving me
with " Garry " to keep me company, and both the guns, but not
very sanguine as to results.
More than two hours have passed since Bob's departure, and I
have pretty well given up hope, when from the direction of the sea
there come clear and unmistakable notes, and flying directly to-
wards me I can see some thirty or forty swans high in air. Need
1 say that I endeavour to make myself microscopically small, and
need I say that Bob's precaution is justified, and that the big birds
descend with a mighty swish into the water at the far side of the
loch, a good three hundred yards distant from my place of conceal-
ment.
For a little time they are very much on the qni vive, but soon
they seem to lose all sense of danger, and begin to feed and preen
32 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
their feathers. Then the old man develops his generalship. I am
unable to see him, or make out what he is about, but a feeling of
uneasiness is somehow communicated to the swans, and they begin,
without being positively alarmed, to swim and drift over in my
direction. The moment for action has at last come ; the birds are
within thirty yards of the shore, and I dare not put off any longer.
Putting in fresh cartridges, I utter a low call taught me by my pre-
ceptor, on hearing which the birds cluster together ; then I let
drive with both barrels, snatch up the second gun and rush forward
to the water's edge. There is a scene of wild commotion, five birds
are left dead or dying on the loch, and their much-alarmed com-
panions are getting under way as quickly as may be, lashing the
surface of the water with their great wings, and uttering their
wild, sonorous cries. With the first barrel of my second gun I am
lucky enough-to bring down a bird in the act of clearing the water ;
but the next shot is a longish one, and its object gets away for
the time being, to be picked up, however, later on. Bob now puts
in an appearance in huge delight, for seven swans to the shoulder
gun constitute a decidedly red-letter day, and we proceed with
" Garry's " assistance to retrieve the game. This is no easy matter,
as two of them are very lively cripples, and give a lot of trouble
before they are secured ; but at length a dose of big shot terminates
the struggles of the last bird, and enables " Garry " to bring it
ashore. There is no time to be wasted, as the short winter's day
is far advanced ; the birds are hidden under the peat bog until to-
morrow, and once more we start off across the swampy wastes for
the cottage, where we arrive an hour after sundown, pretty well
tired out, but highly pleased with our day on the Black Lochs.
JANUARY.
HUNTING WITH BEAGLES.
BY H. H. S. PEARSE.
FOLLOWING hounds on foot is not a sport that commends itself to
middle-aged gentlemen, who are apt, perhaps, to regard it as a
frivolous pursuit, fit only for boys to indulge in. Yet those who
have been bitten by a passion for that form of hunting in their
younger days find its fascinations too strong to be lightly shaken
off as age advances. It is a diversion that can be enjoyed to the
full only by those who have strong limbs, sound wind and keen
enthusiasm all attributes of youth ; but I have known many men
whose love for it did not .wane to the end of their lives, and, at
least, one could be named who, though now a good deal on the
shady side of fifty and no longer able to take the lead in a fast
burst, is hard to beat at feats of long endurance. He will keep
jogging along at a drover's trot, up hill or down, on firm turf
or through deep plough, and nothing seems to tire him. He is, to
all who try conclusions with him, a perpetual reminder of the
truth that age in training can hold its own against youth out of
condition any day ; and if asked, he would certainly say that all
this he owes to the merry music of beagles. Few of us have
either opportunity or inclination to attain such a state of fitness,
F
34 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
but the slowest may share a good deal of this kind of sport if he
have the determination and stamina to see it through. Nearly all
authorities, I believe, agree that Beagles which cannot go faster
than the best pace of a good runner are worthless. They either
do not run down their game at all, or take so long about it that hunt-
ing with them becomes no more exciting than the solution of an
ingenious puzzle. From this it follows that for pursuit of stout
hares on rough heath lands or even on open downs, where no
obstacles except hills have to be encountered, dwarf beagles are not
of much account. Nevertheless, it does not do to rush to the other
extreme, for a pack that differs in nothing but in name from ordinary
harriers will frequently run clean away from the field, and thus rob
the sport of its most characteristic charm for all but a few, who
manage to cut in at the turns. This is why horsemen are so
strongly objected to in beagle hunts. A slow pack, if often excited
by the presence of horses galloping abreast of it, will gradually
acquire the drive that fox-hunters delight in, and a consequent
speed greater than the swiftest runners can rival. Beagles thus
animated by jealousy may kill hares in dashing style, but without the
close and patient hunting which should be their distinguishing merit.
On the other hand, a huntsman who lets them alone until they
fall into habits of dwelling too long on a scent, and never rouses
them to keen energy, will be in danger of losing both hare and
followers. Nobody cares to watch hounds of any kind puzzling
out a line as if it had got into a tangle, and as if they didn't know
which was the right end of it.
An ideal pack of Beagles is such as Mr. Johnson hunts in Salop
not quite big enough, perhaps, to get over rough ground with
ease, but fast enough to run a stout hare down in an hour on
\
HUNTING WITH BEAGLES. 37
scent-holding Shropshire pastures stanch and steady on the
line as a sleuth hound ; never wild or flighty, yet full of life, and
doing their work to merriest music. They are handled by one
who knows when to be patient with them, and how to quicken
their zeal with a little of his own enthusiasm, should they loiter
too long on a cold scent. That, however, is not one of their
faults. Like all good Beagles, they have a tendency to try back
in their first cast when at fault, instead of flinging forward. Such
a tendency, however, the young amateur who happens to have a
pack not quite so good as Mr. Johnson's will do well to be on
his guard against, and watch closely without interfering too
soon. The worst hounds will run heel, but the best sometimes
may not carry on so far as the hare has gone forward. With an
instinct matching that of their quarry, they are always looking out
for the twists and doubles in which puss is so cunning, and often
turn too soon, thus getting on a false scent. Then, as in all
other difficulties, the huntsman had better trust to veterans and
sages of his pack, who are sure to tell him when anything is
amiss, if he has skill to read their language of signs. Sir
Marteine Lloyd's Beagles, hunting part of South Wales, and the
Royal Rock in Cheshire, are bigger than Mr. Johnson's, but
quite as good in their work, and more adapted for a rough, hilly
country. There may be better, but if so, they make no show,
either in kennel lists or at Peterborough, and one would have to
seek their hunting-grounds in some very remote corners of the
country. Undergraduates at Oxford, and merry subalterns at
Aldershot run with packs that are not Beagles, both the Christ-
church and the Divisional Foot being harriers, though no more
than sixteen inches high. Field officers who have not forgotten
3 8 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
the athletic exercises of their youth, occasionally join the subalterns
in a run over the heath-covered ridges near camp, or through the
hop gardens and meadows Farnham way, while grave and reverend
seniors have at times taken a turn with the Christchurch men,
but one would not advise anybody who cannot go the pace, to
follow either of these two packs habitually. Though hares
double and always come back, if possible, to the point whence
they started, one cannot always be sure of being there at the
right moment, except by running the same line as hounds or near
it. On lofty, open downs a man may at times stand still and
watch the chase circling hither and thither at his feet, or cut in
now and then as it comes towards him, but this, after all, is only
playing the part of a spectator, and not of a sportsman.
The real enthusiast in this kind of hunting will always prefer a
moderately level country to hills, and if fences of strong growth
alternate with broad ditches or brooks, the crossing of which can
only be compassed by a brilliant effort at some risk of immersion, so
much the better, for then both sinew and pluck come into play,
and a man who holds his own with the pack throughout may take
such pride in himself as fox-hunters who ride straight are known to
entertain when they hold their own in a quick thing with a fast pack.
Given good condition and sound constitution, one may, in fact,
find as much pleasure in hunting with Beagles on foot as in the
most costly form of sport. I have always admired as the truest
sportsmen those who, not being able to afford a stud of hunters,
are content to follow hounds on foot. They, at any rate, show
that, with them, love of the chase is not dependent on adventitious
aids. They are not buoyed up by excitement in sympathy with
high courage of noble steeds, and if rivalry enters into their
HUNTING WITH BEAGLES. 39
minds, it is of a sort that springs from no meaner motive than to
do the best they can with the powers nature has given them. A
well-ordered gathering with " Foot Beagles " might serve as a
model for some fashionable fox-hunters to follow. One rarely sees
a man out of his proper place, and sport is conducted according
to methods approved by all authorities who have written learnedly
on the noble science. Beagles attract a good many fair followers,
and though it cannot be said that a girl is at her best when
striding along in short skirts, knickerbockers, and field boots
after a pack in full cry, there are some who can do this well
without sacrifice of feminine grace. The majority of them,
however, will prefer to leave such exercises to men, and content
themselves with watching the chase from a distance that lends
enchantment to a sport in which, of necessity, rough manliness
finds more scope than refinement. Without being ridiculously
sentimental a woman may well object to take active part in the
final scenes when a timid hare is being pulled down. We know
nothing, in these days, of such a system as Sir Roger de Coverley
practised with his stop hounds after age had compelled him to
give up his Beagles. The Spectator tells us of his concern "on
account of the poor hare, that was now quite spent and almost
within reach of her enemies ; when the huntsman, getting forward,
threw down his pole before the dogs. They were now within
eight yards of that game, which they had been pursuing for
almost as many hours ; yet on the signal before mentioned
they all made a sudden stand, and though they continued opening
as much as before, durst not once attempt to pass the pole. 1 '
No wonder that he was highly pleased with such a proof of
discipline in the pack, and with the good nature of the knight
40 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
who could not find it in his heart to kill a creature that had given
him so much diversion. A modern hunt with Beagles is not quite
like that, but it is, at any rate, an exhibition of animal sagacity
trained to perfection, and of stout endurance on the part of human
pursuers. If any doubt this, let them take their place in the
field when a pack of these miniature hounds is drawing for its
game, and make up their minds to follow as far as they can
when the game is on foot. At first the hare goes off on a wide
curve, as if heading straight for some distant coverts, and then
beginning to despise the speed of her puny pursuers, she squats,
with ears erect, listening for their approach. Presently, as
their chorus rolls towards her, she starts again, and it seems
scarcely an effort for her to distance them. But, following every
turn of the scent, they press forward eagerly, and stout runners
who are yet fresh enough to top the thorn fences in their stride
have as much as they can do to keep up with the pack. A
check, while the skein of some intricate doubles is being puzzled
out, gives slower pursuers a chance of coming up, and then the
merry music begins again. So, for nearly an hour, the chase goes
on in circles that slowly narrow. At last the hare doubles as
if in despair of being able to shake off her enemies. She is
reduced to her last shifts, and unless some accident befriends
her the end is inevitable. So long as scent holds the Beagles
will not leave it willingly, but often in spite of their determination,
the hare escapes by speed or cunning, and then some of the
best sportsmen do not feel great disappointment, for, like Sir
Roger de Coverley, they are loth to see a creature killed that has
given them so much diversion.
FEBRUARY.
THE WILD GOOSE.
BY GEORGE LINDESAY.
IN consequence of its size and the comparative infrequency of its
occurrence, the Wild Swan is doubtless looked upon by the wild
fowler as the most valuable prize he can secure, but the Wild
Goose is not only a more difficult bird to get at, he is also, when
in condition, an excellent addition to the table, which is more than
can be said of the swan. It would be hard to name a bird more
thoroughly able to take care of itself, and whose senses of hearing,
seeing and smelling are more acute than the Wild Goose.
Unless at night, in a gale of wind, or in very thick weather, they
fly at a height quite beyond the range of an ordinary gun. Before
settling down, whether it be on land or water, they invariably
inspect the neighbourhood for any sign of an enemy, and when
they finally conclude that all is right, a sentinel is at once told off
for duty, who, while his companions are feeding, keeps a remark-
ably sharp look out in all directions. This bird can communicate
an alarm silently as well as in noisy fashion, the cessation of the
continuous low chuckle which he keeps up while on the watch
being sufficient to cause the rest to leave off feeding at once.
After a certain time another bird relieves the sentinel, who then
G
42 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
makes up for lost time with his feeding. Not only does this apply
during the day when feeding, it may be, on meadows or stubble
fields, but also at night, when these wary birds retire to some sheet
of water for rest. Even then there is a sleepless watch bird, whose
warning cry is the signal for flight. The smallest carelessness or
error on the part of the stalker, the placing of his foot upon stone
or gravel, the exposure of the smallest portion of his person, an eddy
of wind in the wrong direction, any one of these accidents is
as fatal to the sportsman's chance, when creeping up to Wild
Geese, as if he were stalking a red stag in the Highlands.
However large their numbers, and however great the apparent
confusion when they rise, it is curious to note the rapidity with
which the birds get into the line which is at once formed and kept
with methodical accuracy and precision. There are four kinds of
geese which visit our shores in more or less considerable numbers,
and in some cases breed within their precincts, to which the
generic term "Wild Geese" is applied. These are the common
Grey Lag Goose,, the Bean Goose, the White-Fronted Goose, and
the Brent Goose, frequently called the Bernacle.
The Grey Lag, the. largest of the group, is not a winter visitor
only, for, according to Mr. St. John, he found numerous nests of
this species on the Sutherlandshire lochs ; and Mr. Milner, in his
" Account of the Birds of Sutherlandshire and Ross," says that he
found their eggs on Lochs Shin, Assynt, and Naver in the former
county. They chiefly breed along the coasts of Norway and in some
parts of Sweden, and are occasionally found in winter in some of
the midland counties of Ireland. Their food consists for the most
.part of grass, and the tender and succulent shoots of young wheat,
oats, or barley. The amount of destruction that a flock of Wild
o
o
THE WILD GOOSE. 45
Geese will cause in a field of either of these kinds of grain in spring
is prodigious. The Grey Goose is a very good bird for the table,
but his flesh is firmer and better-flavoured when he has been
enabled to procure grain, on stubble fields or elsewhere. On an
alarm being given all the birds run together for a second or two
before taking flight, and should the stalker have been fortunate
enough to get within range, a shot at this moment will give satis-
factory results. This happy position, however, is one very difficult
of attainment, for, as a rule, the birds avoid carefully a near
approach to anything that will afford shelter to an enemy
hedgerows, ditches, and the like.
Unless, therefore, they be found on exceptionally favourable
ground, driving is to be preferred to stalking, and by this means
some of these fine birds are often secured. Such is the attraction
afforded by newly-sown cornfields that if these be situated in a
thinly-populated district, the geese will remain for days in their
neighbourhood feeding upon them, retiring for the night to some
conveniently situated loch or tarn among the mountains. In the
month of March, Wild Geese visit some of our Scottish counties
in considerable numbers in search of food of this description, and
it has fallen to my lot on more than one occasion, when in
Haddington and Berwickshire, at that time of the year, to bag a
good many of them. While staying at a country house in the
latter county some years ago, I received a visit one night from a
remarkable old character, called Sandy Johnston. Sandy was a
regular Jack-of-all-trades, and amongst other accomplishments
he was better acquainted with the habits of the wild fowl than
anyone else in the district. Knowing my liking for a shot at
the Wild Geese, he had come to tell me that for the last two days
4 6 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
he had been watching the movements of a lot of about thirty birds
which had recently arrived in the neighbourhood, and that he thought
we might get a shot at them if we had any luck. An early hour
the following morning, therefore, saw my cousin Tom and myself
on the march, under Sandy's guidance, toward the field where Sandy
told us the geese were sure to be. Six miles of hard walking
brought us to a high and very thick hedge about half a mile from
the spot in question, a large field of young wheat belonging to an
old farmer, whose dislike to the proceedings of Wild Geese was
only equalled by his love of whisky.
After a prolonged stare through a small hole in the hedge,
Sandy somewhat dejectedly announced that the birds were not
visible. "He had seen them there," he said, "the morning
before" at an earlier hour, but his advice was that we should
conceal ourselves under the hedge for a time, in the hope that
they might turn up later, as, owing to the presence of a certain
ditch, which bisected the field in question, the place was an
exceptionally favourable one for a drive. The hedge was
horribly thorny and everything was very wet, the air, moreover,
was uncommonly cool, and Sandy would not hear of our
smoking, therefore did the time seem long and the performance
monotonous.
Very nearly an hour had elapsed, when I saw the old man cock
his head, and in another second or two I could hear the wild
geese high aloft screaming and trumpeting ; they were coming
from the direction opposite to that from which Sandy expected
them, and had doubtless been indulging in a meal elsewhere.
After a preliminary survey, they settled down in the field and soon
began to feed ravenously under the watchful guardianship of a
THE WILD GOOSE. 47
remarkably knowing-looking old gander, who, with head erect, did
sentinel's duty.
We now received our directions from Sandy. He pointed out
to us where we would find the entrance to the ditch, by crawling
up which we were to get into the same field, at any rate, as the
geese ; while he, by a circuitous route, was to reach a small
spinny on the far side of the said field, and from which he was to
alarm the birds quietly. Tom and I had a most horribly wet
stalk of nearly three-quarters of a mile in the ditch, which had lots
of water in it and was by no means too deep for sheltering pur-
poses, but we failed to get within 100 yards of our game. We
therefore lay down some fifty yards apart and awaited events with
what patience we might. Suddenly the old gander gave a
peculiar cry and the birds stopped feeding and ran together. Had
we been within range that would have been a grand chance
indeed, but almost immediately they rose, and, as luck would have
it, came right over us in a confused mass. Four of the big birds
fell at once to our double discharge, a fifth got away, and two
others fell dead outside the great field.
The Bean Goose is one of the most frequently occurring of its
family in this country ; it breeds in various parts of the North of
Scotland, and for six months in the year may be found in enormous
" g a gg^ es " ' m Tipperary, Limerick and the midland counties of
Ireland; indeed, there is hardly a bog or marsh in these districts,
comparatively free from human intruders, that is not frequented by
them in large numbers. Except in extreme cold, when these are
sheeted in ice, their favourite feeding-grounds are inland bogs
and meadows, whence in the evenings they return for rest to the
mud banks of the coast. When deprived by severe and con-
48 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
tinuous frost of their usual means of subsistence, they fly restlessly
to and fro in search of unfrozen pools, and under such circum-
stances become victims of the shore shooter in large numbers.
Very similar in his food and general habits to the last-named
variety is the White-fronted Goose. He is common in Ireland,
and in England is frequently met with in large flocks ; but in the
North of Scotland he is a rare visitor. He is found in very large
numbers in Sweden and Lapland, in which countries he also
breeds. This goose is a capital bird for the table.
The habits of the Brent Goose, on the other hand, differ con-
siderably from those of the Bean Goose and Grey Lag. He is
rarely found inland, and seldom approaches the shore closely, his
favourite food being the marine plant, Zostera Marina, which
grows abundantly in the creeks and shoals of the coasts of many
of our English counties. The Brent is the commonest of his tribe
in this country, being found frequently in such vast numbers as to
blacken the water or the sandbanks on which they are resting.
They arrive as early as the middle of August in Belfast Lough,
and do not leave until April or May ; but in the North of England
and in Scotland they do not make their appearance before
autumn. The night is spent at sea asleep, and at earliest dawn
they repair to feed to the sand-banks and shoals, where they are
extremely difficult to approach. Personally I never had the
fortune to make a really big shot at Brent with the punt-gun,
eight couple actually picked up being my best, I think ; but Sir
Frederic Hughes, of Wexford, an experienced wildfowler, on one
occasion, with a single discharge of his big gun carrying two
pounds of shot, bagged the astonishing number of forty-seven of
these birds !
FEBRUARY.
RABBIT SHOOTING.
BY OSWALD CRAWFURD.
IT was an eminent living statesman who complained that rabbits
had but one fault : they were six inches too short. It does not
need to be a statesman, however, to have made this discovery it
only needs to shoot at a rabbit crossing a narrow ride in covert to
find that a longer animal might find it less absurdly easy to get
away without touch of pellet. To make this particular snap-shot
requires, in my opinion, more natural quickness of hand and eye,
more skill, and more practice combined than any other kind of shot
at fur or feather that I know about.
If it were not for rabbits, England as a sporting country would
be but a very dull one. The little white-scutted beast is an im-
portant item and incident in every day's shooting. He may start
up anywhere and everywhere ; from the rushy margin of a brook
when we are looking for teal, snipe, or wild duck ; from the under-
wood when we are expecting a blackcock to rise ; and, when we are
looking for outlying pheasants along a rough hedge side and don't
find them half a dozen rabbits may jump out here and there and
console us for our disappointment. If we look at the constituents
H
5 o A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
of the great bags that the local paper loves to chronicle we generally
find that rabbits make up 75 per cent, of the game enumerated.
Rabbits are hard to hit wherever found. Even in the open
they do not give at all an easy shot if the ground be rough with
tussocky grass, or gorse and heather tufts. Particularly when the
rabbit is pressed by a dog does he cross the narrow pathway with
inconceivable rapidity, and all the shooter, thirty or forty yards from
him, sees is an instantaneous grey flash, and the little animal has
disappeared again into the wood beyond, a fraction of a second
before the gun has been raised and the discharge rung out. The
ignorant man who looks on is perfectly assured that the rabbit has
escaped, but he has not if the shooter knows his w r ork ; the charge
has followed him, and he lies on his back stone dead, out of sight,
eighteen inches within the covert. Many men can kill five out of
six of these very difficult snap-shots, which seem so impossible to
the onlooker. Practice makes them perfect, and nothing but
constant practice would enable a man to attain to such certainty
of hand and eye as I describe.
Rabbit shooting in England is the first serious shooting that a
boy gets after he has done the usual snapping at blackbirds and
fieldfare ; and, as the walking is mostly easy and much or little can
be done at the shooter's pleasure, rabbit shooting is also what the
aged sportsman can best enjoy. This fact and the abundance of
rabbits and the difficulty and variety of the methods of shooting
them make this sport the most popular, as it certainly is the most
common, of all forms of English sport.
Of the various ways of killing rabbits the present writer loves least
the great rabbit battue, when no other game is shot, and where the
victims are to be counted by the hundred, and at times by the
RABBIT SHOOTING.
XABB1T SHOOTING. 53
thousand. Such a monotonous massacre may be all very well in
Australia, where the conies have become a plague ; but to be able to
kill such a multitude in any part of Great Britain implies an injury
beforehand done of malice prepense to the tenant and his crops.
In no part of these islands will rabbits increase and multiply abnor-
mally. Perhaps the damp climate and its vicissitudes of cold and
heat, damp and dry, prevent them ; or vermin to wit, hawks,
stoats, weasels, foxes, and cats run wild with human poachers,
check their over-increase. Of late years Sir William Harcourt,
with his Ground Game Act, has taken rank, as a check upon the
multiplication of rabbits, with the stoat, the polecat, and the
poacher. Certain it is that to be able to shoot a thousand
rabbits in a day over a thousand acres of land implies their over-
preservation, and over-preservation means that the normal balance
of nature is not preserved, and that something, sooner or later, will
go amiss.
It is only for the benefit of the quite unsporting or Cockney
reader that it is necessary to observe that the rabbit spends over
one hundred hours every week under-ground, and that he emerges
from his burrow more by night than by day. Consequently, the
night poacher sees more of him than the legitimate sportsman by
daylight. As rabbits are not much abroad while the sun is up, it is
necessary when a rabbit " shoot " is intended to get him to leave
his burrow and lie out in the fields and hedge-rows. The common
way to do this has been, till recently, for the keeper to run a ferret
through the burrows at night when the rabbit is not at home. The
smell of the ferret is repugnant as well it may be to the keen
nose of the rabbit, and he will not willingly re-enter the hole while
the ferret's taint still lingers. This plan has its objections : where
54 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
rabbits are very thick on the ground it is difficult to deal with more
than a small portion of their underground haunts ; besides which, to
force rabbits to stay long out of their holes is to expose them to
danger from all their illegitimate foes.
There are other ways of getting the rabbit to stay afield. A
piece of tow steeped in paraffin is laid at the mouth of the burrow,
and two or three days afterwards, when the rabbits have gone out
to feed, the entrance is stopped with a spade. This is a common
way, but it is troublesome, and the burrow is tainted for a long
time. A much better method, and one quite new to the present
writer, is described in the Badminton Library by Mr. Lascelles.
Boys are employed to stick pegs at every burrow's mouth, each peg
having affixed to it a scrap of white paper. The keeper, going
round his coverts, can easily see if a single hole has been passed.
He carries a small bottle of spirit of tar with him, and with a feather
touches each piece of paper. This keeps the rabbits out, but
would not keep them out if pushed by dogs, therefore the boys
are sent to stop each earth loosely with mould.
Shooting rabbits to ferrets is a sport which every real sportsman
delights in. There is a certain mystery about it, an expectancy,
an uncertainty, and the chance of disappointment which enchances
good luck. The muzzled ferret is put down near the hole ; we
all keeper, " guns," beaters, helpers, and even the dogs concen-
trate our thoughts on the little beast, as he creeps about. Does he
scent his prey, and will he go in ? If he will not, it is a sign that
the rabbits are from home. He enters, and we are fixed to the
spot we stand on not a word do we speak we hardly breathe.
Presently the ground under our feet seems to shake it is the
scamper of the rabbit underground a moment more and he will
RABBIT SHOOTING. 55
bolt. Then the noise ceases suddenly he has heard, seen, or
got wind of his enemies outside again the scamper of feet within,
and this time he does bolt suddenly, unexpectedly, as straight
and swiftly as a cricket ball from a fast bowler's hand. A shot,
a second, a third, a fourth, in quick succession; both "guns'"
have done their hardest, and in vain. There is shouting and
laughing ; the terriers give tongue and give chase ; and before
twenty can be counted the rabbit has run the gauntlet of ferret,
guns, and dogs, and is safe ; presently he is underground again,
a quarter of a mile away.
This is not scientific sport, so conducted, but it is the very best
fun in the world, and is going on in thousands of English home-
steads in this frost-bound month of February. I once read in a
magazine or newspaper the sentence, " the thoroughly English
sport of ferreting for rabbits," but in truth it must be the least
English of all our field sports, seeing that the rabbit almost
certainly is not an English animal, but was brought not many
centuries ago from Spain, and the ferret is quite certainly an
African polecat, and could never have been fetched from Africa
till rabbits were common enough in England to make it worth
while to keep this very uninteresting and most unpleasant little
animal in captivity. One says captivity with intention, for
though half-tamed, the ferret is never really domesticated.
FEBRUARY.
SPRING SALMON FISHING.
BY GEORGE LINDESAY.
THE conditions, surroundings, and influences which cause the
migratory salmonida to leave salt water and to ascend during the
winter months a particular river, thus constituting what is called a
spring river, have always been a fertile subject of discussion and
argument among anglers.
In Norway the rivers which enter the sea on the more southerly
portions of the west coast invariably fish first ; those in the central
districts somewhat later, and last of all the rivers of Norsk Fin-
markin and of the Varanger Fjord; while the further we go to
eastward along the coast of the icy sea we find the innumerable
streams of Russian Lapland later and later, until we reach those
which enter the White Sea, which the salmon do not ascend until
the month of August.
On the other hand, as regards England and Scotland, the
earliest rivers are in the extreme north of the latter country, and I
take it that most anglers would name the Thurso and the Naver as
perhaps the earliest of all, together with those excellent Highland
streams, the Helmsdale arid the Brora ; while the heavy fish with
which Loch Tay is found stocked at the opening of the rod fishing,
SPRING SALMON FJSHING. 57
on the 1 5th of January, undoubtedly run during December and
January. Again, on the whole of the west coast of Scotland the
rivers are late, with but few exceptions ; and so are our English
streams. It may be said that the dividing point between the early
or spring rivers of Scotland and the late ones is at Loch Erribol
on the north coast of Sutherlandshire. From thence westward
to Cape Wrath, and thence southward along the whole of the west
coast as far as the head of the Solway Firth, the rivers are late ;
while those entering the sea between Loch Erribol and Duncansby
Head, and thence southward as far as the Tweed, are early. The
temperature of the sea and of the rivers, together with local con-
ditions of the latter, no doubt account materially for this apparently
singular discrepancy, and I am inclined to think with Mr. Archibald
Young, the late able Inspector of Scotch Fisheries, in this matter.
As he remarks, the Scottish rivers entering the German Ocean are
almost all early rivers ; they have comparatively long courses, and
fall into the sea at considerable distances from their sources, after
flowing for some part of their career through districts not greatly
elevated and possessing a moderate climate. But the German
Ocean, into which those rivers run, is a cold sea ; and in winter and
early spring the river temperature is, in ordinary seasons, probably
higher than that of the sea, and, therefore, salmon ascend those
rivers early in the year.
On the west coast, on the other hand, the rivers falling into the
Atlantic are nearly all late. They have short courses, and their
fountain heads are much tilted up, as they rise in that lofty and
picturesque chain of mountains which, beginning in the neighbour-
hood of Cape Wrath, skirts the shores of Sutherland, Ross, and
Inverness for over one hundred miles, at distances varying from
i
58 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
five to twenty miles from the sea. In winter and spring, and
sometimes even in early summer, these mountains are entirely
or partly covered with snow, and every partial melting of their
snows brings down torrents of ice-cold water, which rush
through the short channels into the sea. But the water of
that sea, unlike that of the German Ocean that washes our eastern
shores, is warmed by the soft influence of the Gulf Stream,
and the salmon therefore prefer remaining in it until the snow-
water has run off, and the milder weather of June and July has
raised the temperature of the river waters, and then they begin to
ascend.
The case of the Norwegian rivers is different ; from the North
Cape southwards, along the whole of the deeply-indented west
coast to the Naze of Norway, the rivers, with but few exceptions,
are very similar in character, and all enter the same ocean ; it is
but natural, therefore, that the more southerly ones should fish
first, the salmon in each case being ready to ascend them as soon
as the ice breaks up and the worst of the heavy floods consequent
thereupon have passed off.
Rod-fishing on the Thurso commences on the iith of January,
but for weeks before that date the salmon have been ascending it ;
and should the weather be sufficiently open and the water in decent
order, they may be taken with the fly at once. Such, however, is
not often the case, and the angler who braves the wintry storms
which sweep across the dreary Caithness Flats at that time of the
year has generally got to stand a good deal of " freezing out," the
pools being frequently sheeted with ice.
This famous river has a course of twenty miles only from Loch
More to the sea ; and although the fish ascend the feeders of that
SPRING SALMON FISHING. 59
loch, the fishing is confined to it and the river below. At the be-
ginning of the season the bulk of the salmon do not go beyond the
lower reaches, and to these reaches the sport is practically confined,
until the rising temperature of the water induces their further upward
progress. Although in the finest of condition, the Thurso salmon in
the cold weather are decidedly slow and sluggish in their move-
ments, and do not readily come to the surface; indeed, it is then
necessary, in order to induce them to rise, to use very large flies,
which sink a foot or two in the water. With the exception of the
four or five miles next Loch More, which are comparatively
picturesque, the river runs through a series of uninteresting flats,
and its general characteristics can hardly be described as sporting.
So slow-flowing, indeed, are many of the casts that, in order to get
the fly to " work " properly, it is well to begin at the foot and fish
up, as is the custom on some of the " Dubs" on Tweed. Of this
type is the famous " Cottage Linn," on which such magnificent
sport has often been had ; but not until the month of April or May
does this capital pool fish its best. Immediately above, a stretch
of shallow streamy water intervenes between it and Loch Beg, a
small loch just below Loch More ; the result being that vast
numbers of fish congregate in the " Linn " as the season advances,
unwilling, unless with a flood, to ascend the shallow stream afore-
said. From ten to fifteen fish have frequently fallen to the rod of a
single angler in one day, and to the best of my knowledge twenty-
one is the top score ; once only did I have the luck to hit off the
"Linn" under favourable circumstances the water in fair order,
and a strong wind blowing from the right quarter and I got nine
fish weighing 104 Ibs., besides hooking and losing at least half a
dozen others.
I 2
60 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
To anyone accustomed to fish the rapid and swift-flowing streams
of Norway and of the Scottish Highlands, the Thurso is by no
means a tempting-looking salmon river, a fact which struck me
very forcibly the first day I ever threw a fly upon its somewhat
sullen waters. It was a bitter morning in early February ; many
of the pools were covered with ice, and a bitter " norther " was
blowing, which made it a matter of no small difficulty to keep
warm. However, I was in Caithness to fish, not to sit by the
fireside, so, accompanied by my gillie, I started off for the Cruive
Pool.
The Cruive Pool is some forty to fifty yards in width, deep and
slow-flowing, and I was glad to find it fairly clear of ice ; so,
putting up a four-inch fly, I proceeded to fish it over. At the
fourth or fifth throw there was a dead pull, and in a very brief
space I hauled ashore a long, lanky kelt, which had bit the tinsel
clean through and spoilt a good fly. Another kelt, and yet a third,
succeeded, and I was getting very sick of pulling out the ugly
brutes, when during an extremely watery "blink" of sunshine
I noticed a sharpish boil in the neighbourhood of the fly. 1
struck hard, and found I was at last in a clean run fish. A beauty
he proved, as bright as a new shilling and in perfect condition,
i6lbs. ; but his play was by no means what one would have
expected from such a fish. He gave me the impression of being
deadened with the cold. Happening to look at the fly that the
kelt had destroyed, and which I had stuck in my cap just as
it was, I found the feathers stiff and hard, the wings being a mass
of ice. In fact, several times that day I had to put the fly I was
using in my mouth to thaw it. My next capture was another kelt,
and then what was evidently a clean fish took well under water.
SPRING SALMON FISHING. 61
Thinking that perhaps I had been too gingerly with the first,
I gave this one the butt unmercifully throughout. He showed his
dislike of such treatment certainly, and fought a little better,
but I was not impressed. He turned the scale at 13 Ibs., and was
also in the pink of condition. Then came a good sporting
fish, for the first thing he did was to rush straight across the
river, where he endeavoured to throw himself ashore, coming back
again to my feet equally quickly, whereby he got so slack that I
thought he must have escaped. On winding up, however, I
found him still on, and after the lapse of some ten minutes
we got him out. I was fortunate enough to land three other
clean fish that day, but the kelts continued to be a great
nuisance throughout, and destroyed several more flies before I
left off.
Before concluding this paper, I will venture to draw the
attention of those interested in such matters to the results of some
careful experiments made at Thurso in the year 1886 by Mr. A.
Harper, of Brawl Castle, which appeared in the journal of the
National Fish Culture Association in July, 1887, with reference
to the temperatures of sea and river which are most favourable for
salmon. The blood of a salmon is always about one degree
warmer than that of the water in which the fish is moving ;
33 may therefore be taken as the minimum temperature of the
blood in fresh water, at any rate. An abnormally high
temperature of the river water, on the other hand, is fatal. " For
years," says Mr. Harper, " I have noticed with surprise the
mortality which took place among the salmon of the Thurso in the
months of May, June, and July, as there was not the slightest
appearance of disease about the dead fish. The deaths were
62 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
most numerous in places where the fish had ho protection from
the sun, and in slow-flowing water and well-nigh stagnant pools ;
but where the stream had a rapid run, and had good shelter
from solar influence, such as the rocks of Dirlot supplied, the
normal state of health was maintained."
Mr. Harper then gives a table of sea and river temperatures
taken by him during the months of March, April, May, June,
and July, 1886, which tend to show that the ordinary sea
temperature is the most healthy for salmon.
From these figures it would appear that the sea during those
five months had a range of 12.8; from 39.9 in March to 52.7 in
July : while the river ranged from 33.3 in March to 66.6 in July.
July was exceptionally cold that year, a greater range would,
therefore, have been obtained in an ordinary one. For the
month of April the means of both sea and river were nearly
identical, being respectively 44 and 44.7, and during that month
it not unfrequently happens that more fish are killed with the rod
on the Thurso than during the whole of the rest of the season.
As the river is not then, as a rule, subject to any exceptional floods,
and as there are generally more fish in it in May, it would seem
that those conditions of temperature account for the angler's
success. That from 44 to 48 is the best temperature for the fish
is further proved by the fact that when the water stands between
those two degrees, old and stale fish take the fly more freely
than at any other time throughout the spring. In May, June,
and July, the ascending fish find themselves in water 12 or 14
warmer than that they have felt in the sea, which quite
accounts for the inferior sport obtained during these months.
Again, the same temperatures of sea and river recur in September
SPJf/A r G SALMON FISHING. 63
and October, when the fish once more take the fly freely, and
more readily than since April.
It seems a pity that such experiments as those of Mr. Harper
are not more extensively and generally conducted round our
coasts ; they would, doubtless, go far to solve many vexed
salmon problems.
MARCH.
OUR BIRDS OF PREY.
BY [ AUBYN TREVOR- BATTYE.
I. THE OWLS.
TAWNY OWL.
HERE are four
kinds of owl
familiarly known
to the naturalist in
Great Britain the Barn
Owl, known also as the
White Owl, the ghost-
like bird that flits at
dusk by meadow and
wood-side, the Tawny
Owl, and those rarer
owls, the Long-Eared
and the Short-Eared
Owls.
THE TAWNY OWL.
That is the name by
which he is most gener-
OUR BIRDS OF PREY. 65
ally known, though he is sometimes spoken of as the Brown,
sometimes as the Wood Owl. No owl is better known than he
to those who move about at night, because he is the only owl
that hoots. This hooting one of the most marvellous and most
beautiful of bird-voices is in many districts a sound of awe to
BARN OWL.
the country folk, who connect the Tawny Owl with certain
superstitions, so that it is " bad luck " to kill the bird. Prejudice,
sad to say, has defeated superstition in the case of the game-
keeper, who, left to his own devices by an ignorant or indifferent
employer, takes this bird in his villainous pole-traps. The average
K
66
A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
gamekeeper, no doubt is above the logic of facts ; we must then
appeal to his master. Now, what are the facts ? It is probably
known to most country persons that raptorial birds eject the
undigested portion of their food in the shape of pellets " castings,"
as the hawking term goes. The most cursory examination of
these will show that, whatever else the owls take, they do not
(speaking generally) take game. The result of careful investiga-
tion by German naturalists, quoted in Yarrell (Ed. 4, vol. i.),
is so instructive that it may fairly be reproduced here. It is as
follows :
No. of
pellets
examined
REMAINS FOUND.
Bats.
Rats.
Mice.
Voles. Shrews.
Moles. Birds. Beetles.
Tawny Owl... .
210
706
16
6
3
42
6
3
296 , 33
635 -.
93 159
1
48 iSfl 48^
2b
22C
Long-eared Owl
Bain Owl ..
(a) i Tree Creeper, i Yellow Bunting, i Wagtail, 15 small species undeter-
mined.
() Species of Titmouse.
(f) 19 Sparrows, i Greenfinch, 2 Swifts.
(d) Besides a countless number of cockchafers.
Now, see. It is the vole which forms the chief food of
the Tawny Owl, the destructive vole about which of late
years such despairing cries have gone up from the farmers in
different parts of England and Scotland ; the mole is also caught
by nature's winged molecatcher, besides countless numbers of
those cockchafers whose larva commits such serious ravages in
the finest pastures. This is quite evidence enough to cause every
game preserver, and even gamekeeper, in Great Britain to pause
in the process of extermination against an innocent and most
interesting bird. Beyond all doubt, the Tawny Owl is a bird that
OUR BIRDS OF PREY.
is very much the friend of the farmer and in no wise the enemy of
the game preserver. If this owl takes an ill-guarded cheeper or
a very young rabbit it is the exception, not the rule : it is the
trifling wage his good service has fully earned.
The Tawny Owl may easily be induced, under favourable
conditions, to take up its quar-
ters near the houses of men.
The writer is familiar with a
pair of Tawnies which have
nested for many years in one
of several covered-in boxes
fitted up in the trees that over-
hang the shrubberies in the
grounds. Year after year they
bring up their young, nesting
sometimes in one box, some-
times in another. There are
other Tawnies in the woods and
parks about, but this pair are
the lords of their own district,
for like all birds of prey they
require a large area for their
LONG-EARED OWI .
hunt for food. No bird nests
earlier than the Tawny and Long-eared Owls, and this pair
have eggs well before the end of March, be the weather never
so cold or inclement. The old cock had the misfortune to be
taken in a vermin trap some years ago, and was consigned to a
hamper in the stable loft with his leg in splints. Very shortly,
however, he escaped and regained his freedom. But the leg was
K 2
68 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
so badly broken that the foot and tarsus dropped away. He has
been on the sick-list once since then, but the loss of his foot affects
him but little, and his beautiful hoot may be heard any winter
night, clearly distinguishable from the voice of any neighbour of
his own kind. " Kee-wick, kee-wick " cry the hungry young ones
through the summer nights, the sound subsiding in a smother and
a choke as the old hen stuffs the youngster's mouth with food.
Long after the ytung are well able to provide for themselves these
idle ways go on ; but sooner or later there comes a day when the
parents tire of their trouble, and, rounding on their shameless
progeny, drive them out a-field to cater for themselves.
The Tawny displays amazing boldness in the defence of its
nest. The writer has known more than one instance in which an
'old bird, annoyed at an inspection of her nursery quarters, has
stooped with hearty good will at the head of the aggressor. That
head was, fortunately, protected by a good stout hat, but the
deep cuts in the head-gear made by the bird's claws bore witness
to the strength of the assault.
THE BARN OWL. As the Tawny is essentially a bird of the
woods, so the Barn Owl is essentially a bird of the open fields. If
the Tawny does little injury to game, the Barn Owl does still less;
needless to say the gamekeeper nails it up on the kennel door
all the same. A farmer of my acquaintance has allowed a pair
of these birds to nest in his pigeon loft for many years, and the
kindness, he considers, is on their side, not on his. So well known
are the ways of this owl and its young ones that it is difficult to
find anything new to say here. Its hissing, its snoring, its relays
of eggs, its habit of swaying, its softness of flight, the unearthly
screech with which it evokes the echoes by night and frightens
OUR BIRDS OF PREY. 69
the belated peasant, all these characteristics are familiar to every
countryman. Round no bird has a greater wealth of legend and
mystery and interest collected than round the White Owl ; and
this interest began away down the centuries hundreds of years
before old Gilbert White stood, watch in hand, " upon an
eminence, and minuted these birds for an hour together," though
that was a hundred and twenty years ago. " About once in five
minutes," he says, " the one or the other of them returned to their
nest."
It is interesting to notice that the Barn Owl has, like the
osprey, a reversible hind toe, and this would seem to point to
some different condition of existence, perhaps to the comparative
scarcity of mice, and the superabundance of fish in some bygone
epoch. Nowadays the Tawny is the more frequent fisher,
though the Barn Owl, too, fishes in the streams and brooks at
times.
THE LONG-EARED OWL. This bird nests earlier even than the
Tawny, laying its eggs by the middle of March. Though accounted
a rare bird, it is commoner throughout this country than is usually
supposed. It does not nest in hollow trees, but in the deserted
nest of a kestrel, or in a squirrel's drey. No better situation can
be chosen for observing the habits of the Long-Eared Owl than
the fir plantations which dot the sides of the chalk hills of Surrey
and Berkshire. In these clumps they nest. Later on in the year it
is not unusual to find a single clump harbouring a considerable
number of these birds, several families having drawn together.
By looking up carefully into the trees it is always possible to see
the owls, their bodies drawn up tight against the fir-trunk, till
they look like bits of old wood. This owl, at nesting time, utters
70 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
a short, sharp sound, something like the note of a frightened frog,
but, of course, considerably louder.
THE SHORT- EARED OWL. With the drainage of the fens and
the cultivation of waste grounds the number of these birds that
remain with us all through the year has become very greatly
SHORT-EARED OWL.
reduced. A few pairs nest still chiefly in the east and north of
this island but it is in the autumn, when shooters are about
in the fields, that the bird is most in evidence. For at that time
considerable numbers come to us across the German Ocean ; so
that in many parts they have gained, by coincidence of arrival, the
name of the Woodcock Owl. If one may compare the Tawny
with the Sparrow-hawk, and the Barn Owl with the Kestrel,
OUR BIRDS OF PREY. 71
certainly the Short- Eared Owl may be likened to the Harrier. It
beats the heaths, marches, and open places, while its singularly
small head and general appearance irresistibly recall the female
Hen-Harrier. Like these birds, too, it nests on the ground.
The old belief that owls were blinded by the daylight is now
generally known to be a mistake ; but the Short-Eared Owl is
more diurnal in its habits than any of its kind with which the
writer is acquainted, except the Hawk Owl.' Long before the
night sets in this bird may be seen about the Broads of Norfolk,
quartering the reed beds in a most interesting way. Like great
moths they seem their length of wing and lightness of body
giving them a remarkable buoyancy of flight.
There are few of us who have not seen one of these poor birds
rising from heather or rough scrub before the advancing line, only
to be knocked over by some over-zealous shooter, resolved to let
nothing off that flies. These persons, on being remonstrated with,
sometimes apologize with, " Upon my honour, I thought it was a
woodcock." It is a trying moment that, for one must not always
say the thing that one would, nor even so much as this, " Until
you have 'learnt one bird from another, my friend, you had better
not carry a gun."
MARCH.
OUR BIRDS OF PREY.
By AUBYN TREVOR- BATTYE.
II. HAWKS, BUZZARDS, KITES AND HARRIERS.
IN hawking language Hawks and Falcons are distinguished into
short-winged or long-winged hawks. Gamekeepers and country
persons will do well to bear in mind that Falcons have notched
beaks, wings pointed, and as long as their tails, and the eyes
brown; and that hawks have " festooned " beaks, wings "round"
and much shorter than the tail ; with yellow eyes. The Falcons,
from their habit of soaring and stooping upon their quarry, were
in the ancient days of falconry accounted the nobler birds. The
Hawks mostly course their prey through the air as a greyhound
pursues a hare.
The Gos-hawk (the Goose-hawk) was never other than an
uncommon bird in England, and although in the beginning of our
century it was reported as breeding in the pine forests of Scotland,
its presence now is confined to examples, almost invariably imma-
ture, which annually reach these shores in the spring and autumn
migrations. The bird is only alluded to now with the object of
OUR BIRDS OF PREY.
73
entering protest against the practice of wantonly destroying such
noble and interesting birds whenever they reach our shores.
In no instance is the remarkable difference in size between the
THE SPARROW-HAWK (ACCIPITER NISUS).
male and female of birds of prey so marked as in that of the
Sparrow-hawk. A novice would scarcely believe that they belong
to the same species. The female is three inches longer than the
male, and a larger bird all round. Of a pair weighed by Mr.
Gurney, the female was rather more than double the weight of the
L
74 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
male. The habits of the hen Sparrow-hawk afford the one and
only excuse if excuse it can be called for the persecution which
the birds of prey undergo in this country. The cock bird is
almost innocent, occasionally taking a cheeper, and that is all.
The Sparrow-hawk has for the present writer an unfailing interest.
Now circling the sky like an eagle in brave gyrations, now slipping
adroitly through the underwood and securing a starling with
unerring aim. It does everything with a certain dash and direct-
ness that separates it at once from its ally the beautiful Kestrel,
though the Kestrel is a Falcon and the other is not. The older
falconers reckoned this bird among the hawks " of note and worth,"
and an excellent little hawk it is, when trained, coming to hand
quite suddenly if it comes at all. But when first taken it is so
greatly given to sulks and to tumbling off the fist, that it is a terrible
trial of patience, and it is safe to say that the man who can train
a Sparrow-hawk can train anything.
The Buzzards are all worthless to the Falconer : they are
" Varlet-hawks." No doubt many who read these lines have had,
like the writer, occasional opportunities of observing our three kinds
of Buzzards in this country. But those who would see them in any
numbers must now, alas, go away from here to the European con-
tinent, to Siberia, or to Morocco, because, as large and noticeable
birds, the hand of destruction is against them. Yet the Buzzards do
not feed on game, unless on the doomed and dying young of game
birds. They feed, according to their species, on frogs, snakes,
beetles, grasshoppers, " wasp-grubs," and all of them on mice and
moles. The "Common" Buzzard is at the present time only a
little less rare in this country than its allies, the Rough Legged and
OUR BIRDS OF PREY.
75
the Honey Buzzard. It is, however, the only species resident with us
through the year, for the second only comes in autumn as a
migrant, and the third only comes to nest. No doubt the game-
keeper destroys a Buzzard whenever he can ; but there need be no
hesitation in asserting that the threatened extermination of the two
nesting species really lies at the door of those naturalists who
THE COMMON BUZZARD (BUTEO VULGARIs).
collect and deal in skins and eggs, and whose senseless pride it is
to have none but British-taken specimens in their cabinets. This
enormity is only equalled by the folly of those who write to the
papers and tell them where to go. Surely that is to prostitute the
study of natural history. Not such was the spirit in which
Linnaeus, Gilbert White, and Charles Waterton showed their
reverence of nature. The Common Buzzard is a fine bird on the
I. 2
76 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
wing, its flight remarkably resembles that of the eagle, and the
writer does not mind frankly admitting that, when they are high
up, he cannot tell the one from the other. This bird has, when
domesticated, a curious predilection for hatching and rearing the
young of other birds. There is a well-known instance on recc.d
of a female Buzzard who hatched and brought up a brood of
chickens for several consecutive years.
The Honey Buzzard is placed, on good grounds, by modern
systematists between the Kites and Falcons. To the Kites we
are coming now. There is no need, however, to refer to any but
the " common " Red Kite the other species having occurred so
very seldom in Great Britain. At the present time the Red Kite
is one of our very rarest birds. There are one or two retreats in
which it still abides, protected by wise sympathies. And yet, in
the early part of this century, the Red Kite nested in many parts
of England, Scotland, and Wales. And, just as this bird is to be
seen to-day hanging about Eastern towns, so it used to be with
London. It was protected to such an extent that " the Bohemian
Schaschek, who visited England about 1461, after mentioning
London Bridge in his journal, remarks that he had nowhere seen
so great a number of Kites as there, and the statement is confirmed
by Beton, who says that they were scarcely more numerous in
Cairo than in London, where they remained all the year feeding on
the garbage of the streets, and even of the Thames itself."
More familiar, perhaps, than the Buzzards are the Harriers.
The male Hen-Harrier is know r n in many parts under the popular
name of " the Dove-hawk." This name has probably been given
to it on account of its plumage, for the difference between the
O UR BIRDS OF PRE Y.
77
feathering of the male and female is extraordinarily pronounced.
The male bird resembles in general colouring many of the gulls, its
back blue-grey, its under parts from light grey to white. The
female known commonly as " the Ringtail " bears no kind of
resemblance to her partner, for she is coloured brown. It is most
THE KITE (MII.VUS ICTINUS).
amusing and most instructive now to read the view of the older
writers on these birds, and to see the hopeless confusion into which
the differences of plumage led them. What with the light plumage
of the old Vnale, the brown of the old female, the various inter-
mediate stages of the young males, the ornithologists of that day
78 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
-Pennant, Bewick and the rest got into a most delightful tangle.
In their view the male vvas one species (Cyaneus), the female quite
THE HEN-HARRIRR (CIRCUS CYANEUS).
another (JPygas&uf). It was reserved for Colonel Montagu to
clear up the difficulty and upset the accepted belief. In 1805 he
obtained a nest of young Hen-Harriers, kept them, and watched
OUR BIRDS OF PREY.
79
the young males through the stages that lead to adult dress.
The Colonel's account of this may be read in his Dictionary, and
is most interesting reading. He tells us how, fearing the birds
might die too soon, he " forced a premature change in some of the
quill and tail feathers of the others " (that is to say, he pulled
THK MARSH-HARRIER (CIRCUS .V.RUGINOSUS).
them out), and " thus compelled nature to disclose her secrets
before the appointed time " (that is to say, the new feathers came,
and they were grey).
That was really an achievement ; and after this it seems only
right that the Colonel's name should be indissolubly associated
8o A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
with the Harrier. And so it is in " Montagu's" Harrier. This
was, before the drainage of the fens, the commonest, perhaps, of
all the Harriers. Now it is probably the most uncommon, and
comes only to us (it never nested in England) on migration. In
the autumn it may be seen in favourable districts quartering the
marshes, and pursuing though it probably never catches Snipe.
It has most beautiful and graceful powers of flight, and no one, I
think, who has once had an opportunity of watching it thus
disporting, could ever bring himself to shoot the bird.
The Marsh-Harrier, the only remaining species, is alas, like its
fellow resident the Hen-Harrier, becoming rarer in England every
day. The writer (although he has, of course, had his opportunities
of seeing this bird when it reaches our shores in an immature
condition, and has had too often occasion to lament over it as
an ornament in the poulterers' shops), has never to his knowledge
seen in this country a specimen that could be regarded as
" resident," by which is meant a nesting bird ; although a few
pairs are reported as breeding still in certain districts. In other
countries it has long been to him a familiar companion, accompany-
ing him in his shooting rambles day after day. The Harriers
differ from almost all their allies in nesting on the ground in bog
or scrub, or open heath.
When moors are reclaimed, and fens are drained, it is the ruling
of nature that such birds must disappear to a very great extent.
But an intelligent and fostering interest can do much on the other
side. It is greatly to be desired that landlords would, for once
and all, take the word of those who have made woodcraft the
study of their lives, and forbid their keepers to kill these birds.
OUR BIRDS OF PREY. Si
They may rest assured that their sporting interests would not
suffer, and their pleasure would increase. We want our land-
owners and sportsmen to look upon themselves as trustees of the
things of interest and beauty which nature designed for our land,
and not to be content to leave to Selbprne Societies and local
field clubs the thankless and almost hopeless task of trying to
save something of the ornithological delights before all is gone.
M
MARCH.
OUR BIRDS OF PREY.
BY AUBYN TREVOR- BATTYE.
III. EAGLES, FALCONS AND OSPREY.
THE Eagle is, by the consent of all nations and of all times,
the king of birds. There is probably not a people (to whom the
bird is known) among whose traditions it would be possible to
find a symbol more constant, a cult more old. When the Roman
chose the Eagle for the sign upon his standard he took but that
which had been consecrated as an object of piety by religions that
had died before Rome was born. Once the "lightning-bearer"
of Olympian Jove, the Eagle is still the Christian's symbol of
inspiration, and is propitiated as a deity by the Indian of the
Pueblo tribes.
All this is not surprising, for the Eagle has characteristics that
compel respect. The dignity of his presence, the grandeur of his
flight, the solitude of his surroundings seem to crown him royal,
and him alone.
The very name of the Golden Eagle would have done much,
no doubt, with us to give him this identity from our earliest
childhood's day, even if he had never proved his title by flying
away, in the story books, with babies to his nest. Not that
OUR BIRDS OF PREY.
there are no cases on record where this has really happened. I
believe there really are. But the food of the Golden Eagle is for
THE GOLDEN EAULE.
the most part not small children, but mountain hares, weakly
lambs, and, alas, carrion. This propensity for eating carrion has
M 2
84 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
led to the bird's wholesale destruction by means of poisoned meat.
But it is very pleasant to know that now, on many deer forests,
it is strictly protected. Under thiswise discrimination its numbers
have of late years actually increased in these islands, until at the
present moment it is no doubt less rare than the Eagle we shall
mention next once, by a long way, the commoner bird.
The head and neck of the Golden Eagle are covered with
feathers of a loose scale-like form and rufus colouring, and this
is its only claim to the title " golden." This Eagle no longer
nests in England as it once did, but in the north and west of
Scotland, and in a few places in Ireland, it still breeds. It
exhibits a most remarkable shrewdness in the choice of a site for
its nest, which is almost always at the most absolutely inacces-
sible point of the mountain side. Not always, for there is a very
well known instance of a poor man in County Kerry who supported
his family during a summer of want by pillage of an Eagle's eyrie.
He clipped the wings of the young birds so that it was a long
time before they left the nest. This bird has a wide distribution.
It is found in almost every European country, in Asia, on the
East as far as the Himalayas, and down to the Atlas in Algeria.
It is possibly this species which is in Central Asia trained to
capture antelopes.
The Golden Eagle is often seen to be followed in its flight,
mobbed by hooded crows, just as the smaller birds of prey are
mobbed and insulted by small birds of different species.
The White-tailed Cinereous, or Sea- Eagle, is the only other
British species that requires mention here. It is, as its name
Haliatins implies, a bird of the coasts. Its food, none the less, is
OUR BIRDS OF PREY. 85
not by any means restricted to fish, for it will pick up almost
anything it can get, and, like its ally, owes its diminished numbers
very largely to its fondness for offal.
Mr. Wolley, in his delightful " Ootheca Wolleyana," describes
nests in very small trees about four- feet from the ground. The
only two eyries of this species with which the writer is personally
THE OSPREY.
acquainted are in Sweden, one by an arm of the water, one by an
inland lake, and both on the rock itself.
Many kinds of birds are in the habit of driving off their young as
soon as they can shift for themselves moorhens, for example, do
this, as every countryman knows. The larger birds of prey can
only exist under this system of isolation, and as a consequence, to
86 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
a great extent, of this not an autumn passes without the appearance
of eagles in this country being noticed in the papers. Most of
these records come from our Eastern counties because the birds
have arrived from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. " Golden
Eagles " they are often called, but they almost always prove to be
immature specimens of the Sea-Eagle. Conversely the occasional
immature Golden Eagle is described as the White-tailed or Sea-
Eagle. The confusion arises in this way. The young Sea-Eagle
has a dark brown tail, the young Golden Eagle a tail that is half
white. Perhaps the easiest point of distinction to remember is
this : viz. that the toes of the Sea-Eagle are " scutellated " (like a
shrimp) all down the front, while in the case of the Golden Eagle,
these scales or shields are reduced to three in number, situate at
the distal or claw end of the toe, and the rest of the toe is
" reticulate." The outer toe of the Sea-Eagle can be indepen-
dently moved, and so approaches the reversible condition of this
toe in the Osprey.
Few English birds none, perhaps, but the cuckoo have so
strongly marked an identity as the Osprey ; none, surely, have
quite the same touch of romance. Lingering in Scotland still (it
never nested in Ireland, and that in itself is strange and eclectic),
it affects for its nesting-place a deserted ruin on an island in a
loch, not always, but often, and in one most notable instance.
In this particular case the eyrie is a structure of immense propor-
tion, the accumulation of years and years. There seems to be
very good evidence that the Osprey has really been seen to dis-
appear under the water in its pursuit of fish, but the writer is bound
to admit that he cannot answer for this from personal observation.
OUR BIRDS OF PREY. 87
Anyone who has watched a kingfisher knows how extremely
difficult it is to see, through the splashing and the spray raised
even by this little bird, exactly what is happening. It seems to
me that the kingfisher always picks up the fish from the top of
the water, and yet others will stoutly Tnaintain that he dives below
it. The Osprey has less reason to dive, seeing that, while the
THE 1'liREGRINE.
kingfisher seizes his prey with his bill, he takes his with his
feet.
The Peregrines are found pretty well all over the world. This,
which is the falconers' prince of Falcons, is in the eyes of the
naturalists one of the bravest birds that fly. Owing to the
inaccessible situations it chooses for its nest, the Peregrine is still
88 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
far from an uncommon bird in England. Few bird-nesters care
to hazard a descent down the perpendicular wall of a wild chalk
cliff after Peregrine's eggs. Whether the Peregrine can travel 150
miles an hour, as has been stated, is hard to say, though the
experiments now being tried in Germany may help to clear up the
point ; but their speed of flight is of course immense, and no bird
moves faster than a F"alcon in its stoop. How far he can see
it is impossible to say, but that his vision is good up to five miles
is beyond all doubt. A phenomenon familiar enough to the
falconer goes to illustrate the Peregrine's long sight. It is this.
It frequently happens that when a trained Falcon is flown in a
district where Peregrines have never been seen, a wild Peregrine
will suddenly appear as if by magic, coming from no one can say
where, to toy for a time with the trained bird. Here is a fact
well established, the more difficult of explanation because it
occurs at a time of the year when Peregrines are not on migration.
Again, if one of a pair no matter of which sex be killed at
nest, the survivor, in the course of the next three days, will h? found
to have mated again; and this has been known to happen three
times over in the same instance, whether it was the male or the
female that had lost its life.
The Peregrine has nested for many consecutive years in the
spire of Salisbury Cathedral, and I have read somewhere an
account of how a Canon went regularly to take a teal or wild duck
for his dinner from the nest.
There are three British Falcons yet to be touched upon the
Merlin, the Hobby, and the Kestrel.
There is about the little Merlin a dash and go. The traveller
between London and Edinburgh who keeps his eyes open is pretty
OUR BIRDS OF PREY.
89
certain to have more than one 'opportunity in any journey of seeing
the Merlin stooping at larks. This bird is seldom found in closely-
wooded countries, but on the moors, wolds and open districts. It
is a common mistake to suppose that it always builds its nest on
the ground. With us, it is true, it comparatively seldom nests in
other situations, but there are exceptions. In an instance that
THE HOBBY.
came under the writer's notice, the female of a pair of Merlins
being shot, the male bird next year, taking a new mate, nested in
exactly the same site as before, viz. the deserted nest of a crow, well
up in a Scotch fir. In Lapland the Merlin oftenest nests in trees.
The Hobby is fortunately a far commoner bird in this country
than is usually supposed. But as it only arrives in late spring,
N
9 o
A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
when the leaf is well on the trees, and during its nesting confines
itself very much to catching insects, beetles, cockchafers, moths,
&c., it is comparatively little in evidence, and manages to escape
the gamekeeper's wiles. In the autumn it is often seen in chase
of larks, and by October it has left this land. In appearance the
Hobby is a miniature Peregrine, and as a pair of these birds toy
THE KESTREL.
about over the top of the oak trees in their hunt for beetles and
cockchafers, the white throat and black moustaches are very
noticeable, as shown by our artist.
The Kestrel, the "Windhover," is the most familiar British
Falcon. The Kestrel, like the Hobby, is fond of insect-catching,
though, like its near relation, the barn owl, it largely lives on mice.
The Kestrel is an excellent instance of a point which I have tried
OUR BIRDS OF PREY. 91
to make clear before. It is this : although it is perfectly true
to say that the Kestrel does not habitually feed on young game
birds, it is not true to say that it never does so. From time to
time a particular Kestrel will, no doubt, develop this taste and
take to visiting the coops. Common as -the Kestrel is in England,
it is far more abundant in other countries. In the South of Spain,
for example, these birds are quite gregarious. The writer has
seen " clouds " of them wheeling round the towers of Cordova
Cathedral. They are frequently seen in Devonshire perched on
the weathercocks of churches or wheeling round the lofty steeple,
as our artist has here represented a pair of Kestrels. There is no
more charming sight to a lover of nature than the Kestrel hanging,
with scarcely vibrating pinions, over down or cliff in the eye of the
wind. It really does seem as if at last this bird will be protected
in this country, as if the repeated efforts of accredited writers have
succeeded in hammering home this truth, that in the Kestrel the
farmer has a friend he can very ill afford to lose.
N 2
APRIL
BIRD NESTING.
I. SEA-BIRDS.
THE schoolboy who goes birds'-nesting for the purpose of
getting his string of eggs is quite unconscious that he is studying
the elements of one of the latest of the sciences, that of Oology,
which until recently has been much neglected, and, in fact, was
hardly regarded as worthy of study until its philosophical bearings
were pointed out by the late Charles Darwin, by Mr. Alfred
Russell Wallace, and Mr. Henry Seebohm. To most persons the
strange variations in the form and colour of the eggs of different
birds has been merely a matter of curiosity, whereas the naturalist
knows that every egg is so marked and coloured to conceal it, as
far as practicable, from its enemies, and to adapt it to the
circumstances and conditions under which it is laid. In no case
is this more strikingly shown than in the nests and eggs of sea-
birds, of which we reproduce three examples drawn from the
accurate reproductions made under the care of Dr. Giinther, and
shown in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington.
The most remarkable instance of this appears in the large case
displaying the adult birds, the young, the eggs, and nest of the
BIRD NESTING.
93
common Tern. Visitors looking at this example, if they are
familiar with the manner in which pebbles are deposited by the
action of the waves on a raised beach, will be struck with the
extraordinarily accurate reproduction of the arrangement of the
stones. This could hardly be done-by_the unassisted eye, or by
memory. The secret of the success of this case is that as each
THE TERN.
stone was taken up it was numbered on the lower side, and they
are all laid in the museum exactly as they were on the beach
whence they were obtained. Such accurate reproduction is
worthy of all praise.
Of the nest of the Tern we can say but little ; in many cases
there is absolutely none, the eggs, two or three in number, being
laid upon the bare shingle. In colour these are brownish or
94 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NA TURAL HISTORY.
greyish buff, covered with spots of dark brown, so that they look
like the stones on the beach, and escape observation. But the
safety of the eggs depends to a greater extent on the Tern
selecting small, uninhabited islands for its nursery. Thus, the most
important breeding stations in the United Kingdom are the Farn
Islands, off the coast of Northumberland, where the eggs are laid
amongst the shingle, and the birds nest in safety unless disturbed
by the advent of a boat. The bird itself is not unfrequently
termed the sea swallow, from its possessing a long forked tail, but
of course it has no affinity whatever to our graceful and better
known insect-catcher. The Tern is a migratory bird, arriving in
England from the warm South in April and May, and wending its
way to the unfrequented islands where it lays its eggs and rears
its young. A flock of terns hovering in an ever-moving mass
over the quiet waters of an inland loch is one of the most
beautiful sights that can delight the bird lover. The mode in
which they swoop down to capture the small fish on which they
feed is very characteristic. It is noticeable that not only are the
eggs so coloured as to be not easily discerned, but the tints of the
young are mottled, and as they lie close among the stones they
are hardly to be distinguished from the surrounding shingle.
Our second example, the Lesser Gull, is perhaps the com-
monest of all the English Gulls. It is so destructive to the
eggs of game birds that it is banished as much as possible from
the grouse districts of the North, and, like the Tern, has taken up
its residence on many of the islands in the neighbourhood of the
coast. Unlike the Terns, however, the Gulls do not confine their
feeding to small fish. This species is almost omnivorous. Its
food consists chiefly of fish and small crabs, the undigested shells
BIRD NESTING.
95
of which are thrown up in pellets. It eats all kinds of animal
substances that come in its way, and is very destructive to the eggs
and young, not only of the grouse, but of the various water-fowl.
It is one of the tamest of the Gull tribe, frequenting harbours, and
picking up refuse thrown overboard from the ships ; at other times
THE LESSER GULL.
it follows the plough, and feeds on worms and insects. The Farn
Islands may be regarded as the metropolis of this species. At
the nesting season the isles are white with the birds standing over
their eggs, each one, as Mr. Seebohm says, standing head to wind,
so that the colony looks like an army of white weathercocks.
Their boldness and familiarity may be inferred from the following
96 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
incident. A pair of Lesser Gulls selected for their nesting-place
the middle of a sheep run. All who are familiar with the habits
of these northern sheep know that they invariably follow their
leader on the same track. The Gulls sitting on their nests in this
run were not disturbed by the passing of the sheep, although, as
the leader leapt over the sitting bird, every one of the whole flock,
however numerous, followed his example.
To visitors to many of our northern islands the Puffin is one of
the best known of English sea-birds. It breeds in countless
thousands in appropriate situations, such as the Bass Rock in
the Firth of Forth, St. Kilda, the Farn Islands, and other places.
In the summer-time, when it is nesting, its numbers are almost
incredible. The sea is thickly spotted with the birds, and on any
alarm they seek safety in diving in preference to flight, although,
in truth, their progress under water is absolute flying, the wings
being used to propel them with great speed and often for a very
long distance. The wings of the Puffin are remarkable, as being
of that happy medium, as regards size, which enables them to be
used for flight in the air and as fins when under water ; the
Puffin in this respect differing from the majority of diving birds
that propel themselves by their feet alone. The nest of this
singular bird is either deposited in a fissure of the cliffs or at
some distance down a burrow in the turf, an old rabbit warren
being often used for this purpose. The holes vary considerably
in shape and size, and sometimes a couple of pairs will live in the
same burrow. Like many other sea birds, the Puffin lays but a
single egg, which is covered with faint spots, not being white like
the generality of eggs laid in holes. The young bird, when
hatched, remains in the nest until it is able to fly, being carefully
BIRD NESTING.
97
fed by the parents, first of all with disgorged food and afterwards
with small fish. The bill of the Puffin is very remarkable, and
gives the idea of its being able to inflict a severe bite, but its
power of doing this has been exaggerated, for during life the edges
of the mandibles are somewhat fleshy- A very remarkable cir-
IHE I'UKFIN,
cumstance has been noticed with regard to the bill of this bird.
During life it is yellow at the base, blue in the centre, and almost
red towards the extremity. For some reason which is not quite
clear, the bill alters in size and colour during the year. In
autumn, after the young are reared, the old birds shed the horny
covering of the beak in several pieces, and consequently during
o
<j8 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
winter the beak is smaller and much duller in colour,
becoming larger and brighter in the ensuing spring. The larger
size of the bill in the summer may have reference to the manner
in which the birds feed their young with the herring fry and other
small fish. These they not only capture while swimming under
the water, but in an ingenious manner manage to arrange them
transversely with their beaks, so that an old Puffin may be seen
coming to its young with as many as eight small fish held
transversely in its mouth, the tails hanging out on either side.
The Kittiwake is one of the commonest of English gulls, and,
unfortunately for itself, one of the most persecuted. During the
time that the cruel fashion prevailed of wearing the wings of gulls
in ladies' hats, hundreds of thousands of these birds were destroyed
in the most reckless and brutal manner. When the old birds came
to lay their eggs and rear their young on the coasts, as at
Clovelly, Isle of May, at Ballandra, Lundy Island, and similar
places, hundreds of thousands of them were shot for the
plumassiers. In Clovelly alone it is said that'ten thousand birds
were destroyed in the first fortnight of the nesting season. Mr.
Saunders tells that in many cases the wings. were torn off the
wounded birds before they were dead, and the mangled victims
tossed back into the water, and hundreds of young birds were to
be seen dying of starvation in the nests, owing to the destruction of
the parents. The Kittiwake, unlike the other gulls, rarely comes
inland, not even searching the maritime pastures or ploughed
fields along the shores for worms and larvae like the other gulls.
Its habits, however, may be studied by those who are steaming
about, or who are accompanying the herring boats in the North
Sea, as these birds devour large quantities of herrings and sprats,
BIRD NESTING.
99
and if any broken fish are thrown over the stern they will hover in
hundreds behind the boat, darting down upon the fish, usually
seizing the morsel before it reaches the water. The habits of the
K1TTIWAKES.
Kittiwake are most interesting to the ornithologist. It may
be seen hovering over the surface of the sea in large flocks and
suddenly plunging down, when the spray that it makes hides it for
o 2
too A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
a moment, and it rises up with its long wings raised up above its
back. Its power of flight is so great that it is perfectly at home
in a gale of wind, and at times may be seen sleeping on the
heavy billows with its head resting on its back. Like all
gulls, it swims easily and lightly, and often alights on the
water to eat its food. This consists of shell-fish, marine
animals, and refuse from ships. Its note renders it very familiar,
and has given rise to its name. The notes seem to resemble the
syllables kitti-aa, which some persons choose to interpret as <; get
away," which they declare the bird says as you approach its nest.
Mr. Seebohm, one of our latest authorities on ornithology, is
obviously very partial to this bird, and he speaks of its interesting
life during the nesting season, describing a colony not far from
North Cape, Norway, where there is a stupendous range of cliffs,
a thousand feet high, so crowded with nests that it might be
supposed that all the Kittiwakes in the world had come there to
breed. He estimates the surface of the cliffs covered with their
nests at over six hundred thousand square feet, which, allowing a
foot for each nest, would give a total of a half a million breeding
birds. It is the custom there to fire a cannon near the colony,
and, as the peal re-echoes from the cliffs, from every ledge pours
forth an endless stream of birds, and before the sound has died
away it is overpowered by the cries of the birds, which pervade the
air so thickly in every direction as to produce the appearance of a
snowstorm in a whirling wind.
When the young are able to fly these nurseries are soon
deserted, and the birds spend the rest of the year wandering
in search of food, and going somewhat to the south during the
winter. Mr. Seebohm, like all genuine naturalists, condemns
BIRD NESTING.
101
in the strongest words the slaughter of these charming birds,
and the leaving the young to die by slow starvation in the nests.
GUILLEMOTS ON THE NEEDLE ROCK, LUNDY ISLAND.
The Kittiwake is readily distinguished from the other gulls by the
absence of the hind toe.
The Guillemot, in spite of its being a plain, uninteresting-looking
102 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
bird, is a most interesting species. It is remarkable for its habits,
the localities in which it resides, its mode of progression in the
air, on land, and in and under the water, and, above all, for the
extraordinary variation in the colour and markings of its large
single egg. Our specimens were drawn at Lundy Island, but
the Guillemot is truly a circum-polar bird, to be fourtd alike in the
northern districts of Europe, Asia, and America. The greater
part of the year is spent in the open sea. In the spring it
frequents the rocky islands and cliffs around the coast, establish-
ing its nurseries at Flamborough Head, Bempton, the Farns,
the coast of Wales, the Bass Rock, and other innumerable
localities, and the Scottish rocks and islets. There upon ledges
of the rocks the hen lays her single egg, which is sometimes
nearly white, blotched with black and brown, at other times of a
darker colour, with richer brown marks. This pattern varies
again to the most lovely deep blue or green, others being reddish
and purple-brown. Some eggs are quite dark at the larger end,
and beautifully mossed with brown on a creamy-coloured ground,
the patterns and colours alike varying in endless variety. The
egg is large in size, exceeding three inches in length, and usually
of a pointed form, although the shape, as well as the size
and colour, varies considerably, some eggs being found not
much larger than that of a pigeon. On this single egg the old
Guillemot sits nearly erect for about a month, when the young
bird makes its appearance and is fed with fish by the parents.
When partly fledged it is conveyed to the sea from the high
eminence on which it is reared. It is generally believed that it
is carried down on the back of the parent, and has been noticed
to tumble off before it reached the surface of the water. In
BIRD NESTING. 103
August old and young all leave the cliffs and go out to sea
together.
The wings of the Guillemot, though small, enable it to fly
with tolerable facility, but its true home is on the surface of the
sea and under its waters. No more interesting sight can be seen
than the movements of a Guillemot, as observed through the
glass sides of a tank. On the surface of the water it moves solely
by the action of the feet. When underneath, the feet are not
used, but the bird literally flies with great rapidity through the
water, capturing with the greatest facility any live fish that may
be put into the tank. As it proceeds a stream of air bubbles
escape from beneath the feathers, giving the bird a most
remarkable silvery appearance. Its movements under water are
quick and easy, and it usually remains submerged for about half a
minute.
APRIL.
BIRD NESTING.
BY W. B. TEGETMEYER.
II. MOOR BIRDS.
AMONG the larger birds that nest on the moors the common Pee-
wit, or Lapwing, as it is also termed, is at once the most abundant
and the most familiar. At the present season its eggs, col-
lected in vast numbers, not only in England but from the adjacent
parts of the Continent, abound in the poulterers' shops, where,
after having been hard boiled, they are sold at from 3^. to ros. a
dozen, according to the abundance of the supply. In the
autumn, when the old birds have collected in large flocks
after the breeding season is over, they are shot by the punt
gunners in thousands and hawked about the streets by the
itinerant vendors.
The nest of the Lapwing is to be found in varied localities.
It prefers swampy places, commons, or heaths, and breeds in
rpugh pastures, frequently selecting some artificial hollow such
as the footprint of a horse or cow for its nest. This is
scantily lined with a few bents or a little dried grass, on which
the eggs are laid. These are usually four in number. On the
nest being approached the old bird moves quietly away, and
BIRD NESTING.
at a little distance rises into the air, fluttering around so as to call
off the attention of the intruder. When the hen has quitted the
nest the eggs are difficult to discover, as they closely resemble
the ground and dead leaves in colour. The newly-hatched young
THE COMMON PEEWIT, OR LAPWING.
are still more like the colour of the earth, and if a Lapwing with
her brood is disturbed, she either rises at once into the air, or
else reels and tumbles along the ground in the most artful manner,
with the appearance of being wounded, whilst the nestlings go off
in different directions, hide themselves amongst the herbage, and
io6 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
so closely do they assimilate to its colours that it is almost
impossible for the sharpest eye to discover them.
Nothing is more beautiful than the flight of the Lapwing. Its
broad wings are flapped in a regular manner, hence one of its
names ; and it flies round and round, changing its course and
tumbling through the air, uttering the notes from which it derives
its other name.
The food of the Lapwing is almost exclusively of an animal
nature, insects and their grubs, worms and snails forming the
chief part of its dietary. As a singular example of the variation
of local habits in the way of taste, it may be stated that in Ireland,
where the Lapwing is exceedingly common, its eggs are not
appreciated as they are in Great Britain. They are not even
collected for sale, although the bird itself is netted for the table
in the autumn in enormous numbers. Than the Lapwing no bird
can be more interesting to the most casual observer. As it rises
from its nest, its peculiar simulation of having been wounded, and
its fluttering before the very nose of a dog to draw him away from
its nest or young ones, is a never-ceasing source of interest.
Even old and experienced dogs who might be supposed to know
better, pursue the bird which is fluttering with an apparently
broken wing on the ground until at last, when some distance from
the nest and young, the bird rises into the air, and with a broad
flapping of its graceful wings, wheels and curls round and round
as if in -enjoyment of having secured the safety of its brood.
This sight is to be seen in very many parts of the country, but it
is only in more favoured districts that the autumn flights of the
old birds are to be noticed.
The Woodcock is a migratory bird, which comes to us in great
BIRD NESTING.
107
flights from the Continent about October, when numbers are
killed by flying against the lanterns of the lighthouses on the
English coast, between midnight and daybreak ; but it is also in
part an English-breeding bird, for although the majority of those
THE WOODCOCK.
that arrive in this country in October go back to the North of Europe
in March, hundreds remain and lay their eggs and rear their young
in suitable places in England. Even within a few years woodcocks'
nests have been found at Caen Wood, Highgate, and as near to
the metropolis as Streatham. The nests are merely a depression
p 2
io8 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
in the ground, usually in a sheltered place with a lining of dead
leaves which is added during the hatching. It is not always near
a marshy or wet place, where the food can be procured by the
bird probing the soft ground with its bill, but is sometimes in dry
situations ; and it is now well known that the woodcock has the
power of carrying its offspring from its nesting place to the
feeding ground, the young bird being carried by being clasped
between the thigh and body of the parent. The food of the old
birds consists almost exclusively of common earth worms, and
their appetite is enormous. One naturalist attempted to keep
three woodcocks in confinement, and found it almost impossible
to obtain for them a sufficient supply of the large earth worms,
even by the continuous labours of one man. The custom of eat-
ing the trail of the woodcock, under which name the intestines are
disguised, is one which would hardly be credited were it not well
known, and if gourmands knew the conditions under which its
food is sometimes obtained, it would hardly be practised.
There are a set of birds known pre-eminently as the Divers.
Three species are natives of Great Britain, breeding occasionally
in the north of Scotland and the adjacent islands on moors and
waste places. One of the most beautiful of these is the great
Northern Diver, which is so common that not less than thirty birds
have been seen during one winter in Plymouth Sound ; it is also
abundant around the Hebrides at all seasons of the year. Except
during the breeding season these Divers live at sea, obtaining their
food from the shoals of herrings, sprats, and other small fish, which
they catch with great ease and certainty, their progress under water
being extremely rapid ; it has been said they fly with the velocity
of an arrow in the air. Occasionally they seek their food at great
BIRD NESTING.
109
depths, having been captured in trammel nets thirty fathoms below
the surface of the sea. When alarmed they dive into the water,
often not rising again until they have reached a distance of half-a-
mile. Although the wings are small, this beautiful bird flies well,
and has been taken during migration-en-inland lakes and waters in
a**:., i
- .4
THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVER.
various parts of the kingdom. Its nest is simply made of flattened
herbage and moss ; it is always placed near fresh water, often on
the margin of a lake or large pond. The great Northern Diver
seldom progresses far on the land, as it has no power of walking,
properly so called, but pushes itself along the ground, sliding and
no A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
floundering on its way. If pursued, it always prefers making its
escape by diving into the water, although its flight is remarkably
strong and rapid. The bird is remarkable for making the most
weird and unearthly noises that can be conceived. If it is shot
and wounded, it utters the most mournful cries. Young specimens
that have been captured after some time become exceedingly
docile, and will even come and take food from the hand, proceed-
ing along the ground like a seal by jerks, rubbing the breast
against the ground. The wings are too large for the bird to fly
under water, as is the case with the Puffin, which belongs to a
totally different family of aquatic birds.
APRIL.
BIRD NESTING.
BY AUBYN TREVOR-BATTYE.
III. TREE NESTING BIRDS.
THE best way in which to treat this subject will probably be first to
take those birds that nest in the tops or branches of trees and
shrubs, and then those which nest in holes, or against the trunks.
It is obviously quite impossible within the limits of a short article
to attempt to exhaust either group. All we can do is to point to a
few of the best known instances.
The Rooks, which begin nesting early in the spring, may serve us
for a start, the more particularly as they go to illustrate very well
a constant general law of nature. It is this : wherever you have
a class of creatures of either a predatory or semi-predatory
character, whose habits are colonial or semi-colonial, there you will
find a considerable proportion which never breed at all, and of
these a predominating proportion of males. This opens up a very
wide and most interesting subject ; but here we can only point to
it as a fact. Rooks are exceedingly capricious in their choice of
a nesting site ; but, examined carefully, their ways will be
generally found to be backed by common sense. For example,
they will continue nesting in a pine tree long after the tree is dead,
112
A YEAR OF SPORT AMD NATURAL HISTORY.
but a dying silver poplar they will desert. They show remarkable
capabilities for adapting themselves to difficult circumstances, and
in this connection a book might be written on London Rooks, or,
for that matter, on London Crows.
The savoirfaire of a pair of these birds in Battersea Park at this
moment is absolutely astounding. They seem particularly pleased
THE ROOK.
at having chosen an island where the ornamental water-fowl are
proposing to lay. Nothing could exceed this pair of birds in
boldness, and yet anyone who has lain up in the hope of shooting
a pair of crows knows very well how exceedingly cautious and
suspicious they are. But it is of Ravens, is it not ? that the story
is told by a good observer of how they could count two but not
BIRD NESTING. 113
three. It was in Norfolk, and he tried to shoot them. But they
would not come so long as he remained, however closely hidden.
As soon as he left they returned, so he took his keeper with him
and presently sent him off. But the Ravens were not to be cheated
so. Then he took the under keeper also, and they three went to-
gether. Presently the two keepers left and their master remained
in hiding. And now the Ravens, watching these men till they were
fairly gone, thought the coast was clear and so returned to meet
their doom.
But some of the shyest of birds become quite bold at nesting
time. What can be more wild or shy than an autumn or a winter
Missel Thrush ? And yet this bird nests in the garden in the most
exposed situation, and will sit close, winking a bright eye within a
foot of your face as you walk by. Many birds are entirely
dependent on the labours of others for their nesting places. The
Long Eared Owl would fare badly were it not that it nests so
early that it can make use of the old Crows' nests that are still
pretty weather-tight since last year.
Think as one may, it seems impossible to generalize satis-
factorily as to the reasons which prompt the different birds to nest
in one way or another. Why, for example, does the Magpie, who
is so supremely capable of protecting its interests by weapon and
courage, go to the exceeding trouble of doming its big nest ? I
cannot think of any answer except a guilty conscience. And
there seems to be a code of honour even among Magpies. For
the Starling sometimes makes its nest in the very base of the
Magpie's structure, and yet eggs and young are safe.
One never visits a heronry without being struck by the anomaly
presented by 'these long-legged birds most uncomfortably swaying
Q
ii4 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
at the top of their tall trees. But the Herons are not the only birds
who seem to nest where they should not. (And Herons, for the
matter of that, will nest on the ground in a treeless district in the
Irish Bog of Allen, for example.)
THE HERON.
Look at the Wild Duck. Putting out of the question those foreign
ducks known distinctively as " Tree Ducks," the Summer Duck of
our ornamental ponds, and others, our own common Mallard con-
stantly nests in trees. I saw a nest last year, in Sweden, for
BIRD NESTING. 115
example, two-thirds of the way up in a spruce fir, on an island in
the Malar. And of all the birds that one would least suspect of a
habit of tree-nesting, surely the waders Plover, Sand-pipers, &c.
are the most conspicuous. And yet the Green Sand-piper, who
comes to us on passage in the spring and autumn, habitually
nests even in old squirrels' dreys, in the nests of thrushes, jays
and wood pigeons, at a height of some thirty-five feet from the
ground.
There are exceptions to every rule ; and although the lovely
little Golden-crested Wren almost invariably builds its exquisite
nest so that it hangs swaying underneath the end of a yew or fir-
tree bough, a case may be cited here in which these birds built,
two years running, against the trunk of a big chestnut tree, like
any spotted Fly-catcher.
Everyone knows the Fly-catcher's nest, and everyone loves the
bird that builds it. Occasionally it builds its nest in behind a bit
of partly-separated bark, and the Tree-creeper does the same.
And yet I have known a pair of Tree-creepers that, during many
consecutive years, were at immense pains to fill up the fork
between the two main trunks of a double arbor vitae. I think they
must have carried into that crack enough chips, moss and bits of
pampas grass to fill at the least a gallon measure.
Marvellous is the power and persistence shown by the Wood-
peckers in the drilling of the holes for their nests. But they are
not very wise, for they leave all the chips lying as they fall, to tell
the story of their labours. Every year they make a fresh hole.
The old nests they use as sleeping places, unless they are here
forestalled : for the little Nuthatch, which is quite capable of making
a hole for itself, and often does so, has a way of appropriating the
Q 2
n6
A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
tunnellings of the Woodpeckers, always narrowing down the
entrance to the smallest possible dimensions by the use of clay and
small stones.
The Wryneck, as every schoolboy knows, is never at the pains
to drill for itself, but takes possession of the most convenient hole
that offers. And every boy knows, too, how valiantly it guards its
THE WOODPECKER.
eggs, and the courage needed to put a hand down into that dark
hole where the creature is hissing like a snake. What can be
more beautiful than the courage shown by the tiniest birds when
nesting ? It has been the writer's practice for many years to fix
up in the garden trees movable boxes with a little hole in the side
through which the birds can go to nest. All the Tit-mice are fond
BIRD NESTING. 117
of these. And so, when the guests are in at luncheon they are
sometimes entertained by the sight of a small box brought in, in
which a Blue Tit is sitting on its eggs. The cover is removed, the
bird is exposed to full view, it is passed round from one to the
other, yet there it sits on, undauntedrOflly watching with bright
eyes, and trusting things are well and chivalrous.
There are few problems more interesting, but few, it seems,
more impossible to solve, than the reasons for the colourings of
e gg s> Take the case of hidden eggs eggs down in the dark, in
holes of hollow trees. We say they want no colour here, and that
this is why the Woodpeckers and Owls lay eggs that are pure white.
And this is well enough as a reason, until we are met on the one
hand by such a case as that of the Redstart, whose egg is sky-blue,
or, on the other, by that of the Wood-pigeon, whose egg is white.
With which conundrum we will stop.
APRIL.
TROUT FISHING IN MOUNTAIN
STREAMS.
ENGLISHMEN are reproached for talking too much of the weather ;
but anglers talk, think and dream of it ; for all their prosperity
turns upon the clouds, the wind and the rain. They hate the
dry east winds of March, not because of their bronchi, but
because of the Trout which will not face them, but sulk in the
deeper pools while the wind blows keen and cold. At this season
of the year, every man with a ten foot rod, a fly book, and a
week's leisure, having access to a trout stream and possessing
the soul of an angler, is thinking a great deal more of the
March-brown and the yellow Trout that loves the March-brown,
than of anything else in heaven or on earth. In the
streams that run among mountains, the first gleams of warmth
from the sun, and the first soft westerly wind, bring upon the
water the gnats, midges, stone flies and other small insects that
in early spring tempt the Trout, from their deeper holds beneath
rocks and among the root of alder and willow, into the running
streams. Then it is time to put the rod together and sally forth.
It is not given to every man to choose his day. Were it so, a
not too brilliant sky, a soft, warm wind, and a certain fulness of
TROUT FISHING IN MOUNTAIN STREAMS. 119
water would probably be the choice of the mountain-stream fisher.
These are most important factors in the making of a full basket.
So, also, is lightness of his cast and the angler's right choice of
flies ; but the most important of all is the appetite of the fish. The
Trout's appetite is the unknown quantity-in fishing. If Trout took
their meals regularly, fishing, in losing all its uncertainty, would lose
half its pleasure. On the Trout's appetite depends the time of the
take, and that is the great mystery of every trout river. It comes on
perhaps twice in a day, and lasts sometimes but an hour, ending as
abruptly as it began. While the take lasts every duffer can take
Trout ; the true angler is he who can tempt the fish when they
are satiated with food, or but half hungry.
In trout fishing, from the comparatively facile to the impossible
is a quick transition. For instance : the stream is a deepish one,
rolling along with countless ripples beneath a sheltering bank ; at
your feet stretches a strip of gently sloping shingle. As you cast
up and across (with consummate skill) the fly sweeps down to you
again. Again, a foot or two higher this time ; and again. But no
eddy breaks the dark flow of silent water.
Take the same conditions, ten minutes later. You have left
the pool. In your place stands an unwelcome object another
fisherman. The preparations he makes at once excite your
contempt and dislike. Obviously ignorant of the laws observed
by every well-regulated angler, he stands for some minutes on the
high bank and makes no attempt to conceal himself. At length,
with an ugly cast of his line, he throws his fly some yards below
him. A fish rises. The stranger's line is slack and he deserves to
lose that fish. You sincerely hope (of course, in the interests of
true art) that he will lose it ! Nothing of the kind. That fish's
120 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
eager appetite, not the intruder's skill, has fixed the hook in the
Trout's jaws. It is a good fish, a pound and a quarter in weight
a magnificent trout for a mountain stream. The fisherman plays
the Trout, handling his rod with much expenditure of muscle and
no delicacy of touch, much as a waggoner might handle his whip.
Oh ! the fish must break. No ; matter beats mind. The fish
yields, the waggoner triumphs. You leave him and the pool,
utterly disgusted. Why should he succeed where you have failed ?
Just because he happened to hit upon that particular moment
when an unknown impulse prompted the fish to rise. It was the
time of the take.
Let us imagine a mild day and a soft wind in early spring. We
intend to fish one of those small " becks " eight or ten feet in
width which tumble, helter-skelter, down the mountain-side.
The lower and thickly-wooded reaches in the valley we leave
behind us, and tramp on till we are some way up the mountain,
and till masses of limestone rock, all huddled together in savage
disorder, and tufts of coarse, grey-green grass have replaced
fields and woods. High above us hovers a kestrel. With the
black-faced sheep and a few mountain pipits the little falcon is
the 'only object in sight. And for a minute we abandon ourselves
to the subtle fascination of this solitude.
We are on our fishing ground. First, the great question of
flies. In the early months a longish and a sober-coloured fly is
advisable. As a first cast, say a March-brown or stone fly, with
a small black gnat as dropper. But a grouse-hackle without
wings is, perhaps, as good as any, and indeed on small streams
which flow through barren and high ground, hackle-flies may, as
a general rule, be relied on as the most trustworthy. Gnats,
TROUT FISHING JN MOUNTAIN STREAMS. \ 23
midges, and grass spiders are the natural food of Trout in upland
streams. Their tastes are not educated up to the delicate " duns"
or mayflies that delight the giants of the flat chalk stream.
And now for the secret of successful beck fishing : choose the
best, and only the best, spots. Wherever the natural bed is
deepened by displaced boulders or worn-out banks, there the
largest fish will be lying. Avoid the shallow places in a river
the big fish are often in the shallows, in a smaller water they
retreat to hiding-places behind stones or under banks. There
cast, and cast lightly (no easy task !), and never fish the same
place twice. The more fresh ground you cover, the more fish
you will come across. If you fish a big pool in a river unless,
indeed, it be very low a comparatively small number of its
occupants will see you. But nothing escapes the watchful eye of
the Trout in a brook or beck. They have a more limited horizon.
It is the habit of most local experts in the North to fish with an
exceedingly long rod. It keeps the angler out of sight, but its
length is not an unmixed advantage. To begin with and this is
probably the most weighty objection a long rod spoils sport.
To restore the balance of equality you require long fish ; and
they are not to be found in mountain streams. Next, a short rod
is much pleasanter to fish with, and with it one probably makes a
more accurate cast. A short rod then is best, of about ten feet
in length, and a light casting line, some five or six feet long, with a
couple of flies. It is certainly better to fish up-stream and not
down in the day-time at any rate. Fish which are feeding lie,
naturally, with their heads up-stream on the watch for what comes
down to them.
And now suppose we have fished up to a point where the beck
R 2
124 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
divides into two narrow channels, a yard or so in width. There
are still, small, deep holes and strong runs in abundance. They
hold Trout, but are less likely places in the spring than in the
autumn. Then the fish run up as far as they can for the purpose
of spawning, and before the season ends the best fish, and those
in best condition, are often to be found there.
But now we must be thinking of getting home. We have still
several hours in which to fish, and we can still hope for sport,
fishing with a longer line, down the places that were fished up in
the morning. It is no easy matter to cast with a line twice the
length of your rod, but it is essential to success that the cast fall
lightly and accurately. When the stream is very narrow, a single
fly will be found best. It is an unpleasant, and yet a not unfrequent
experience, to catch a fish on the tail-fly and the bank on the
dropper.
As the stream widens, we add our second fly. Just in front
the beck runs in a straight and comparatively wide course.
But there to one side lies a big stone, and the water behind
looks a foot or two in depth. Standing ten or twelve yards
off, we drop our flies over the stone. As they touch the
water a flash ! The line tightens to a " sweet resistance,"
and we are in a Trout of three-quarters of a pound or, as
hope tells us, a good pound weight. He rests an instant in
meditation ; then follows the struggle. Keeping the rod bent all
the time, we let him run. In four or five minutes he will be
getting tired. And now, gently steering him out of the current
to the calm shallows at the side, we slip the net, if we have one,
under his tail, as he turns. He is our best fish, and adds a
pleasing weight to our fast filling basket.
TROUT FISHING IN MOUNTAIN STREAMS. 125
We make our way home, lighted still by the setting sun. On
either side the sheep are bleating to the growing cold of evening,
as they make their way up the mountain-side for dryness and
shelter, as is their wont, while the shadows lengthen, and the kine
cross their path coming down towards the valley and the home-
stead and the byres. The signs of coming night warn us that our
day's sport is ended.
MAY.
A
THAMES TROUT FISHING.
BY E. T. SACHS.
SINCE the salmon, beaten back by the foul matter which meets
him already some distance out to sea, no longer exhibits his
handsome proportions in the Thames, the Trout is the undoubted
king of the river. Scientists very properly decline to recognize in
the Thames Trout anything but salino fario ; but anglers, accus-
tomed to detect minute differences in shape and coloration, will
speak of a fish as being a typical Thames Trout. It being an
undoubted fact that fish partake largely of the particular locality
which they frequent, small wonder need there be that the Thames
Trout, living always where the stream runs swift and clear, and
often amidst the swirl and turmoil of the waters that, having
swept with irresistible rush over a weir, buffet awhile with the
rocks below, should possess the bright silvery side which is one of
the tokens by which the angler knows him. Small wonder, again,
need there be, seeing that he lives in a well-stocked larder in
which innumerable bleak, dace, and gudgeon jostle one another,
that he should also be remarkable for an astonishing depth of
body, which makes him, for his length, the heaviest Trout in the
world. In saying which I do not except those wonderful fish of
THAMES TROUT FISHING. 12
New Zealand, the product of the present age, which have thriven
so amazingly fast because of the stock of food, the compound
interest of centuries, waiting for them to eat it. The physical
perfection attained by the Trout of the Thames and New Zealand
is attributable to precisely the same causes.
The Thames Trout is a spoil which no one hesitates to make his
own. Anglers picture him as one holding the fort, not lowering
behind weeds, like the pike, but in the full rush of water where all
may behold him, and whence he issues with a dash that makes
known the presence of someone of importance. The angler knows,
too, that even when that rare moment arrives when the Trout un-
warily seizes the barbed lure, he is far from being certain of his
prey. On his hook he has one possessed of both craft and
power, and until the last gasp both of these will be utilized. For
the supreme moment of this struggle between man and fish, men
sane men, able-bodied and with means to do other things, and
the intellectuality to enjoy them will devote hours, days and
weeks to the pursuit of the Thames Trout, knowing full well that
the proportion of blank days to those bringing prizes must be
sadly disproportionate, judged by the standard of other phases of
trout fishing. Fishing for Thames Trout is certainly the nearest
approach to piscatorial gambling that can be imagined, for, spirit
you never so wisely or so well, if the Trout be not in the humour
your labour is all in vain.
The accepted modes of fishing for Thames Trout are two-fold,
viz., live-baiting and spinning. Once upon a time there was a
strong section which affected to think that the live-baiter was but
little removed from a poacher, and nothing at all from a mere fish
butcher. \Yhether the falsity of their position has made itself
128 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
manifest, or whether they realized that they were preaching to the
winds, is not recorded ; the fact remains that this section has not
been heard from of late. Live-baiting par excellence for Trout is
conducted with a bleak. The bleak is the Trout's most accustomed
food in the Thames ; professional fishermen (who are perhaps in
the Trout's confidence) going so far as to assert that he prefers
the bleak to any other fish. As we humans prefer the gudgeon
(fried), it is perhaps fortunate that the Trout has tastes which differ
from ours, or gudgeon might be selling at whitebait prices. The
bleak, it need not be said, is a very delicate fish, and will not long
survive rough usage, consequently the tackle used must be light.
The hooks will be of the snap order and will consist of a triangle
and a lip hook no more mounted on gut. Any other system of
hooks for live-baiting in streams is inferior, for the reason that the
lip hook keeps the head of the bait up stream, in which position it
will retain its life and vivacity fora length of time that will astonish
the practitioner who has adopted other methods. The hooks will,
of course, be mounted on gut strong, but not salmon gut ; and
for a float I would as soon use a bottle cork, passed on the line
by means of a slit, as anything else. Lead is not required as
when pike fishing. The bleak, in a state of freedom, always
hovers on the surface of the water, where it acts the part of
surface scavenger. The Trout never looks for it anywhere else,
and the angler's cause is by no means furthered by having his
bait sunk near the bottom. A Trout is not suddenly inspired to
hunger by the spectacle of a bleak passing near him. When his
meal-time comes on (Oh that we anglers could but know when
that is !), it is then, and not before, that the Trout goes foraging ;
and then is it that the angler's chance arrives. Not that he may
-
THAMES TROUT FISHING. 131
not see Trout dashing about after bleak all round his bait, and even
over his line, without the least notice of his lure being taken. A
Trout, be it known, having once fixed his eye upon a particular
fish, follows that particular fish until he obtains it, or it escapes.
It will follow its intended victim right through a shoal of its fellows
without deviating to the right or to the left. Consequently, it
must be the angler's constant hope that the Trout will see his
particular bait first.
A Trout does not seize its prey and bear it off in the stealthy
way adopted by the pike. There is a plunge, a dash and a tug,
and either you are fast or you are not. If you attempt to strike
in the way that would be proper in the case of the pike, the betting
would be overwhelmingly against your being fast.
In spinning for Trout, either the natural bait or the artificial
may be used. Professional fishermen will tell you that nothing
can compare with the natural bait a bleak fixed on a spinning
flight. In the calmer, heavy waters in which many Trout lie this
may be true, as more opportunity for investigation is there pre-
sented to them ; but in the whirl of weirs I do not think it matters
a button. Anything that spins, provided it be not too large, will do
there ; the thing is to find the Trout in the humour. I have caught
very wary Trout on a little golden spoon, on the Bell's Life spinner
(an imitation of a minnow with a bend in its tail to do the
spinning), and on the spiral spinning bait ; and I believe that the
reason I have not caught them on other kinds of artificial spinning
bait is because I have not tried them. You will not find it
necessary to strike when a Trout seizes the spinning bait ; but
keep a very taut line on him, and look out for stray eddies which
will seize the line, and bulge it in a manner that will possibly
s 2
132 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
assist the Trout to eject the hooks by removing the pressure which
keeps them in position. The sooner the fish is drawn out of the
strong stream the better, only it is not always that the hooked
Trout will permit the angler to have anything approaching his own
way.
Whether you fish with live bait or go spinning, never put the
line into the water without thoroughly testing every part of it.
Runs from Trout in the Thames come so rarely, that no chance of
a break away must be given by failure to submit the tackle to a
heavy strain before using. Reliance upon his tackle lends
additional confidence to the angler and power to his arm.
The salmon fisherman may like to try his luck with the fly rod.
If he does so in certain spots he may be successful, as others
have been before him. The best places for the fly on the Thames
are Sunbury Weir, Penton Hook, Windsor Old River, and Marlow
Weir. The angler need not be told where to fish when he reaches
any of those places. His fly should be on the small side, and he
need not hesitate to fish the same water over and over again, with
decent intervals of rest.
MAY.
THE TRICKS OF POACHERS.
Bv H. H. S. PEARSE.
OF the many wise things written by Richard Jefferies, and in the
writing of which he showed how keen an observer of nature he
was, none contained more truth in ten words than the sentence :
" All poaching is founded on the habits of wild creatures." A
plain and simple dogmatism of that kind seems so obvious when
said, and yet how few of us have the gift to say it ! Nobody
studies animal nature more closely or patiently than the Poacher,
and none knows the habits of birds and beasts better. Until he
has acquired that knowledge he is a mere bungler at his craft.
For my own part, I candidly own that the first inkling of all the
charm which field sports have power to exercise over me came
through an old Poacher, the most notorious of his class in the
west country, where as schoolboys we used to sit literally
at his feet and try to learn all that he could teach. I am not
even ashamed to confess that in his company I have, more than
once, practised the tricks of Poachers with nefarious intent. I
will not say where, because it is just possible that there may be
no statute of limitations for such offences against the law and the
squire. Towards the close of his life our mentor seldom
practised the arts he was so cunning in. Not that he had grown
134 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
more scrupulous or less inclined for adventure, for a series of
mild punishments, inadequate as deterrents and ridiculously out
of proportion to his wholesale depredations, had made him
wondrous bold. His cessation from active work was the result of
a curious adventure. Bob rarely, if ever, went to work at night
armed with anything more formidable than a stout blackthorn, but
his reputation for dexterity with that, in a give and take bout at
cudgelling, made keepers wary, until at last a notice from him
saying that he wanted, and meant to have, some pheasants out of
a certain preserve, was enough to ensure the absence of watchers
when he called. A hot-tempered, athletic young squire could
not brook this tyranny, so in answer to such a notice he met the
Poacher one night in a dark lane, where, single-handed, they
fought it out, first with tough " ash plants," then with fists. At
the tenth round Bob confessed that he had met with more than his
match, and so they came to a compact. " Yer, Squoire, that'll
do, I tell 'ee. You'm a man, you be, and I don't mayn to taake
no more ov your vessants." " Bob, you may come whenever you
like, but I'll have nobody else, and you must never go into a
cover until I've shot it." That compact was faithfully kept, and
thenceforth no keeper did so much as Bob to prevent anybody but
himself from poaching on that young squire's preserves. But the
old fellow was never quite the same after the thrashing he got
then. Pride in his own prowess was gone, and he degenerated
I grieve to say it into a mere trapper of foxes.
At this he never had an equal that I knew of. He would lie
out all night and in all weathers on the bleak moor side.
He could track the lightest imprint of a fox's pad for hundreds of
yards, and tell with unerring certainty in which, among many
THE TRICKS OF POACHERS. J35
" clitters of stones " as Dartmoor tors are named in the
vernacular a robber of hen roosts had gone to ground. To do
him justice, he cared only to capture the wily old gourmands. A
fox of the stout wild sort, that had gone to earth after a good
run, he would let "bide" in peace.-for Bob was a sportsman
who held that a fox which could beat " Trelawny's hounds "
deserved his life. And besides, as he said, "any vule could
ketch wan o' they," if he only waited long enough with his net in
the right place. When the hounds had marked the red rover in,
there he must come out if there was no back door. Bob's
methods needed more knowledge of woodcraft. If there were
any small shingle near the earth he could tell by it whether the
fox had come back in haste, or with leisurely steps bearing a
burden, or light. From the signs on gravel, grass, bracken, or
heather, he made up his mind how long it would be before the fox
must needs sally out on another foraging expedition, and made
his plans accordingly. He never resorted to clumsy stone traps
or cruel steel ones, and his nets were of the simplest, without
bells. A man with his quick ears did not want any music louder
than the angry snarl of a fox in meshes to wake him. Some he
killed on the spot so that he might show mask or pad to those
who paid him, but a live fox was at times worth more than a dead
one to him, and he always knew his market. The sporting
farmers suspected, if they did not know all, and forbade him to
come near their homesteads, but he called when they were out,
and was always sure of a reward from the housewives, who
regarded him as custodian of their perquisites.
The methods of Poachers in trapping, netting, or snaring game
differ so much that one never knows how to meet them. Rabbits,
136 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
as a rule, they leave to gipsies, who are experts in setting wire
snares. A rabbit never bolts from its hole in a hurry, unless
pursued by a ferret or stoat, but reconnoitres cautiously, and
any recent disturbance of the ground by hand of man is enough
to put him on his guard. Then he goes back and tries to go out
some other way. Knowing this, the gipsies smear their hands with
moist earth before setting a wire, and where they have laid a trap
they rake leaves or earth over it lightly with a stick, not venturing
to use a finger. If a professional Poacher stoops to rabbit-
catching, in absence of higher game, he does it wholesale, with
nets that match the hue of grass when hazy evening light is on it,
so that when spread their fine meshes look only like a film of
mist. Walking along the head of a cover in the dim twilight of
summer or hazy moonlight of late autumn, when rabbits are out
feeding, the Poacher sticks an iron rod of his net in the ground
and then proceeds to set the snare, which may be a hundred
yards long, or more, and this he accomplishes almost as
fast as he can walk. He wants, however, one assistant to hold
the first rod, and another with a lurcher to drive the rabbits back.
When alarmed, they come helter-skelter, by tens or scores, rolling
in the net they cannot see. When once a rabbit's head is
well through a mesh he cannot hope to escape, in spite of all his
struggles and terrified beating of feet. One smart tap behind the
ear settles him. I have spoken of a lurcher ; that is the
Poacher's best friend when in search of rabbits, hares, pheasants,
partridges, or black game. The lurcher is a consummate actor,
or rather pantomimist, for he never utters a sound while at work,
and his training is the greatest triumph of the Poacher's art.
When, by a wave of the hand, a signal is given for him to go off
THE TRICKS OF POACHERS. 139
and find a hare, he quarters every yard of ground with marvellous
patience. Meanwhile the Poacher sets his net in a gateway, or at
a stile, or a gap, where by woodcraft he has learned that the hare
will run. If all goes right, he has puss in his ample pocket before
she has time to squeal. Should, however, a stranger approach,
the lurcher, ever on the alert, gives timely warning, not by so
much as a growl, but by going quickly away from, instead of
towards his master, whom this intelligent dog has been taught
not to recognize or make friends with in the presence of a
stranger. I once knew a neat trick of poaching done in broad
daylight. On fresh-fallen snow I came across the tracks of a
hare, which seemed to have been going slowly towards its
form. Following every turn and double were the footprints of a
lurcher. Guided by them, I came to the empty form, and thence
could follow by sight of more hasty footsteps all the windings of a
chase, until they ended at a gateway, where the faint markings of
a net, a few drops of blood, and a yellow stain on the snow showed
clearly what had happened. From the gateway, up a narrow lane,
the dog's tracks kept company with those of hob-nailed boots
until all traces of them were lost amid the wheel ruts on a much-
frequented highway. When a lurcher is used to bring young
black game to a Poacher's gun or net on the open moor, he has a
trick of loping along at a gait so closely resembling that of a
shepherd's tired dog that he at times deceives the shyest old
birds. Next to his lurcher, perhaps, a Poacher's best friend,
though unwillingly so, is the keeper, one of the "wild creatures"
on knowledge of whose habits success in poaching depends
greatly. Keepers, with all their zeal and watchfulness, fall into
grooves about which the fraternity of Poachers can easily learn all
they want to know. Then they go to work with confidence.
T 2
MO A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
In lonely copses, far from the haunts of men, and rarely visited
by the keeper more than once in twenty-four hours, Poachers
prefer broad daylight for their work. Amid the tangled under-
growth or long grass they can mark the runs of pheasants and
hares, and learn the way they most frequently go to their feeding-
grounds in the neighbouring corn-fields. Somewhere in these runs
they set wire snares with a stop loop in each to ensure that what-
ever may be caught will not get strangled. They want the
pheasants alive if possible. Another trick is to throw up a light
fence of twigs and brambles from side to side of the copse, with a
series of holes in it just large enough for a pheasant to pass through.
In these the sensitive snare is set and the result is nearly always
the same. Such a fence, however, requires time for its construction,
and the work is generally done at night in readiness for operations at
daybreak, when pheasants come down from their perches to feed.
A fewhandfuls of grain artfully distributed do not come amiss, but
the Poacher's favourite device is to place himself at one corner of
the covert and tap two sticks together lightly, making just sound
enough to drive pheasants at a run from him, without alarming
them into flight. So he goes from side to side of the copse until
he has reason to believe that something is caught in nearly every
snare, and then home with a sack full of live game in his cart. Of
numberless other tricks, more or less clever, the Poacher is master,
but his greatest triumphs are of daring rather than cunning, though
the latter quality always comes into play. He likes the keen,
frosty air of night when clouds are drifting across the moon.
Then, in company with two or three trusty accomplices bearing
fowling pieces or air guns, he makes his way to well-stocked
coverts, where scores of pheasants are sure to be perching on
THE TRICKS OF POACHERS. 141
wind-stripped oak branches or under the spreading eaves of spruce
firs. His lurcher is there, of course, but kept in at heels or held
by a comrade who crouches behind a thicket, while the gunner
creeps forward. On spruce branches, low down, pheasants may
be killed, one after another, by blowsT from a cudgel, or even
caught by the leg by one hand, while the other stops their cack-
ling. Those on the oaks and beeches, however, perch so high
that they can only be seen when in silhouette against the pale
halo of veiled moonlight. But though thus out of reach, they are
near enough to be brought down by a small charge, so the Poacher
takes half the powder out of his cartridges, thus lessening the
volume of sound when he fires. Not that he concerns himself much
then about the chance of his shot being heard. Probably he is
far off before any watchers have made up their minds exactly
where the last report came from. Ears are deceptive when startled
suddenly at night, and the Poacher takes care that nobody shall
see the flash of his gun, which he discharges from behind an
impenetrable screen of bushes well inside the covert, and seldom
on the fringe of it. At worst, however, the risk of bringing
keepers down on him for a sharp hand-to-hand tussle adds zest to
the game, and in a stern grip, when wrestling for a fall, he can
often show them that the tricks cf Poachers are not confined to
setting snares for timid or helpless wild creatures. It is im-
possible for a sportsman to write of Poachers without some
admiration for their skill in woodcraft, though he must wish it were
employed to better ends. Even the squire who suffers has a soft
place in his heart for the dexterous or bold Poacher, and lets him
off with a light sentence.
MA Y.
FISHING WITH THE DRY FLY.
BY OSWALD CRAWFURD.
To catch trout with the wet fly in the common way is a beautiful
art, but to take them with the Dry Fly is less an art than a
science, or rather, it is something of both. The older method
has been uncharitably described, by the followers of the new, as
the " chuck and chance it" style. The fisherman throws his two,
three or four flies in any water likely to hold a trout, and relies on
a fish seeing and taking the lure. For aught he knows, there
may not be a fish within ten yards of his cast, and he cares little
whether his lure sinks below the surface or remains upon it. Not
so in Dry Fly fishing. Here the angler must first discover the
fish, then send the fly the right fly floating down the water
exactly over its head. It takes a better man to do all this than
to fish in the older method, a man with keener sight, for he has
to guess the presence of a trout on the feed by indications which
the ordinary fisherman would only suppose to be the swirls and
circlets and ripples of the flowing stream. He must have more
skill, too. in casting, for he must hit the water with his fly to an
inch-breadth ; he must also be a fair entomologist, for unless he
knows most of the insects that people the river bank, and is
FISHING WITH THE DRY FLY. 143
quick to place their representative at the end of his line, he may
expect no sport.
Dry Fly fishing is an invention of late years. In delicacy and
difficulty it compares with common Fly fishing as that does with
worm-fishing in a flooded stream. In T)ry Fly fishing, the angler
walks up the bank of the stream, curiously scanning its surface.
He comes to the " tail of a pool." Two or three small trout rise
at intervals in the troubled water, leaping bodily above the surface
more in play than hunger, but the fisherman passes on. In chalk
streams, where trout are fat on the good living the waters afford,
fish run heavy, and these small fish are not sizeable occupants of
the basket of a serious angler. He therefore disregards them,
and presently comes to where the water deepens between lofty
banks; an alder stump projects from the opposite side, and his
eye dwells on the swirl that the trunk and roots cause in the
river's current. Just where the flowing water lines, like an
elongated S, melt into the general ripple of the stream, his keen
eye notes an intermittent movement in the water. A casual
observer might look at it for five minutes with a field-glass, and
see nothing beyond the interrupted lines of water caused by the
tree trunk ; but those oily-looking undulations, and every two or
three minutes those little, half-imperceptible eddyings, are caused
by the movements of a heavy trout lying some six inches below
the surface ; his head is, of course, up stream, and he is waiting
for the dun-flies and gnats, and alder and sedge-flies, that float
down upon the current. While in an ordinary cast of flies the
insects are as often beneath as on the surface, the object of the
Dry Fly fisher is to imitate the action of the natural fly as it
floats down, with its filmy wings upraised ; the imitation of the fly
144 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
must be perfect, and it must be kept dry, or it will not float.
Consequently the angler must whisk his line and his single fly
twice or thrice through the air between every cast on the water.
As soon as the fisherman has ascertained the position of a feeding
trout, and guessed the manner of fly it is feeding on, he throws
his imitation of it with a cast so contrived that it shall fall delicately
within two or three feet up stream of the head of the fish. The
fly sails down stream, but some six or eight inches to one side ;
the well-fed trout is too fat and lazy to move ; the angler lets it
float on, and only when it is well behind the fish does he flick it
gently from the water ; he makes two or three casts in the air to
dry his fly, and again throws with better aim above the feeding
fish. This time it passes within an inch of the trout's head,
floating delicately with wings poised and body resting so naturally
on the water that the fish is deceived ; a little circlet on the water
is the only sign that the trout has taken the bait. The angler
waits the fraction of a second, then rather tightens the line with a
firm pressure of his hand than strikes. He has a firm hold of a
strong two pound trout, and before the struggle actually begins
he is careful to draw the trout down stream away from the
subaqueous weeds and tree roots for which the fish will instantly
make. Then the fight begins, the angler always trying to draw
him down stream, the fish dashing hither and thither towards
the deeper pool. In three minutes, the landing net under the
tired fish ends the contest.
The skilled mountain-stream angler, who has never failed to
carry home his ten to twenty pounds weight of fish, wonders how,
in a river full of fish, he can take but two or three tiny troutlets in
a dav. The reason is to be found in the abundance of insect
FISHING WITH THE DRY FLY. i 45
food in these southern chalk streams. Their well-fed inhabitants,
very unlike the hungry trout in a mountain stream, are fastidious
about flies that are not served up to them, as it were, in the most
appetizing way, and that are not almost forced into their mouths.
The delicate reception of a fly by a ~chalk-stream fish is very
different from the mad plunge, half across the stream, of a hungry
mountain trout.
u
JUNE.
SCOTCH LOCH FISHING.
BY J. W. FOGG-ELLIOTT.
LOCH fishing is not now what once it was. In some of the
well-known Lochs there are not half the trout there were ten years
ago. Then, any duffer could kill them ; but now the bad fisherman
has a very poor chance of sport. The trout have been educated,
and it is the duffer who has educated them. He rises fish after
fish when there is enough wind to help him to get his flies out
pricks half of them, and perhaps catches one fish in a dozen rises.
In a few out-of-the-way places, however, there still are Lochs where
the trout have scarcely ever seen an artificial fly. I came across
one of these last summer when climbing over a shoulder of Ben
More, in Sutherland, on my way to the Gorm Loch. My gillie
contemptuously called it a " peat hole," for in extent it was not
more than an acre. It was connected with the large Loch by a
small stream. The little pool was full of weed, but I thought I
would try it ; so putting on a single fly a " Zulu " I cast into one
of the openings in the weed. Immediately a trout took the fly,
and before 1 left I had taken five, weighing from four and a half
ounces to two pounds each.
The " Zulu," used as a "top-dropper," is unquestionably the
SCOTCH LOCH FISHING. 147
best Loch fly in Scotland. On some days the trout will only have
it when fished deep ; on others they prefer it bobbing over the top
of the ripples. A " Claret and Mallard" comes next, I think, in
order of merit. Certainly it is the best fly on Lochs Rannoch and
Luydon in Perthshire. Then the " March Brown," " Red and
Teal," " Heckum Peckum" and "Green and Grouse" are good.
Different Lochs have their favourite flies, but that which was best
on a certain Loch one season may not be equally good the next.
For instance, on Loch Awe, in Sutherland, the " Red and Teal "
was by far the best fly in June, two years ago last year, during
the same month, the trout would have nothing to say to it. But
perhaps this Loch is exceptional, for during June enormous rises
of May-fly come on, and the trout do not rise freely to anything
else. Only on one other Loch in this neighbourhood did I see any
quantity of May-fly ; on Loch Assynt, only three miles off, I never
saw even a solitary specimen. No doubt this accounts for the
trout on Loch Awe being exceptionally fine fish. On an ordinary
day they will average a pound and larger fish are not at all rare
while in Assynt, a Loch at least eighty times as large, the trout
only average three to the pound.
I have found a small " Red Spinner" tied on a drawn gut very
useful on calm, bright days. By casting from the shore into the
rings made by the rising trout, good sport may be had. In
connection with this, I once saw a rather amusing incident. At
the bottom of Loch Assynt there are a number of springs, which
are continually throwing up large bubbles. These from a distance
appear exactly like fish feeding on the surface, and I once saw a
man wade carefully out to within twenty yards of these bubbles.
He then proceeded to offer them various flies, and fished most in-
U 2
148 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
dustriously for a quarter of an hour, when his gillie appeared and
told him what he was fishing for.
A certain class of anglers frequently cause a good deal of un-
pleasantness ; they arrive at an inn, where perhaps six or seven
men have been staying for weeks, and expect to have a boat on
one of the best Lochs next day. This can hardly be considered
reasonable. It is all right when there are, say, four men and four
good beats ; but when three or four more men arrive, then the
names of an equal number of Lochs are put into a hat, and each
man draws for his beat. The names of the Loch and the angler
are written down, and the men move up one each day. Anyone
arriving after this is put down at the bottom of the list. This
seems the fairest method.
I think trolling for large trout is the best part of Loch fishing.
It is the perfection of sport, for there is nothing simple or con-
fiding about salmoferox. It will take the finest tackle you can
safely use, and an accurate knowledge of the habits of the fish,
before you are successful. Most authorities put salmo ferox down
as a distinct breed, but in what way does he differ from a common
trout of equal size? His colouring is certainly darker, and he
lacks the red spots of the smaller trout ; but this can be accounted
for from the fact that he retires to the deeper part of the Loch
during the day ; and if you put a brightly spotted trout in a deep,
dark pool, he soon loses his brilliant colour. The leopard may
stick to his spots, but I am not so sure of the trout following suit.
These large trout very rarely come on to the shallows, except at
night to feed, and it is seldom one is taken on a fly. Yet there
must be hundreds, or thousands, of them of over ten pounds weight
in such lochs as Assynt, Erricht and Awe. The evening is
s
.
- . . '
SCOTCH LOCH FISHING. 151
generally the best time for trolling, and I know nothing pleasanter
than rowing quietly along on a still June night. You can hear the
hum of voices from the inn, more than a mile away, and the regular
beat of the oars makes you drowsy. Suddenly the rod you are
holding is nearly jerked from your hand and the line rushes off the
reel. To pass the other rod to the boatman to wind up does not
take a second, and the fun begins. Eighty yards of line and an
ounce of lead won't stop the fish from jumping time after time ;
then the weight against him begins to tell. Gradually you get him
nearer and nearer, until he catches sight of you ; then off he goes
again, ending his rush with a grand somersault fish and lead
falling back into the water with a splash which you think must
shake the hooks from their hold. But the line tightens again, and
in a few more minutes you have drawn him up to the side of the
boat, where your gillie can use the gaff.
Occasionally when trolling especially if you are using coarse
tackle, or if it is a very calm day a fish will follow the bait for a
considerable distance, pulling gently at it every few yards, but
never taking hold. It is very exasperating, and you can do
nothing ; it is very seldom you will kill a fish of this sort. He
has probably been hooked before at any rate he has seen some-
thing to arouse his suspicions, and eventually he will leave the bait.
In trolling, a good gillie, who knows the Loch thoroughly, is an
immense advantage. He will know exactly how near he can go to
certain points without getting the baits fast in the bottom.
In whatever Loch large trout'are found, there are always certain
points and bays which they frequent in preference to others.
These should be tried several times over, either nearer or further
from the shore each time. On rough days ferox retire to the
r S 2 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
deepest water, while on moderately calm ones they will be found
near to the shore, and sometimes in the bays. Occasionally they
are taken in mid-loch, but I think this is only when by chance the
baits have passed near some sunken rocks. A small parr about
three inches long is the very best bait you can use ; for the natural
bait, when made to spin properly, will always beat the artificial.
JUNE.
BASS-FISHING.
BY G. A. THRING.
FROM the sportsman's point of view sea-fishing is generally either
wearisome or monotonous. It is wearisome to tack up and
down all day with a line lazily dragging outside the boat, even
though the day be fine and the air refreshing ; it is monotonous,
when at last the right locality is found, to pull in the line
incessantly, with one or two fish attached to it every time.
Indefinite slaughter is unpleasant and unworthy of the true sports-
man. Bass-fishing has, however, a decided fascination. It is
most fascinating, perhaps, when indulged in from the rocks, but it
is not unpleasant from a boat on a breezy day.
A coast of mingled rock and sand is perhaps the best ground
along which to fish, and the equipment necessary is that of any
ordinary salmon fisher, namely, a light salmon rod, a stout line,
and either a perfectly white, or a rather gaudy, fly. The weather
should be bright and sunny, and the airs brisk and variable.
It is often possible, therefore, for the keen salmon fisher, when
the sun is too bright, or the water too low for the king of fish, to
take an off day among the Bass. Let him wander over the weed-
covered rocks until he finds a spot where the broken strata running
x
iS4 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
out in two long noses into the sea, leave between them a deep
sandy ravine up which the tide can run and swirl at its leisure.
Choosing the side which gives him the best chance with [the
wind, he should walk down to the extreme end of the nose and
throw close to the rocks, but over the sand. Along the coast of
Cornwall, Devon, and Wales there are many such spots, and the
fishing is capital not too brisk to take away the attraction of
mental exercise and skill, and not too slow to make a man give up
in despair. Perhaps in five minutes there will be a rise. Do not
strike hastily ; but when striking, strike with decision. There is a
short fight, lasting sometimes three or four minutes for the Bass
is not very game and then with a landing-net there is no
difficulty in lifting out a fish of five or six pounds weight. On a
good afternoon half a dozen may be landed in this way, and the
fisherman may go home well content with a full creel.
There is another mode of catching this fish which also affords
good sport for an off day, and that is trolling from a boat. In this
case, again, the weather must be bright and sunny, with a fresh
breeze blowing.
The equipment necessary is also very much the same as in the
former case, but instead of a fly, a sand eel on a large Steward
tackle, a large red indiarubber worm, or even a spoon bait must be
the lure. For boat fishing it is needless to say that not only is a
good fisherman essential, but also a good sailor. Hire a small
sailing boat and a man to attend to it, a man, too, who knows the
ins and outs of the coast, and can avoid the sunken rocks. This
knowledge is of importance, as the fishing ground is all along the
edge of the coast, and a false move, when the boat is well under
way, may have disastrous results. Again, the coast must not be
ASS-FISHING. 157
too rocky ; and as a fair example of well-known Bass resorts, the
stretch from Westward Ho ! towards Clovelly might be quoted, or,
again, the shore from Aberystwyth, in Wales, running northward
to Borth. Of course, boat-fishing is neither so scientific nor so
exciting as fishing with the fly, though with light tackle a good
fight is by no means uncommon, and the chances are equalized.
Let no man think that because the fisher folk have never heard of
such a thing as Bass-fishing along the coast that, therefore, the
Bass does not exist in those parts. A keen sportsman can
generally discover some kind of amusement even in the dullest of
seaside resorts, and the pursuit of the Bass should be by no means
the last on his list.
Another pleasing feature is that no costly fishing tickets need
be paid for; no tips to keepers need be forthcoming ; there is no
danger of fishing in preserved waters ; and there is no expense, a^
any rate to the 'longshore fisher, beyond that of equipment. Such
a sport should be popular, but it has not received the attention
which is its due. This is, no doubt, a matter of congratulation to
those who, with limited incomes, especially appreciate its attrac-
tions. But there is another aspect of Bass-fishing distinctly in its
favour. It is a healthy sport, and one without many of the dis-
advantages of other pursuits. It needs no wading a frequent
cause of rheumatic troubles. It needs no rain and showers, dear
to the soul of the trout and salmon fisher, but dangerous to his
lungs. The dangers present in the hunting-field are absent here.
Bright sunshine, fresh sea air, and plenty of ozone are its chief
associations. Truly it is an ideal sport for the worn-out man of
business and the jaded city hack.
JULY.
OTTER HUNTING.
BY AUBYN TREVOR- BATTYE.
OTTER hunting is sometimes decried by hunting men by men,
that is to say, who only hunt to ride but never, I think, by genuine
sportsmen. So far as the science of hunting goes, the pursuit of
the Otter demands at least as much knowledge, skill, and experience
as the pursuit of the fox. Perhaps, indeed, even more, because of
the element in which the Otter moves. It is much as if you were
to hunt a fish with hounds ; and so I really think there is more
craft required, more inference from indications of the smallest, and
from general knowledge of the creature's ways.
The Otter is a thing of mystery. It is so greatly nocturnal, it
moves so quietly, it shows itself so little, that it may and often does
haunt a spot for years without betraying its presence to any but the
most practised eye. It will sleep day after day in a faggot stack,
in the thatch of a building, under the barn floor, in many another
place of this kind, and never be found out. And Otters are great
travellers. They will travel miles in a single night, sometimes
crossing right over intervening country, hill or valley, it matters
not, on their way from stream to stream. If an old dog Otter has
been seriously disturbed by hounds, he will generally start away
that very night down stream, going on and on, often without pause,
OTTER HUNTING. 159
till he reaches the big river, or the tide-way, or the sea. For the
common Otter is perfectly at home in the sea. The Otters which
frequent the caves of our coast, and are commonly spoken of as
"sea" Otters, are not sea Otters; we have no sea Otter. They
are only our common Otters staying by the sea.
And now a word about the hounds. Everyone is familiar with
the appearance of the old rough Otter-hound, if only from the
celebrated picture in the shops. Every master of Otter-hounds
would, no doubt, like to have some of these beautiful hounds in his
pack, but the fact is this : the fox-hound does the work better.
The Otter-hound's music, his bell-like voice, is beautiful ; his ap-
pearance is most picturesque, his nose is wonderfully fine ; but, as
against all this, you cannot quite trust him. He has a tendency
to throw his tongue too freely, to speak without fair warrant. And
that is bad. That is why you find, as you commonly do find now,
an Otter-hunting pack, if not composed entirely of fox-hounds, at
any rate with a preponderating fox-hound element in the pack.
Well, now, I really think the best thing we can do is to go out
Otter hunting. Practical experience is the best school. Hampshire
is more reachable from town than Devonshire ; to Hampshire we
will go for convenience, and with Mr. Courtenay Tracy's pack for
choice. The meet is at the mill. Time seven o'clock. A perfect
morning. Still, clear and chill, the grass drenched in dew. The
field is not a large one it will be larger later on but early as the
hour is, it includes several ladies. If fair faces and bright glances
can ensure it, then the master may command success. Hounds
work along very quietly for a bit as we move up stream. But
presently a hound opens, and another follows suit. Is it all right ?
These are not exactly the hounds one would trust. There, that is
160 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
better, that is old Dreamer's voice. Dreamer does not make mistakes.
The pack knows this well enough, and in an instant Dreamer is the
centre of a dozen waving sterns. Every nose straining to pick up
something of that perfume which set Dreamer's tongue a-going.
But scent is a kittle thing ; one hound will own to scent of two
days old, another will not. speak where an Otter must have passed
not many hours before. However, there is no doubt about it this
time, for just above the shallow at the tail of the next pool, hounds
suddenly break into a pretty chorus. Is he up or down ? The
master does a wise thing. He is in no hurry. He deliberately
takes hounds off down stream and makes a cast or so where the
two big " carriers " come in just below. But nothing results ; he
can, therefore, feel that he has made all good. Hounds can get to
work again they are not running heel. It would only be weari-
some to describe the hunt in detail. Suffice it to say it is one of
the prettiest drag hunts ever seen. Scent gets hotter and hotter,
and after every momentary lull it is beautiful to see the way hounds
flash again to the line. See there on a spit of sand is his " seal "
or footprint quite different from a dog's five toes instead of four.
After an hour or so at this, hounds come to a halt. Yes, they are
baying their Otter, he is somewhere up under the roots of this old
tree. Put in the terrier ? No, we will try to move him first by
other means. This is soon accomplished. " Gentlemen will
kindly jump. Now then all together ! " And about a dozen men
having closed up above the hover, throw all their energies into this
performance. Such a shaking is too much for our Otter. No one
sees him go, he slips out so adroitly ; but gone he is, as the hounds
can tell you. Tally ho ! as he slips down the stream, he is viewed
by a watcher stationed by the shallow below. And then begins
a
's,
r
5
Y
OTTER BUNTING. 163
a proper hunt. Hounds are mad. They rattle him, they bustle
him, they give him no pause. But he presently gains a long deep
pool, and here for a bit he has it all his own way. And very pretty
indeed it is to see the swimming hounds as they take the scent off
the top of the water. But he is forced to quit at last, and crosses
the open, viewed by everybody, right across the point of a meadow
and into a second stream. But here his fate is sealed. There is
not much holding here, and in half an hour's time hounds are all on
the top of him in about a foot and a half of water. Above the
pool and below it the shallow is bound by a human line standing
shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, so that scarce a water-rat could
find room to pass. Even so it is absolutely marvellous to see how
long the Otter can evade his foes. No one tailed him. The
hounds got him fairly enough. There he is out on the grass.
Who-oop ! " Ladies and gentlemen, three hours and a half, and
twenty pounds if he is an ounce." Now for the trophies !
Y 2
JULY.
SEA FISHING FROM PIERS.
BY E. T. SACHS.
IF no other method for the division of mankind were available,
that of anglers and non-anglers might be adopted as a rough-and-
ready one. Certain it is that the angler is born and not made,
and also that one portion of the human race comes into the world
so constituted as to entertain a loathing for the pastime of
angling, in any form whatsoever, until the day of its death. This
is the portion which, on the occasion of its visits to the seaside,
exhausts its vocabulary in seeking for terms of commiseration
with the other portion that finds the sum of human happiness in
fishing from the piers. It is not every angler who will pursue his
favourite pastime so far as this ; and, indeed, it must be conceded
that one must have the angling mania very pronounced to under-
take to angle from a crowded pier at a fashionable resort. By a
fortuitous dispensation, however, it happens that the best fishing is
not obtained from the most fashionable piers, but from those be-
longing to the more retired seaside places. At both Margate and
Ramsgate, which are scarcely noted for the retiring nature of their
summer and autumn visitors, pier fishing has been occasionally
practised with success, it is true, but these are not typical spots
SEA FISHING FROM PIERS. 165
for the practice of angling. As a matter of fact, one would
hesitate to indicate any particular spot where the pier fishing is
particularly good, because the sport often varies with the season ;
but I know of no place within reasonable reach of London where
one can better rely upon a bag of some^ kind, virtually all the year
round, than at Deal, situated between Ramsgate and Dover, in
Kent. The tide at this place sets past the head of the pier, going
either north or south ; and, whilst one state of the tide is better
than another, there seems to be no period of it when the fish
absolutely decline to feed at all, though the thick water, full of
sand in suspension, which prevails after stormy weather, will of
course put fish off.
I have mentioned Deal because I have often fished there, and
anglers may now reasonably live in hope that Dover will be restored
to them as the first-class angling resort which it once unquestion-
ably was. Its decline in this direction was contemporaneous with
the building of the Admiralty pier; and the hope for the future
lies in the recent completion of the new pier, which, extending
three hundred yards out, may be expected to take the anglers
amongst the fish. There are, of course, many other piers round
the coast from which fishing may be had, and the methods adapted
to one are adapted to all.
I may say at once that the hand-line fishing which in most
cases, though not in all, is the best method when fishing from a
boat, is not the proper one to adopt when angling from a pier.
The amount of sea room at the disposal of the angler from the
boat renders the absence of control he has over the motions of the
fish, beyond hauling him neck and crop on board, a matter ot
indifference. When his line is baited all he has to do is to drop it
1 66 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
overboard ; for the pier angler it is at least necessary that the
bait should be kept away from the piles, and this cannot be
managed without the aid of a rod. As a rule, it is advisable that
the bait should be some distance out, and here the rod becomes
invaluable, for by its aid the bait can be cast with greater ease and
accuracy than by the hand.
The angler who comes fresh from his fresh-water fishing will
naturally wish to know to what extent his tackle and practices
have to be deviated from. As regards tackle, the conditions in
the sea are very different from those obtaining in fresh water,
where great lifting power is not demanded as it is in sea fishing,
owing to the many times increased weight of the paraphernalia.
If the angler is possessed of a very stiff bamboo pike rod he may
bring it into service ; but he will find it best to have an article
made about nine feet in length, and very much stronger and
stiffer than is ever made for pike. A Nottingham reel, with a
check, should be used, and as the line must be stout, a large reel
will be necessary. The rings of the rod should be large and of
the "snake" pattern, the top ring being furnished with a little
pulley wheel. This special top ring for sea fishing is supplied at
the tackle shops. I am not saying that a pike fisherman could
not take his tackle direct to the sea and use it successfully,
because this is frequently done. But anyone intending to take up
sea fishing will find it advantageous to have a separate outfit, the
work being too trying for tackle made for another purpose. A
strong pike line will hold any fish that is likely to be hooked from
a pier, though cod and lythe of ten pounds and over are not
uncommonly caught, and the rod will prove equal to playing
them.
a
a
SEA FISHING FROM PIERS. 169
Two methods which are popularly adopted are the "chop-
stick" and the paternoster. The " chop-stick " is the cross-piece
of whalebone (about fifteen inches is a good length), suspended
from the line by the centre, and having depending from each of
its two extremities a length of gut with a~hook at the end. Other
materials beyond those mentioned are employed, but these give
the best results. People who know no better, laugh at fishing fine
in the sea, but experiments have proved that under certain condi-
tions, which are not controllable by the angler, fine tackle beats
the coarse. Depending from the centre of the "chop-stick" is a
line with a heavy lead attached, which lead is held a foot or
eighteen inches from the ground. As the lead will weigh a
quarter of a pound or so, we see at once the necessity for a stout
rod. Some anglers adopt a four-ended " chop-stick," made by
binding one piece of whalebone at right-angles across another.
In this way four hooks are used at once, and no doubt greater
chance is given of a bite. Nothing is more mysterious than the
way a hook is denuded of its bait when sea fishing, without the
slightest indication of any molestation of it being afforded, and it
is very annoying when hauling the line in, after a protracted period
of quietude, to find both baits gone. Contemplation of the
length of time during which the angler may have been waiting
with a baitless hook is never a satisfactory occupation. The
angler with four hooks instead of two is less liable to this
irritating episode ; but he requires a stouter rod.
The paternoster fisherman requires a heavier lead in the sea
than he does in fresh water, the depth being so much more con-
siderable, and, consequently, the weight of water against the line
so many times increased. He may have as many hooks as he
z
170 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
pleases, or as there is room for, but he will find three sufficiently
troublesome to manage. The lowest of all should be very near
the bottom, for the benefit of the flat-fish, and the others only so
far apart as to clear one another. For paternostering at sea
the tackle shops supply an arrangement consisting of a short
length of brass wire, swivelled, and with a loop at either end.
From the centre extends an arm of stout brass wire, with a ring at
the end to which the gut hook length is attached. The con-
trivance is inserted in the line where required, and it has the effect
of causing the baited hook to swing out with the tide, whilst it
also prevents any fouling or kinking of the line when a fish is
hooked, no matter how many times it may circle round.
The lead of the paternoster lies upon the bottom, and the least
attempt to molest any of the baits is felt by the angler. The lead
is thrown some distance out, and in this way far more ground is
covered than can be managed with the " chop-stick " arrange-
ment, which is confined to the immediate vicinity of the piles of
the pier. On a bite being felt, the angler should strike, and strike
hard, whatever be the tackle that he is using.
In conjunction with the paternoster, a leger bait may be used
that is to say, an extra hook below the lead which lies upon the
ground. In this case a pipe-shaped or flat lead, with a hole
through it from end to end, must be employed. The line passes
through the hole, a knpt preventing it coming too far, and when a
fish seizes the bait lying upon the ground the line is drawn
through the lead and the fact communicated to the angler.
If the water is still, float tackle, such as is used in rivers for
perch, may be employed, and whiting will be caught. Grey
mullet, which are a very shy fish, frequenting still places such as
SEA FISHING FROM P1EKS. 171
harbours, require fishing for with the greatest circumspection and
with a special tackle. This comprises a long length of medium-
sized gut, having three or four small pieces of cork attached to it
(a slit along the cork enables this to be done easily) at intervals. of
a couple of feet. Depending from the gut are three or four hooks,
which are baited. This arrangement is allowed to drift away with
the tide, surrounded by stale bread crumbs and small pieces of
crust wherewith to attract the mullet.
Fishing with a white fly sometimes answers from piers ; and at
Deal at a certain period of the year, the autumn, pieces of parch-
ment in the shape of fish are attached to the hook, and danced on
the surface. These are taken by the coal fish.
What baits are used will depend very much upon the locality.
The lugworm is a universal and safe bait, though not easy to put
upon the hook, and not always obtainable. The hunt after it is a
sport in itself, so quickly does it disappear into the sand. Where
there is much fishing, the lugworm when procurable at all can
generally be purchased from boys. The mussel is also a universal
bait, no doubt because so readily obtainable. Oysters are also a
good bait, but, of course, the price of any but the commonest
makes them prohibitive. Pieces of fresh herring or mackerel,
shrimps, prawns, limpets and whelks all do good service. On
certain coasts the sand eel can be obtained. This is the best
bait of all, but it is difficult to get, and must be kept alive in a
creel. When obtainable, the cuttle-fish, or squid, is a good bait.
AUGUST.
*
THE WHITE TROUT.
BY G. H. TURING.
THE White Trout is, without doubt, to use the expressive language
of the prize-ring, the gamest fighter for its weight of all the
migratory fish in England, or the stationary inhabitants of our lakes
and rivers either. Its fighting weight runs from one and a half to
five or six pounds. The way to test his fighting powers is as
follows : The fly-fisher must tempt him with a carefully chosen
and not too gaudily coloured fly, and must make his cast with
equal care in a likely run. If the fish be at home and hungry,
a rise will most probably follow, and then there is scarcely
need for the usual strike before the hook is securely fixed
and the game begins. With a rush and a leap the Trout is out
of the water, and the wielder of the rod, especially if he is fishing
with a fairly light rod and tackle, will have to do all he knows
to keep the Trout at the further end of his line. He drops his rod
point as the silver body splashes into the water, and he must
be ready to feel him gingerly and guide him carefully in his
maddest rushes. It is not so easy. Suddenly there comes a tug
and a bolt. This is the point at which to be ready. The
proverbial fool who, according to Dr. Johnson, presides at the
THE WHITE TROUT. 173
shore end of the rod and line, deserves his name if at this point in
the game he break his tackle. If he does, his line rebounds with
a swish about his ears. He swears, unless he be philosophically
inclined. If he is that, he sits down, replaces what he has
lost, and starts again a wiser man. ~" The old hand is prepared
for the emergency I have described, and pays out his line
gently and carefully till the strain is slackened and his game
opponent is under control.
The sport, however, is by no means at an end. Even when the
game seems won, there maybe two or three such leaps and rushes,
or, what is almost as bad, a clean bolt towards the shore,
when the greatest rapidity is necessary to draw in the line, and
keep a steady strain on the victim. If fortune is favourable, after
as good a quarter of an hour as any true-hearted sportsman could
wish for, the fish may be brought gently and with delicacy to
within reach of the fatal net or gaff.
There are many places in England, Scotland and Ireland where
White Trout fishing is excellent. The Shetland Islands, the
Hebrides, many of the Scotch and Welsh rivers, and many of the
lochs and rivers on the west and north-west coast of Ireland,
can give a good account of themselves in this line of sport.
To obtain good sport, it is best to fish with nothing heavier
than a strong trout rod, and trout tackle. The fish will, indeed,
come readily to spinning minnows and small trolling bait, but
this method should be the last resort of a true sportsman.
There are those who try to tempt the White Trout with rod
and line worthy of the more lordly salmon, and no doubt with
some success, but they lose the excitement and enthusiasm of the
true artist, the hopes and fears caused by handling a heavy fish on
174 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
rather light tackle, and lastly, the chance of filling their creel on a
day unsuited to the gentle pursuit.
On this latter point, the writer speaks from personal experience.
He had been fishing in one of the Welsh rivers for salmon
and White Trout, and each successive day the odds had grown
in favour of the fish, and against the fisherman. The sun was
provokingly bright, and the river had become as provokingly low.
The fishing party had started out as usual, consisting of
two or three veterans, with large salmon rods and tackle, and
with gillies, whose faith in the powers of their masters was only
equalled by their ignorance of the true art of fishing, and the writer
unaccompanied, with a moderately strong trout rod, and good-
sized trout flies. His departure was not imposing, and he was
diffident as to his own powers. But his return, with full creel,
when the others had not even had a rise, was triumphant and
satisfactory.
Among the fishing resorts mentioned above, the Hebrides
can strongly be recommended ; Loch Boirdale in South Uist
is a splendid camping ground. But the accommodation, though
good, is limited, and steps must be taken to secure rooms
beforehand. The low-lying plains of the islands are intersected
with lochs into which the White Trout run, fresh with the vigour
of the sea. The best fishing grounds lie some way from the hotel,
but conveyances are ready to take the fisher every morning. As
there is no other sport but fishing on the islands, the companion-
ship is usually congenial, and there is no difficulty about arranging
for the different fishing grounds. The cost of living, etc., is cheap
and the fare is good, and, beyond the initial cost of the journey,
the expense is not great.
H
~
THE WHITE TROUT. 177
These remarks apply in a general sense to the Shetland Isles
and to the fishing in the north-west of Ireland.
There is one drawback to the fishing in the Hebrides, and
that is the presence of flies nothing worse than the common
house fly, but in swarms. It is constantly present with the
aggravating hum of its myriad wings. It irritates the calmest
of men as he sets up his rod and adjusts his tackle. Flies spoil
his pet cast and blind him as he is landing his largest fish.
Otherwise they are harmless. There is one loch on South Uist
that is called by an unpronounceable Gaelic name, which means
the loch of flies. This loch is full of trout, but the followers of
Walton are warned against trying it.
This drawback, however, is but a small one. Were the harmless
rly changed to the more terrible mosquito I doubt whether the true
sportsman would be held back from these waters.
A a
AUGUST.
CHUB FISHING.
BY E. T. SACHS.
IT is a fortunate thing indeed for the Chub that it is the least
toothsome of all fresh-water fishes. Were it as much an edible
dainty as it is the reverse, its extermination would be a mere
question of time, for certainly a more omnivorous fish does not
swim, nor one which adapts itself with greater complacency to
every kind of water. Of most fish it can be said that they have
their particular fancies and are to be found only in certain portions
of rivers according to the flow of the water, but the Chub is
everywhere. No depth or condition of water comes amiss to it,
and the angler is equally likely to catch one when spinning for
trout in the tumbling waters of a weir, in the depths of a barbel
swim, or in the seclusion of overhanging boughs. I have caught
numbers with the fly in the stiller portions of the crystal trout
streams of Luxemburg, or in the Continental rivers, with the
cockchafer and grasshopper, and I have seen the native angler,
using worm or pellet of bread paste, drag the fish out from near
sewage outlets, much as small roach used to be caught by the
hundred at the Kingston sewer. To go still further afield, I have
caught the Chub (nearly the same species as our own) in the
CHUB FISHING. 179
Highlands of Sumatra, where the Malays preserve the fish in
private ponds. Peculiarities in the methods of feeding these fish
rendered one averse to eating them. The Chub will feed on
anything and everything, from gentle to live bait. Nevertheless,
there are certain methods which experience has proved to be
more efficacious than others for making bags of this fish.
Although to be found in literally every part of the river, he haunts
certain places in larger numbers than elsewhere. Fish follow
their food, and when the hungry period which immediately follows
the spawning time, and which drives the Chub to the weirs where
small fry are congregated, is over, quantities of the fish settle
down in "runs," where the flow of water carries down food in a
more or less narrow channel. Others, again, distribute themselves
where overhanging trees promise contributions to the larder in
the shape of caterpillars, beetles and other insects. On the
approach of any disturbing element, such as a boat on the water,
or a pedestrian on the bank, the Chub, who is foraging under
trees, immediately bolts to a refuge under the bank, which is
generally more or less hollowed out ; or a convenient root will
serve the purpose just as well. Poachers know this propensity of
the Chub, and wading in the stream, feel for the fish under the
bank.
The shyness of the Chub is extraordinary. A falling leaf will
send a shoal flying in all directions, whilst the smack of an oar
upon the water, will drive them perfectly frantic, and nothing will
be seen of them again for hours. Therefore, whatever be the
method you may employ, one general rule that must be observed
is the adoption of extreme caution. Except high up, above
Oxford, where the river is narrow, it will be necessary to fish from
A a 2
i8o A YE AX OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
some kind of vessel in order to reach the fish under the boughs
by means of a fly rod. If the angler be skilful with the Canadian
canoe no craft is more suitable, so very little disturbance of the
water being occasioned, whilst the fisherman is very low down on
the water. Once wit.iin range, all the paddling that is necessary
can be done with the left hand, and when a fish is hooked it does
not much matter for the moment what becomes of the canoe.
The next best craft is a sculling boat, one occupant sculling and
the other fishing. The sculler must learn to do his work noiselessly,
and when the boat is upon the scene of action, the sculls should not
be taken from the water at all. The angler should face the stern
and be gently backed towards the place where the fish may be
supposed to lie. A punt may, of course, be used for the work,
but it will be better if a paddle be employed instead of a punt
pole.
Although the angler is using a fly rod, it does not necessarily
follow that he is fishing with the fly. In the quiet portions of the
river very good sport indeed may be had with the fly, a red or
black palmer being as good as anything, especially if a little piece
of wash leather be added as a tag. But it is not always that the
Chub are near the surface, and then a bunch of gentles or a small
frog, which will sink deep into the water, is more efficacious.
The bunch of gentles should not err on the side of economy, for
nature has provided the Chub with a large mouth. The frog is
used dead, and is strung upon a hook, head downwards, the hind
legs being bound to the hook shank. To this bait some motion
should be communicated when it is in the water ; and the Chub,
fortunately, do not take cognizance of the unnatural conduct of
the frog in progressing backwards. All they see is a frog, and are
CHUB FISHING. 183
bent upon having it. A practised fly fisherman will adapt himself
to these methods in a very short time. To the tyro one can only
say that it does not matter how heavily the fly, bunch of gentles,
or frog alights on the water. The chief thing to be attended to is
the keeping oneself out of sight. As Chub lie very close under
low hanging boughs, some little risk must be run in endeavouring
to throw under such. When a Chub is hooked it must be held,
or it will probably rush behind a root and be lost. The first rush
of a big Chub is very powerful, so the tackle must be strong ; but
after the first rush the fish generally gives in, though in lively
streams I have seen a Chub afford excellent sport.
A cockchafer, or two or three grasshoppers make capital baits
for Chub, but throwing them a la fly is a delicate operation. As
they do not sink they may be allowed to float when once thrown,
and if there be any stream it may carry them over fish.
Fishing for Chub with the fly rod is certainly more adapted to
the upper than to the lower portions of the Thames. For fishing
these last-named, no style of angling is more adapted than the
Nottingham, which is conducted with a free running reel, carrying
perhaps a hundred yards of fine line of twisted silk, with a large
quill or cork float. To use this tackle with success it is by no
means indispensable to fish from a boat, if the angler can meet
with places where the bank juts out and forms a narrow stream, or
where two streams converge ; but the employment of a craft of
some kind confers great advantages in enabling the angler to
shift his ground, which is very necessary in Chub fishing. No
experience is more common in angling for this fish than to catch
one of a shoal at once, and later on to discover that the remainder
have taken fright and departed.
184 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
As is the case with every fish known to me, a variety of
baits are recommended for Chub, but I am quite prepared to
pin my faith to plain and simple cheese. It is as well to select a
"strong" cheese, the flavour of which is disseminated in the
water and whets the Chub's appetite ; but old cheese has the
serious drawback of soon becoming very hard, and so interfering
with the strike. A piece is worked in the ringers into a paste and
compressed round the hook. With the punt fixed at the head
of the " run," the bait is allowed to follow its course. As a rule,
the stream will be powerful enough to carry the line off the reel, but
the hand must be ever in position ready to touch the reel when
the even progress of the float is in danger of being arrested, for
it is essential that no jerks be communicated to the bait. The
theory upon which the admirable Nottingham style of fishing
chiefly depends for success is embodied in the motto, " fine
and far off," and by its means the Chub fisherman fishes with a
light heart, thirty, forty, and even fifty yards away. Great care
must be observed, for at these distances the line may easily
become slack, in which case it will not be possible to strike the
fish in the event of a bite. Therefore, have the forefinger
on the reel, always keeping the line taut. The light silk line
does not sink and so is always in sight. The farther the
bait is away from the angler the more pronounced must be
his strike, and the instant he has struck he must begin to
wind at the reel, so as to immediately hold his fish. Then
he can pause for an instant to see what his captive means
to do. The elasticity in thirty or forty yards of line is very
considerable, so, with a quantity of line out, the danger of a
breakage from the first rush of the fish is not great, especially
CHUB FISHING. 185
as it will not necessarily dash headlong down stream, but more
probably make to one side or the other.
A very essential adjunct is the ground baiting. I call it ground
baiting for convenience, but strictly it does not comply with all the
conditions necessary to qualify for" the title, since it is not
intended to reach the ground. Just previous to the bait being
allowed to swim down the "run," a piece of cheese is taken
in the hand and pared off into the water. Cheese parings are by
far the best form in which to bait with this article, as they sink
very slowly and make a good show in the water. What the angler
hopes is that the Chub will be attracted by the shavings, and
feed greedily upon them, and when the angler's fat lump upon the
hook is seen to approach, a rush of many fish will be made for it,
the successful one being the largest of the shoal. Three or four
lots of cheese shavings, and the same number of swims, may
be considered to sufficiently test any run ; there is no advantage
in remaining an hour or two at the same spot, as is the case with
roach. There is not much more to be said, beyond the advice to
fish as fine as ycu dare, and to place the shot necessary to
cock the float, and keep the bait down at least eighteen inches
from the last named. With a light and pliant rod, such as
is manufactured for the purpose, finer fishing can be indulged
in than with a heavier rod, heavy rods being, as a general thing, a
mistake. The rod I use for Nottingham fishing I have, on
occasion, used as a fly rod to cast a worm for rudd. I mention
this to give a notion of its pliancy. The great thing is to have
the pliancy distributed throughout the whole length of a rod, and
not merely through the smaller joints. Such a rod plays a
fish of itself.
D b
1 86 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
Sometimes shoals of Chub may be seen in exposed positions.
I know of no better method for catching these than a minnow on
roach tackle, the minnow a couple of feet only from the surface.
If the angler captures one of a shoal at one attempt he must
be satisfied. If he effects such capture and then looks for
the remainder of the shoal, he will, in the majority of cases, look in
vain.
AUGUST.
CHAR FISHING.
BY H. A. BRYDEN.
OF all our fishes the Char is, perhaps, the most fascinating,
whether from the aesthetic or from the sporting point of view.
The wonderful colouring, sometimes crimson pink, sometimes
ruddy orange, with which the lower parts of its silvery body is
suffused, the rarity of its occurrence and the extreme difficulty
attending its capture, render this fish not only an object of unique
interest to the naturalist, but also of pleasure to the angler,
in the rare and fleeting moments when it is in the vein and will
come briskly to the fly.
In these islands the waters in which Char may be found are to
be counted almost upon the fingers of one's hands. In the
lake district, Windermere, Buttermere, Lake Ennerdale, and
Crummock Water, all contain fair numbers. In Ulleswater, which
formerly held Char in abundance, the fish is quite extinct ; and of
Coniston, thanks to its pollution by the copper mines, the same
miserable tale is to be told. A few waters of Wales, chiefly
in Merioneth, still support Char, while in Scotland in the depths of
Loch Tay, Loch Fewin, Loch Earn, Loch Roy, Loch Lubnaig,
Loch Inch and a few other lakes, this most brilliant member
B b 2
1 88 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
of the salmonida still abounds. In Ireland the Char is to be
found in Lough Esk, Lough Melvin, and in various deep waters
in Cork, Donegal, Wicklow, Galway, and Fermanagh, and in
the room of the Piscatorial Society, Holborn Restaurant, are to be
seen stuffed specimens from another Irish lough.
The true home of the Char, however, is in Northern Europe, and
especially in Swedish Lapland, where immense numbers of these
fish may be taken with fly or minnow, if the angler is prepared to
venture thus far and to brave the intolerable swarms of mosquitoes
and gnats that, from June to September, wreak their bloodthirsty
wills upon the invader. Char grow here to a large size, as they do in
the waters of Iceland, five pounds being a not uncommon weight.
For a long period there was much confusion concerning this
fish and its habits. Even now it is known indifferently as the Case
Char, Red Char and Gilt Char. It is well-established, however, by
this time that in its normal condition, when showing least
colour, the fish is called, locally, the Case Char. Before
spawning, when it assumes its most vivid crimson, it is the
Red Char : while at another season, having shed its spawn, its
colouring changes to a metallic orange, and it is known as the Gilt
Char. Dr. Giinther, after extensive research, has distributed the
British Char in five species ; but these are little recognized
by the outer public, and indeed, even among some scientists,
are thought to be merely varieties of one species.
For some centuries potted Char has been a famous delicacy
in the Lake country. Defoe seems to have known of this dainty,
and says, speaking of the fish in " Winandermere" (Windermere),
" it must needs be a great rarity since the quantity they take
even here is but small." But long before Defoe's time, " char
CHAR FISHING. 189
pyes " and "potted charrs '' seem to have been known to Eliza-
bethan and even earlier gourmets.
The Char, like its cousin the yellow trout, is non-migratory
that is, to the sea ; it loves rocky bottoms, and, as a rule, the deepest
and coldest waters. It is said that the fish retire for spawning
purposes to shallower parts of the lake, and even to rocky
streams, in November, returning to their well loved deeps towards
April. It was during the spawning season in these shallows
that such numbers used to be captured with nets by the Lake
people concerned in the "potting" business. When safe in deep
water their capture is far less easy, and the angler, "charm he
never so wisely," will find a brace or two a day an average
basket.
Spinning very deep with the minnow is perhaps the best course
to adopt. The "phantom" will occasionally, in the Highland
lochs, account for an odd fish here and there. Towards May the
angler may expect to have some little sport by these methods ;
and between now and September he must make up his mind
to catch his Char with fly or minnow, for he will get them at
no other season. A more deadly plan is to trail along and heavily
weighted line, baited with minnow, behind the boat, which is
then rowed very quietly about. Another lure occasionally used
almost as poaching a contrivance as the " otter" is to let down
a weighted line, upon the lowest part of which are fastened
at intervals artificial flies. But, after all, these are only the baser
resources of the pot-hunter, or rather of the " potter " who
must have his Char by fair means or foul.
In Britain it must be sadly acknowledged that it is only by the
rarest chance the fisherman may hope to catch the Char in
1 90 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
the mood for the fly, and then usually only in the months of
July and August, when he comes up towards the surface for the
pleasant warmth. The minnow, of which this fish is, like many
another finny vivettr, inordinately fond, is best calculated to
tempt him in the depths. I have never tried Char with the
paternoster, but there seems to be no reason why that killing
method in combination with a tempting minnow or two should not
be successful. The great depth would no doubt tell somewhat
upon the delicacy of touch so requisite in this style of fishing. So
little indeed are Char reckoned as sporting fish, and so desperate
seems their pursuit, even to the most skilled anglers, that Mr.
Cholmondeley Pennell, in his volume of the Badminton Library,
dismisses the fish with scant notice. " They are," he says,
" unfortunately so seldom captured by the rod and line, that
they are objects more of interest to the icthyologist than the fly
fisher." And yet on the rare occasions in one's angling career
when these most beautiful fish are in the humour, they will
take the fly as greedily as the hungriest trout. Sometimes on
a warm day in May or June, more often in July and August, will
this happen. Such red-letter hours form scarce memories indeed,
and will be recalled with regretful pleasure for years after. I
shall never forget an afternoon on Loch Tay a few years back,
when, quite suddenly, the Char emerged from their seclusion,
and for one fascinating spell of forty minutes came repeatedly
at my trout flies.
We had pulled out from Kenmore past that lovely wooded islet
whereon two queens of ancient Scotland lie in their quiet graves.
The time was summer, the day soft and gleamy, the atmosphere
perfection. All around us sprang the very fairest of Highland
CHAR FISHING. 193
scenery. The dark forest of the Drummond Hill, the swelling
uplands above Acharn ; the noble expanse of lake seven or
eight miles of it in sight ; on the right hand the towering mass
of Ben Lawers ; wherever the eye roved a combination of
mountain, wood, and water hardly to T7e~excelled in any part of the
world. At first we used the blue phantom minnow, and, pulling
slowly along the southern shroe, were fairly successful among
the trout. After lunch a good breeze sprang up, there was a
strong ripple upon the water, and the flies were got out.
Presently we crossed to the northern shore, between Lawers
and Kenmore, and I began to cast my fly just where the deep
water meets the shallow. The trout were, for a time, ravenous,
and for something less than an hour the sport could not have been
bettered. For the Char, too, the charm was broken. They came
at the flies freely and added a wonderful zest to the sport. As
a rule I found that they took the fly when well under water ;
occasionally, however, one caught the flash of a ruddy belly
as they rose to the surface ; and what a keen pleasure it was as
one drew the living bars of clean, pinkish silver, after a sharp
tussle for they are strong, active fish into the landing net.
They were not particular about the pattern of one's flies, though
in point of fact red palmer and coch-y-bonddhu did most of the
work. For half-an-hour or so they came, and then their noble
ardour suddenly abated. Among the goodly basket of trout, one
of the best on Loch Tay that season, I had eleven Char
averaging nearly half-a-pound apiece. The biggest fish was a
shade under a pound in weight. This is not an extravagant catch ;
yet for this shy fish it may be reckoned good, in these islands.
The Char, it may be added, seldom, if ever, exceeds (in Britain)
c c
i 9 4 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
two pounds in weight, and, more often than not, runs some three
to the pound. But whether the angler be pulling leisurely about
fair Windermere in the hope of enticing this beautiful fish from
the deeps, or trouting, with the off chance of a Char, beneath
the shadow of Ben Lawers, or upon some wilder and more remote
northern water, he can never lack for pleasant days and matchless
scenery : and, perchance, some fine breezy summer's day he shall
find this goodly fish eager and in the humour, and his measure of
happiness will be temporarily complete.
AUGUST.
THE HABITS OF THE WILD
RED DEER.
Bv H. H. S. PEARSE.
WHEN the wide tracts of ridge and combe bordering Exmoor
Forest are brightest with the glorious hues of purple heather and
golden gorse ; when every frond of brake-fern is unfolded, rising
in hardened stalk high enough to shelter all but the branching
antlers of a lordly stag, the natives of that sporting county care to
talk of nothing but wild Red Deer and their ways. Between
bracken and deer there is closer association than any but keen
observers of nature know. In the early days of winter, when the
ferns are brown and easily broken because the sap is all out of
them, stags retire to woodland recesses and shed their antlers
among the fallen leaves. When tiny green volutes begin to shoot
up again in spring-time, new antlers are sprouting on the heads of
male deer. So long as bracken bears on fronds and stalks a
downy coat, the stag's antlers are in " velvet," and sensitive to
every touch. A russet covering, like dry moss on an apple tree,
encases the branching growth of nerves and blood vessels, to
protect them from the flies that swarm in deer coverts, and from
being hurt by trailing brambles. This " velvet " is toughest when
c c 2
196 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
young, but as summer days lengthen and ferns begin to open into
glossy fronds, it may be readily torn if caught in a thorn branch
or stout oak twig. From such mishaps the stag suffers much
pain, and occasionally the perfect growth of brow, bay and tray is
marred thereby. All this time stags, as if conscious that they
have neither weapons for defence nor full majesty wherewith to
impress the opposite sex with a sense of their power, keep
away from the company of hinds, hiding in thickets by day and
feeding alone at night. When the bracken has lost all traces of
down, and its stalks, hard and polished, are turning a tawny tint,
the stag's antlers, hardened into bone, begin to burst their
"velvet." It maybe seen then hanging in mossy shreds from
every tine. To get rid of this disfigurement the stag uses what
is known as a " fraying stock." It may be the trunk of a gnarled
oak, from which a stag will strip the tough rind as he rubs his
antlers against it and tramples the ground round and round ; or it
may be a sapling, which he will twist into all manner of strange
shapes in his endeavour to free himself of the velvet and point the
tines for combat. Now, as July draws to a close, is the season for
fraying, and one may at times hear the antlered monarchs at work
in the deepest recesses of a leafy valley with sounds such as
single-stick players make when their feet beat time to the tapping
of tough ash wands, and the swift play has made them scant of
breath. At night the deer wander out to feed in cornfields or
among turnips, or to strip apples from orchards. This is the
harbourer's opportunity for learning all about their habits, which
may serve him in slotting them to their lairs when the hunting
days come round. Without a skilled harbourer, who can tell
almost to a yard where the heavy harts are lying when wanted,
THE HABITS OF THE WILD RED DEER. 197
stag-hunting, as pursued on Exmoor, would be almost impossible.
He must lie out at night to discover where the lord of each herd
has his favourite feeding-ground, and by what path or " rack" this
fastidious gentleman comes back to covert at daybreak. Some
fat deer are too lazy to wander far from their favourite haunts ;
while others have been known to make their way twenty miles
across the moor in a few hours for change of diet. It is the
harbourer's business to find all this out, though he may rarely want
to -draw on such resources of knowledge. The country over
which he exercises his craft is as wide as the county of Rutland,
and he must sometimes cross it between sunset and dawn to begin
his work of slotting, before the faint imprints of hoofs on dewy
grass or dusty paths have time to disappear. He will go first into
a cornfield, or orchard, or turnip plot, and a glance is enough to
tell him whether stags or hinds have been feeding there. A hind
draws the ears of corn through her teeth, stripping out all the
grains, but a stag nibbles only half the ear daintily. In a turnip-
field the hind eats clean down to the ground, while a stag pulls
the root up, and after taking one bite throws all that is left over
his head in lordly wastefulness. Among apple-trees hinds only
strip off the fruit that they can reach easily, but if branches are
broken at a height of seven or eight feet the harbourer knows
without looking at the ground that a stag has been there, but why,
he will probably not be able to tell you. Richard Jefferies in all
his researches did not discover by what means stags get at their
favourite apples, higher than a tall man can stretch his arm. If
you watch an orchard, night after night, however, taking care that
deer cannot get scent of your presence, you may, perchance, see
a great stag raise himself on his hind legs and then, leaping up,
1 98 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
strike at the boughs with his strong antlers, using them as a
woodman does a billhook. Thus he gets enough for an ample
meal, which he eats so voraciously that he takes no trouble to crunch
the apples, but swallows them whole. At the first gleam of dawn
red deer make their way to the densest thickets, and to reach these
they use, time after time, the same tracks, with which they become
so familiar that anything unusual there a twig cut and laid down,
or a string of wild birds' feathers stretched from bush to bush, is
enough to give the alarm. If hard pressed in chase, however, a
stag does not look for any path, but crashes through the thickest
copses and tosses the netted oak branches aside as if they were
spray. To do this he lays his antlers back until they rest each side
of his flanks, acting as the cutwater of a ship that cleaves through
waves and flings foam from her bows. When the harbourer has
learned by certain signs that a heavy stag has been feeding
anywhere, he proceeds to slot him, and in this he shows skill not
inferior to the Red Indian's woodcraft. He can tell by the size
of a slot, and the width that the cleft hoofs were apart when they
made that imprint, whether the stag is heavy or light, and whether
he went at a walk towards the covert or was alarmed into quicker
flight. I f there has been rain enough to make the ground soft this is
easy, but often a harbourer can find no trace plainer than a deer's
hoof makes in crushing down blades of grass, so that they look
dark green amid the grey dew. At one point perhaps he will draw
your attention, if you have the privilege of being his companion on
such an expedition, to some mark on hard ground, scarcely per-
ceptible in the dim light of dawn. " That's ov'n shore "miff," he
will say, " but 'er didn' maake thickee last night, I'll warn."
Asked how he can read that in a print that looks quite sharp and
THE HABITS OF THE WILD RED DEER. 199
fresh to untutored eyes when they can quite make it out, he
replies, " Why, doant 'ee zee there's a spit of rain in the middle
ov'n, and us han't had no rain since yesterday morning."
Presently, however, the harbourer finds a slot that is unmistakably
fresh leading into covert. Still his~"work is only half done. He
must go all round the covert if it is small, or down its rough paths
if it be large as Exmoor woodlands mostly are and find out
whether the stag he wants has crossed or gone on to another
woodland, or whether it is lying near at hand, and all the while
care must be taken not to alarm the stag, who if he " winds " the
presence of foes will be up and away. By a fern bent down and
bruised, a broken twig, a curved line on the hard path scarcely
visible to any but himself, or splashes of water on boulders in the
little brawling rivulet, the harbourer knows if his quarry has gone
further. All this may mean hours of patient work. When once
satisfied, however, that he has the right stag safe, the harbourer
makes his way out of covert silently and swiftly so that the
cunning animal may not take flight too soon. Then he goes off to
meet the hounds and guide the huntsman to where the runnable
stag has been safely harboured. When roused from his lair, the
Red Deer brings many cunning tricks into play before hounds can
drive him out of covert, but the shifts and subterfuges by which he
strives to elude pursuit or baffle his pursuers must be subject
matter for another article.
AUGUST.
FLAPPER SHOOTING.
BY J. R. ROBERTS.
"WHEN Autumn, crowned with the sickle and the wheaten
sheaf, comes jovial on, nodding o'er the yellow plain," tis pleasant
to wander, gun in hand and dog at heel, down some moorland
valley, or across the marshy hollows of some upland plateau, in
quest of wild fowl. Not so long ago, in July, the sportsman
would hunt through the rushes in the deepest and most retired
parts of a peaceful brook or prattling trout stream when seeking
Flappers. At this season, when the old duck is sprung, the
brood is not likely to be far off, and when once found they are
then easily killed, as they attain their full growth before the wings
are fledged. The beneficent Wild Birds' Act, however, changed all
that. Indeed, August is quite early enough for Flapper-shooting ;
and in September it is often a welcome relaxant concomitant with
the delights of the partridge campaign. " When autumn's yellow
lustre gilds the world," the young wild duck are still truly, if not
technically, Flappers. " When the Flappers take wing," says
Colonel Hawker, " they assume the name of wild ducks." In this
age the pedantries of the phraseology of sport are considerably
modified ; moreover, despite the dictum of the greatest authority
FLAPPER SHOOTING. 201
on the subject, one is justified, even in September, in designating
the comparatively recently fledged young ducks as " Flappers," for
they do not in their first season achieve the full glory of adultness.
As soon as ever the inner side of the wing is fully clothed, they
take to flying ; their bones, previously of a gristly character,
quickly harden, giving the bird full power and use of its pinions.
But it is only the full plumaged or older males that exhibit the
feathers so useful in fly-making, and which may be seen in nearly all
salmon flies. So it is of Flappers and Flapper shooting that we dis-
course. About August they repair to cornfields, till disturbed by
harvest people. Then they frequent rivers, streams, and the wet parts
of commons, wastes, dingles and moors. One conjures up a picture
of a sportsman, duly equipped, with solitary attendant and steady
well-trained dog (for choice a brown Irish spaniel, known to some
lips as a retriever), plodding up a lonely valley, hemmed in with
rolling moors. Alternately pool and cascade, the rivulet comes
towards and past him. The scarlet berries of the mountain ash
are finely foiled by the bronzed expanse of bracken waving on the
hill-side. His path is carpeted with moss and lichen, with sedge
and rush, with coarse red and yellow herbage, and with the rich
green of the occasional bog patches which quake beneath his
feet. As he clatters over a granite boulder, a mallard rises
noisily, capping the rushes with his broad, strong wings, and sails
swiftly away to a soggy fastness far overhead. Bearing in mind
Colonel Hawker's advice, the sportsman halloos ; whereupon a
leash of Flappers flutter from the reedy margin of the stream,
some thirty paces distant, shaping their flight in the course of the
vanishing mallard. The gun is brought smartly to the shoulder.
One of the three birds, a male, is a tempting mark, as he stretches
D d
202 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
his white-collared green neck above the high beech hedge across
the water ; and just as he is winging into top speed there is a
puff and a flash, a bang reverberating along the valley, loudly
bandied from hill to crag, and the bird is cut handsomely from sky
to earth. He drops heavily into a placid pool, fully sixty yards
away, whence he is brought, by the carefully schooled dog.
Before the rattle of the first discharge has ceased to re-echo, a
second shot rings sharply out, and another Flapper is arrested in
its flight, coming down headlong into a thorn-bush beside the
stream. In fancy we see the sporting trio proceeding in single
file upwards along the course of a tributary stream. In a hill-
begirt amphitheatre they come upon a desolate fen, the stillness
only broken by the lonely cry of the curlew wheeling overhead.
The gunner stealthily approaches the leeward side of the marsh,
picking his footsteps on the spongy margin of the swamp.
Suddenly a plump of mallard dart from the reeds, and wing their
rapid flight across the peat-red water. Promptly flashes forth a
right and left in quick succession. There is a great fluttering of
wings, and the dog, dashing in, quickly retrieves two well-favoured
young duck.
In late autumn Flapper-shooting may be auspiciously prosecuted
in regions near the coast, on estuaries and on small meres, either at
daybreak or after sunset. Good sport is to be looked for by moon-
light, when, after feeding, the birds bathe and preen themselves in
some favourite watery haunt ; though they are quite as wary in
the bright moonbeams as in broadest daylight. Mallard and teal
are well-nigh the only exclusively night-feeding water fowl. In
the evening gloom, guided by the quacking, arid by the sucking
sound of many mandibles (not unlike the sighing of an ebb-tide),
o
z
FLAPPER SHOOTING. ^05
they are to be killed at springs and fountains, and beside running
waters. But it is not proposed here to go into the complicated
mysteries of wild-fowling. The Flapper-shooter hunts the moor-
land turf-pits and green oases of bog patches ; reed banks are
worked and waded through; every available marsh walked; swamps
beaten, and places at all likely to contain the succulent ducklings
thoroughly investigated. Our game is not invariably hatched in
close proximity to water. Occasionally a wild duck fixes on a most
abnormal place wherein to construct her nest. The ten to sixteen
greenish-white eggs have been found in the trunks and crowns of
trees and in high and dry tussocks, away from either pond, pit
or running water. Where the brood has been reared, there the
Flappers for a time remain ; and good shooting may be found in
many a secluded bottom, and on many a moorland height. In
such vicinage, and more particularly when alternately beating
across wet areas and swampy hollows in the autumn, the pleasures
of Flapper-shooting are likely to be increased by the flushing of a
wisp of snipe, a spring of teal, or a company of sibillant widgeon.
Much powder is burnt, the bag is heavy and varied, and the
excitement of uncertainty is thrilling. Such chance encounters
are things to be ruminated over afterwards by the ingle-nook.
Caution and sportsmanlike strategy will ever conduce to success
in Flapper-shooting. The birds are shy, circumspect, and remark-
ably acute in sight and hearing. Though they delight to paddle
and feed in fair, fresh water, such as lakes and streams, often some-
what exposed, their instinctive timidity is ever alert. Nevertheless,
the good man, with good gun (held straight) and good dog,
rarely fails to find the adolescent wild duck productive of pleas-
ing sport and healthful recreation. That the birds require
2o6 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
stopping when found and flushed is a fact incontrovertible. It
has been estimated that a mallard's aerial speed is from forty-five
to fifty miles an hour. Allowing an initial velocity of 1800 to
2000 feet per second for small shot, the sportsman must obviously
hold well ahead in shooting at ducks on the wing. Flapper-
shooting cannot be likened in simplicity to rat-hunting or to shell-
ing peas. It is sufficiently difficult to be fascinating ; its surround-
ings are usually romantic ; it is worthy of the casual attention of
the most expert and fastidious sportsman ; and it is neither so
dangerous as big game shooting, nor so arduous as the pursuit
of the stag, the grouse, or even the partridge.
SEPTEMBER.
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING.
BY OSWALD CRAWFURD.
No kind of sport has so changed with the times as Partridge
shooting. Our forefathers shot them over dogs, and so far as
sport is concerned, it is perhaps a pity that we have gone so far as
we have in abandoning this old and delightful system of shooting ;
but, so far as the bag is concerned, the modern way is far the more
profitable.
Why have things so changed, or, as some will have it, so degener-
ated ? Some say it is because the' French Partridge the "Red-
leg," introduced into this country from the Continent about 1750
has been mustering and breeding in countless multitudes ever since.
The " Frenchman' 1 runs before the dog, and ruins the staunchness
of the best trained pointer, getting up out of shot and, to a quicker
tempered generation than our own, in the most damn-provoking
manner conceivable ; but shooting over dogs is obsolete in counties
where the Red-leg has hardly penetrated. It can hardly be the
Red-leg, then, that has done away with the dog. Perhaps the drill
cultivation that allows the bird to run comfortably along a covered-
way of turnip or mangold leaves for 30 or 40 yards before he rises,
and so to puzzle the pointing dog, has helped in the innovation.
2o8 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
Probably, however, the fact that grain crops are no longer reaped
by the sickle, but shorn by the scythe or the machine into stubbles
that no longer can hide a titmouse, let alone a fat Partridge, is the
chief cause of the doing away of dogs. The stubble being no longer
tenantable by the covey, the cover area is reduced to clovers, colzas,
lucerne i J saint-foin, all broad-sown crops, or to such cover as
bracken, gorse, heather or other rough wild growths, in which the
Partridges now lie comparatively thicker on the ground than used
to be the case, and the birds can be walked up by men in line
without help of pointer or setter to quarter and search the fields,
as was required when the area they lay over was greater.
So much for putting up of birds by " guns " and beaters without
use of dogs, but late in the season, when partridges get strong on the
wing and shyer of man, with more experience of that too common
and dangerous predatory biped, this method of attack fails, and the
birds would be left in peace till the ensuing autumn if no newer
method of attack had been invented. If none had been invented
three deplorable consequences would ensue. First, larders would
be barer. Secondly, the older birds would accumulate, they
being the most cunning, and the last to fall victims to the gun in
the ordinary way of shooting ; the old birds being peculiar in this,
that when they are coupled for the season, they suffer no brother
birds near the nest ; consequently, the existence of many old birds
on an estate means a small stock of Partridges in the ensuing
season. Thirdly, the Red-leg Partridge would escape too frequently,
and preponderate, were the shooting by lines of " guns " and beaters
only, by his habit of running away unseen, whereas the gamer Grey
Partridge flies up and is shot.
In 1845, Lord Huntingfield met these three difficulties by
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 209
instituting the system of driving. The guns are posted behind a
suitable and stationary shelter, and the birds are driven over. The
old birds, the wild ones and the red-legs, are the first to come over
the posted shooters, and are the first victims. Driving gives worse
sport than the old way, but it takes better shooting, for the birds
come very fast overhead, and come by at every imaginable angle.
Then again in driving all the generalship is displayed by the
keeper with his army of beaters. The " gun " now need know
nothing of the haunts and ways of birds. He is no longer a sports-
man with all about him that the word sportsman conveys ; for
the time being he has degenerated to a mere shooting-machine ;
all he needs is a quick eye and straight powder.
The driving of partridges is mainly the sport of the rich man,
armed with expensive shooting-irons, and waited on by a host of
beaters, but partridges afford a vast deal of sport other than
driving to poorer men of the unleisured classes.
The partridge is par excellence the game bird of England.
Every man, almost every boy in the English counties who
handles a gun at all, may hope to bring down his few brace
in the autumn season. All through the spring and summer the
" birds " and their breeding have formed the subject of rustic talk.
" Wine talk is very pretty talk," said Thackeray, leniently, of the
eternal " shop " indulged in by post-prandial man upon this im-
portant and little understood topic, but partridge talk, in summer
time while the crops are growing thick, is far prettier talk. No
one quite knows how many brace of old birds have been left from
the year before, how many birds have paired, how the eggs have
hatched out and even where all goes well, and stoat and carrion
crow and sparrow-hawk and polecat have spared the newly hatched
E e
zio A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
chicks a thunderstorm and a flooding rainfall may drown the
" cheepers " over a whole county by the thousands. Then, when
the beans and the clover grow up, and the corn crops are standing
green and tall in the valleys and plains, in July and August, the
birds show but little. Partridges run much at all seasons and fly
only when they must, so that, with all the wealth of summer growth
and their dinner table and beds, so to say, spread all round the
birds, one hardly guesses how many and how strong the coveys
may be.
The chances for the First of September are accordingly a most
agreeable subject for conversation among rustic men ; and the
shepherd, who at daybreak has seen the partridges sunning them-
selves on the upland ridges, and, having put them up, has seen
them wing their way quietly to the valley beneath him, counts
them as they fly, and marks them down in the standing corn. " I
seen a smartish lot on "em"- no need to say partridges, or even
" birds," as the First of September draws near " I seen a smartish
lot on 'em a-sunning theyselves on Clevedon Edge this morning ; "
and the simple remark causes a little flutter of interest in the
village tap-room. " Did you happen mark 'em down, shepherd ? "
asks the gamekeeper, who has strolled in just to pick up some
such scraps as this. If anyone of less social importance than the
squire's keeper had asked this question, the shepherd would
doubtless give an evasive answer, but to him he is constrained
to tell the plain unvarnished truth. "Well, I'll tell 'ee true,
keeper; they fle-d into Squire Joyce's wuts that's where they
fled, sir. I counted eighteen strongish birds." That is interesting
hearing to everyone in the parish, and the odds are the keeper
" stands a half-pint all round " on the strength of the news.
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 2u
When the broad fields of oats and barley are cut, and the stacks
are standing over the ground, as it mostly is before the end of
August, the mystery of the coveys is at end ; the partridge must
fly, where before they only ran or cowered, and their where-
abouts, their number and their size is common knowledge to
everyone with eyes to see.
For those who pursue the popular sport of partridge-shooting in
the simple, older fashion, with a brace of pointers and a retriever
at heel and no new-fangled method can give better sport, though,
as I have said, it may give a better bag there is no moment of
the day so full of a delightful expectancy as when the first turnip
or clover field is entered ; the dogs are " quartering " well ahead ;
we see by their eagerness that they are near game ; at any
moment the " point" may come ; then the sudden whirr of wings,
the seeming confusion, the four or five gun reports, the dropping
birds, and all the old, familiar incidents of the day old and
familiar, but never stale.
E e 2
SETTEMBEK.
HUNTING THE WILD RED DEER.
BY H. H. S. PEARSE.
To understand the fascination that stag-hunting has for all classes
in the Devon and Somerset country, and for a vast number of
sportsmen from many distant corners of the earth, one must spend
more than a few days of a single season on Exmoor. The charms
of a sport that is pursued in bright August weather on broad
stretches of moorland, eight hundred feet above sea level, or amid
the deep shadows of wooded valleys musical with brooks, all lovers
of nature may, in a general sense, appreciate. Some fox-hunters,
and especially Meltonians, who estimate all sport by one standard,
are apt to regard as slow a method of pursuit that lacks the first
wild reckless rush in which their ardent spirits revel when a
" Gone away ! " is sounded with the Quorn or Pytchley. Those
who do not stay in " Red deer land " long enough to let that
impression wear off, will perhaps carry away a belief that Devon
and Somerset men in their simplicity are content with very little.
But anyone who has seen a great run over these moors will want to
see another, and when he has learned something of the woodcraft
which the harbourer and huntsman can teach him, he will be in a
fair way to comprehend the enthusiasm of men who declare that
HUNTING THE WILD RED DEER. 213
there is no sport in all the world that can rival the chase of the
wild red deer. A stranger desirous of knowing all its delights had
better not begin stag-hunting in the early August days. During
the first two or three weeks of each season only old harts, heavy
with the fat of summer idleness and too cunning to run straight,
are hunted. The harbourer is proud to show his skill in slotting
the heaviest deer of a herd, and a master who knows his business
will have these killed before he allows the five or six-year-old
gallopers to be pursued. In the interests of farmers, who are the
best friends of stag-hunting, it is important that cunning veterans
of the forest should be sacrificed first, for they do more damage to
crops than twice as many younger ones.
These old harts, however, are not brought to bay without the
exercise of much skilful woodcraft, and, though such hunting may
lack the element of rapturous excitement, it has charms for all who
love hounds and understand their work. Let the stranger with
these qualifications get permission to accompany Anthony
Huxtable into covert when the tufters are taken to where a heavy
stag has been harboured. Three or four couples of the oldest and
most trustworthy hounds are selected for this work, and the
remainder of the pack kenneled in a barn, or any building that may
be handy. To throw all the hounds into covert at once would be
to defeat the first object of tufting, which is to rouse the harboured
deer and no other, though a score or more may be lying in the
thickets of the same great woodland. The stranger should provide
himself with a sure-footed hack for this work, leaving his hunter
where the pack is. The tufters will perhaps have to thread that
wooded valley again and again before they can force the right stag
away, and one who would watch them at every turn must be
214 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
prepared to gallop up or down rough paths, steep in places as the
roof of a house. A deep-mouthed chorus echoing from crag to
crag down the valley, followed by a shrill, wild holloa that makes
one's nerves tingle with rapture, proclaims that the old stag is on
foot, and the fox-hunter listens for the " gone away," or dashes
eagerly forward in his anxiety not to be left behind. But the next
sound he hears is a whipper-in rating the tufters with " get away
back to him ! " " ware hind ! " and, obedient to a peculiar blast of
the huntsman's horn, these clever old hounds will swing round to
where their proper game was last seen. The wily stag is a master
of every shift and subterfuge. He doubles on his tracks like a
hare, beating up and down the covert, turning out hinds and young
male deer one after another, and lying down in their lairs until he
is fresh found. All this may be the work of hours, but it is fruit-
ful in lessons of such scientific hunting as one cannot see
elsewhere. The line, when lost, can only be recovered again at
times by the exercise of a skill and keenness of perception that rival
the Red Indian's faculties.
At last the welcome " Tally Ho ! " is heard on the open moor,
and one may be sure now that the right stag has broken covert.
The whipper-in, or some trusty follower posted there, has seen the
monarch of the glen crash through the oak copse, pause a moment
to sniff the air, turn his beamed frontlet so that every " right "
brow bay and tray, and three on the top may be counted, and
then with a defiant stamp of his forefoot bound off across the
heather. Instead of galloping hurriedly towards that point, the
huntsman rides back blowing his horn as a signal, while the
whipper-in goes forward at speed to stop the tufters. Now there
is mounting in hot haste at the farm where old stag-hunters have
HUNTING THE WILD RED DEER. 217
been possessing their souls in patience so long. The hounds are
set free, and the huntsman takes them off by paths he knows well
to the distant moor. By the time they reach the spot where Jack
stopped the tufters, twenty minutes, half-an-hour, possibly an hour
may have passed since the deer went away. But they feather on
the line at once, own to it with a whimper that swells into glorious
melody as they feel the " titillating joy " of sweet scent that clings
to the heather ; and now you may ride, for they will take some
catching if you are far behind them when they breast the next hill.
Men who have been long at this game do not try to go straight
down and up the steeps, where loose " shillets " clatter under hoofs
at every stride, if they can get round more quickly and easily by
skirting the Coombe. Following hounds over such a country,
with its alternations of deep valleys, rugged ravines, and soft, if not
boggy ridges, is an art that can only be acquired by practice, as
many a Leicestershire man has found to his cost after riding his
horse to a standstill in vain endeavour to live with hounds that
seem to go so slowly. The pack will stick to their hunted deer,
though he may run through almost interminable woodlands
haunted by other herds. Though often at fault, these hounds turn
quickly to every note of their huntsmen's horn, and puzzle out the
tangled thread of scent again and again with wonderful sagacity, so
that a stag once found rarely shakes them off. If he do not take
refuge in the sea they will " set him up " before nightfall in some
shadowy pool with his back to a rock, where he must fight for his
life. And he does fight gallantly, with no trace of fear for the foes
that clamour fiercely round him. When he takes to the sea by
Bossington or Porlock or beautiful Glenthorn he swims so well that
no hounds would ever overtake him if boats were not at hand to
F f
2i8 -/ YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
effect a capture. More than once a hunted stag has been known
to cross the Severn Sea, and land in safety on the shores of
Wales a safety which no true sportsman would grudge him.
When the hunting moon has waxed and waned, when stags have
gained their lustiest strength, and the mists of chill October give
token that the season of " love and war" is at hand, a six-year-old
deer will lead pursuers many a league over the moors, and many
good steeds will be sobbing before their riders see the noble quarry
brought to bay in the dark pools of Waters' Meet or under the
wooded banks of the Barle, or where the swift stream tumbles
among giant ferns and grey boulders in Horner Valley.
SEPTEMBER.
RABBIT HAWKING.
BY J, E. HARTING.
HAWKING, like other field sports, has its seasons, and just as
there are various breeds of hounds to suit the nature of the
different animals hunted, so are there different kinds of hawks
according to the nature of the " quarry " at which they are
flown.
For rooks in the early spring, and for grouse and partridges
in autumn, the peregrine falcon is used ; for larks in August,
a cast or merlins is employed ; the sparrow hawk shows good
sport with blackbirds and thrushes in the turnip fields, and was
formerly used for taking landrails and quails ; while for ground
game, as well as for an occasional partridge, pheasant, or
moorhen, the Goshawk is without a rival, This is especially
the case if the falconer lives in a woodland or enclosed country,
where, from the peculiar nature of its flight, a long-winged
falcon is liable to be frequently lost, since it rises to a consider-
able height, ranges wide, and stoops at the " quarry " from a
great distance, often killing it out of sight of the falconer, should
a copse or other covert intervene. For this reason a long-
winged falcon like the peregrine should be flown in a very open
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220 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
country, such as a wide, flat moor, or cultivated downland, where
there are no trees, and where hedges are few and far between,
The Goshawk, on the other hand, with a different mode of
flight going straight from its owner's fist to the quarry at which it
is flown is essentially the hawk for an enclosed country, and if
properly trained in the first instance should never be lost. It is
a mistake, however, to suppose that anyone inclined to the sport,
though knowing nothing of it, may purchase a trained Goshawk,
take her out the next day, and fly her without any risk of losing her.
She would almost certainly be lost for want of the requisite
knowledge on the part of her new owner how to manage her.
You may buy a new horse or a new dog, and hunt the one
or shoot over the other possibly without disappointment ; but it is
otherwise with a hawk. Hawking requires an apprenticeship, and
no one can expect success who has not gone through the various
stages of taming and training his own birds, spoiling some
and losing others, until he has discovered his mistakes by
dire experience.
There was a time, before the art of shooting flying came into
vogue, when almost every country gentleman in England kept a Gos-
hawk or two, and very high prices were given for well-trained birds.
Even in James I.'s time, after " birding- pieces " had been intro-
duced, good Goshawks fetched a good round sum. Edmund
Bert, who published " An Approved Treatise of Hawks and
Hawking," in 1619, tells us that he had "for a Goshawke
and Tarsell a hundred marks, both solde to one man within
sixteen months," and for another he was offered forty pounds, and
ultimately sold her for thirty an extraordinary price, when we
consider the relative value of money in those days. At that time>
RABBIT HA WRING. 223
doubtless there were many places in the British Islands where
the Goshawk was to be found breeding, where the nests, or eyries,
were jealously watched, and the young were taken as soon as they
were ready to fly. This, however, is a thing of the past. It is
very many years since a Goshawk's nest was found in Great
Britain ; not since Colonel Thornton, a well-known falconer and
good all-round sportsman, discovered one in the Forest of
Rothiemurcus, and trained one of the young birds. This was at
the end of the last or beginning of the present century, since
which time no similar discovery has been recorded.
At the present day, the Goshawks trained and flown in England
(and we know of many) are procured from France or Germany ;
chiefly from France, where, thanks to the good offices of some of
the French falconers, they are looked after, the nests protected,
and the young birds secured at the proper time. The price
varies with the age and condition of the bird. You may get one
through a dealer for a couple of pounds, but it is a chance
whether the flight feathers are unbroken, perfect wings being a
sine qua non in the case of a hawk that is to be trained and flown.
It is better to pay a little more, as in Paris, and secure a good
one. Occasionally a Goshawk is taken in a bow-net by one of the
Dutch hawk-catchers in North Brabant, and sent to England ;
but as a rule the birds captured by them are peregrines, for
which, at the present day, there is greater demand.
As to the mode of training, it is very simple when you know it,
and the falconer who gives the greatest amount of personal
attention to the matter will have the greatest measure of success.
A hawk must learn to know her owner, or she will not allow him
to take her up. She must be fed by him, and carried as much
224 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
as possible on the glove, bare-headed, that [\s, not hooded,
to accustom her to the sight of men and dogs, and other moving
objects, that she may put off all fear, and become as tractable
as any pointer or setter ; knowing her owner's voice, and obeying
his call or lure. The old falconers used to say' that a hawk
should know no perch but her owner's fist, and there is a good
deal of reason in this, for the more a hawk is carried the better
she will be.
The first step is to induce the bird to come off the perch
on to the glove, which is always worn on the left hand, to leave
the right hand free for detaching leash and swivel before she
is flown. This end is usually attained by offering a little bit of
meat in the glove, or the leg or wing of a fowl or pigeon ; but
only a mouthful should be given as a reward for obedience, for it
must be remembered that a hawk must be flown fasting, and
rewarded for killing, or for coming back after an unsuccessful
flight ; and if too much be given at a time, her hunger is thereby
appeased, and she has no longer any incentive to hunt. When
she will step readily off the perch on to the fist, the leash being
untied, the distance should be increased from a foot to a yard,
and at length to several yards, until eventually she will fly
willingly across the room to her master. This lesson being
repeated out of doors, from a field gate or the top of a stone wall,
while for safety a long line is tied to the swivel which in turn is
attached to the jesses, or little leather strap round her legs
in a few days she will come readily on being called, and the
line may then be dispensed with. She may then be lured with a
dead rabbit, or part of one, thrown down and drawn with a
line along the ground. After coming readily to this several
RABBIT HA WKING. 2 2 5
times, she is next to be entered to the live quarry. For this
purpose a young rabbit or two may be easily procured by ferreting,
and being placed under an inverted flower-pot which can be
pulled over from a distance, with a piece of string and cross-
stick through the hole in the bottom, "the hawk is slipped at
the right moment, and rarely fails to take the rabbit at the first
attempt.
Another trial or two of this kind, and she is ready to fly at a
wild one. The critical part of the training is now at hand, and
great care must be taken to avoid disappointing the hawk ; that is
to say, the rabbit should be well in the open, and not within easy
reach of a burrow into which it may pop just as the hawk is about
to seize it. Encouraged by the success of these first attempts,
she will go on improving every day, and the more she is carried
and flown the better she will become.
To show what success may be attained even in the first season
with a young Goshawk, we may refer to the bag made by a
falconer still living, who in his first season, with a young female
Goshawk (better than a male bird, because larger and stronger)
which he trained himself, took 322 rabbits, three hares and two
magpies, and the following season 280 rabbits, two leverets,
eleven partridges, four magpies and two squirrels !
After this no tyro need despair, and though, for want of
experience, he may not attain to such success as this, he will at
all events discover in the sport of rabbit-hawking a most
fascinating and enjoyable recreation.
The accompanying illustration shows the way in which a
Goshawk leaves the fist when the quarry is found and started. It
is not to be supposed that there is any unnecessary cruelty in the
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226 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
sport, for the falconer only teaches his hawk to do for his
amusement what she has to do every day, when in a wild state,
for her own living ; and the accomplishment of this affords one of
the best and most curious illustrations of the extent of man's
power over the lower animals.
OCTOBER.
PHEASANT SHOOTING.
BY GEORGE LINDESAY.
ORIGINALLY a native of Asia Minor, the Common Pheasant is a
wonderful instance of the successful acclimatization of a foreign
bird in these Islands, and a most important inhabitant thereof has
he become. Hundreds of thousands of pounds are invested in
the preservation and multiplying of his species ; no small portion
of rural England is reserved for his residence ; and up to a certain
date his person is as sacred as that of a fox. After the ist of
October his importance increases ; and thousands of sportsmen,
armed with the latest and most quick-firing of breechloaders,
accompanied by keepers and beaters innumerable, march for his
destruction ; they violate with their hob-nailed boots and gaiters
the coverts that have hitherto formed his sure sanctuary, and poor
Phasianus Colchicus appears suddenly and simultaneously in every
poulterer's shop in the United Kingdom.
Some idea may be formed of the wonderful increase in the
number of pheasants which has taken place in this country, from
the figures given in the Badminton Library volume on shooting, as
applying to some 10,000 acres of preserved land in Norfolk. On
this estate in 1825 the total bag was 89 pheasants to one gun ; in
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228 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
1860 it had increased progressively to 2256; and in 1881 there
were shot no fewer than 5363 pheasants, the best day being 1136
head to eight guns. Of course this enormous increase is due to
artificial breeding and strict preserving for the pheasant,
especially in his early youth, requires much shelter and plenty of
food but it shows how much these may do when carefully carried
out, materially benefiting the proprietor and the food supply of the
community as well as the sportsman. The young birds are
mostly fed upon ant eggs, maggots, and grits, but when grown
they eat seeds, roots, and leaves indiscriminately. The cock is far
from being a specimen of domestic virtue ; he takes no notice of
his offspring, and during the greater part of the year he leads a
very independent kind of existence, associating mostly with others
of his sex, while he frequently mates with the common hen, and
sometimes with the grouse, turkey, and guinea-fowl. He is also
of a very pugnacious disposition, and often enters into mortal
combat with the barn-door cock, over whom he has no small
advantage owing to his powers of flight, which enable him, when
fatigued, to ascend into a tree for recuperative purposes.
Occasionally the hen-pheasant chooses the deserted tree nest of
an owl or squirrel wherein to lay her eggs, but her ordinary nest is
a very rude construction indeed of leaves and grass, placed in a
slight depression of the ground, with hardly any attempt at conceal-
ment ; the eggs are of a uniform olive-brown colour, and usually
from eight to ten in number.
The Pheasant is an undoubted friend of the farmer, for he
destroys vast numbers of injurious insects a form of food which
he loves beyond others and over 1200 wire-worms, that worst
pest of the farmer, have been taken out of the crop of a single
IP
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PHEASANT SHOOTING. 231
bird. During the day he trusts more to his legs than his wings,
but his habit of roosting among the trees makes him a
conspicuous object, and an easy prey to the poacher on moon-
light nights. The ingenious dodge devised by Mr. Waterton for
the deception of these gentry, and the preservation of his birds,
by having wooden pheasants nailed on to the boughs of his trees,
is well known.
Among other varieties, the Golden, Silver, and Reed's
Pheasants have been also introduced, with more or less success,
on some of the great sporting estates in England. The last-named
is, perhaps, the handsomest bird of his handsome race ; the body
no larger than that of the Common Pheasant, a cock in full
plumage yet measures 8 feet from head to tip of the tail-feathers,
which are themselves 6 or 7 feet in length, and beautifully marked.
Reeve's Pheasant, or, as it is called in France, le faisan revere,
will more readily take to wing than most of his kind, and although
so splendid and highly-coloured, is a hardy bird, his home being
among the snow-clad mountains of Surinagar and in Northern
China.
Both the Golden and the Silver Pheasants are also natives of
the last-named country, in which the former especially is held in
great esteem, not only for his elegance of form and splendid
plumage, but also for his delicacy of flavour, which surpasses that
of the Common variety. It is hardly necessary to remark upon
the value of the plumage of this gorgeous and very beautiful bird
to the salmon fly-fisher, who greatly prizes his crest, neck, and tail-
feathers.
The Silver Pheasant is a much larger and more powerful bird,
and like his Golden brother has become an inhabitant of a good
232 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
many British preserves ; his weight, however, being out of propor-
tion to his strength of wing, is rather against him, and he falls an
easy victim to stoats, foxes, and polecats.
Battue shooting, of course, accounts for the vast majority of
pheasants which are killed in this country, and on this subject
innumerable volumes have been written, and a good deal of
acrimonious talk indulged in. Bromley Davenport criticizes in
amusing language the fallacies put forward by many of those who
speak and write against battue-shooting, and describes the great
amount of skill and management required to ensure success. The
fact is that this form of shooting has its own special attractions,
but can only be indulged in by the rich, and is on that account
much cavilled at. To bring about a big and successful battue,
large sums of money must, in the first place, be expended in
breeding and rearing the young birds, and in preserving them ;
the responsible manager of the drive, too, the man whose duty it
is to bring the birds together, and make them fly over the line of
guns, as arranged and distributed beforehand, has no easy task.
He must be thoroughly acquainted not only with the ways and
habits of the birds, under all conditions and circumstances, but he
must be alert to recognize the modifications to which these are
subject, from wind, weather, or other temporary influences. As I
have above remarked, the Pheasant is much fonder of running
than of flying, and a not unimportant part of the head-keeper's duty
is so to manage that the birds are brought forward as much as
possible by means of their legs, and that they do not take wing in
any considerable numbers until brought into contact with the line
of guns. As a rule, it is preferable to begin by driving in the birds
from the most outlying coverts and woods, the fear of scaring
PHEASANT SHOOTING. 233
them across the march being generally exaggerated, as when
driven from the ground they are accustomed to frequent, pheasants
will always endeavour to return thither. Another essential to
success in covert-shooting is the judicious placing of stoppers ;
late in the season more especially, wTFen the birds have probably
been disturbed, and are wild and unsettled, these are even more
important than beaters, and should be placed at angles of coverts,
or where hedge-rows and the like impinge upon the main wood,
else numerous birds will steal away and escape.
Personally, I confess to a preference for a form of sport less
artificial, and one in which the skill and knowledge required
are more centred in the shooter himself than in his servants.
A high, rocketing pheasant at a battue is doubtless not such an
easy object to bring down as would appear, and offers a more
difficult shot than one which gets up a few yards in front of a
setter's nose on the edge of a turnip-field or bit of open covert ;
but in my humble opinion there is no getting away from the fact
that there is more of sport about the latter performance, and that
a day with the keeper and the dogs along the hedge-rows and
thin strips of outlying covert is more enjoyable than a hot
corner in the home preserves.
One of the most pleasant covert-shoots I can recollect was that
in which I used to take part year after year on the banks of
Tweed. My host, the laird, had a fad in regard to his pheasants,
and, except outlying bits of wood, never touched his best
coverts until the last week of the season ; then we shot them
every day until the 3ist, and began salmon-fishing the very next.
the opening day, the 1st of February. At that time of the
year, however, fishing on Tweed was often a precarious pastime, a
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234 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
clean fish being a great rarity and the water full of kelts. It was
a singular, and not very pleasant, sight to see bodies of the spent fish
lying in hundreds among the ice- blocks and snow on the banks,
left there by the rapid subsidences of the river. Great salmon, 20,
30 and 40 Ibs. weight, were there lying dead, the crows and other
birds feeding upon their decomposing bodies. Though the
salmon might fail us, however, the laird's pheasant-shooting was
excellent ; the birds, strong on the wing and full-grown, rendered
straight holding and choke-bores absolute necessities ; a fair
number of woodcock was always a certainty, while the way the
bunnies lay out was astonishing.
I can only recall one day on which our sport was absolutely
stopped through stress of weather, and it was not until some days
afterwards that we ascertained we had attempted shooting in what
proved to be a quite historical gale. By n a.m. the wind had
increased to hurricane force, and, driven before it, blinding clouds
of snow continued to descend without intermission. The beaters
had entered one fine piece of covert before things had reached
this climax, but the drive was a complete failure ; most of the birds
simply could not get up, and those that did manage to rise a
yard or two from the ground were whisked away in an instant
by the tremendous gale. We were truly thankful to make our
way home to the shelter of the old mansion house, from whose
windows we were enabled to gaze with equanimity upon the
snow, as it wildly eddied and whirled before the storm.
OCTOBER.
CUB-HUNTING.
BY H. H. S. PEARSE.
IN counties where great chains of woodland alternate with open
downs or wide heathery wastes, broken only by a few cultivated
patches, Cub-hunting may begin in the sultry days of August.
No crops are there to be injured, and the number of sportsmen
who gather in the dewy morning to meet hounds at such places
is never great enough to do much damage in any case. Some
fashionable hunts are equally favoured in another way, having
vast coverts. through which hounds may work for hours, day after
day, and rattle the cubs about without risk of forcing one out
across an acre of corn.
At Badminton, the Marquis of Worcester begins cubbing the
first or second week in August, and finds within the confines
of that noble park sport enough to occupy him until the harvest
has been gathered, and every puppy in the pack has learned what
the duty of a well-bred foxhound is. Even in such a pack
where hereditary instincts of the highest order are transmitted
according to scientific rules and under such tuition the young
ones do not all learn their business with equal readiness. There,
as elsewhere, one finds the over-impetuous, that will hunt any-
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236 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
thing, until they have been broken of their tendency to run
riot, and the slack that show an inclination to hunt nothing at the
outset. Before the frosts of chill October begin to bring down
the sapless leaves, however, they must learn all about it, or the
Badminton Kennels will know them no more. In circumstances
like these, with ample time for training, and almost unlimited re-
sources to draw upon, it is not surprising that the Marquis of
Worcester has a pack from which the wiliest and stoutest foxes
find it difficult to escape. I know of no hunt in England where
the process of teaching cubs to run, and young hounds to hunt
them, can be more profitably studied than at Badminton. In
the broad green rides of those well-stocked coverts one may
enjoy the freshness of August mornings, while one watches the
hounds working patiently among the dense undergrowth, and
listens to their music as it swells from an uncertain treble into a
clamorous chorus. A practised ear can detect every change of
the chase. Some shrill notes, but low and tremulous, tell that a
puppy has something to say, but has not confidence enough
in himself to give tongue boldly. If these faint whimperings are
followed by deeper notes, one may be sure the young one was
right, and the houn'ds know it too, for they come together with a
crash that shakes the copse. But cubs are many, and in their
confused efforts to escape, they dodge about in a way that is more
puzzling than all the tricks of which an old fox is master.
Sudden silence shows that the hounds are at fault, and when a
tongue one has not heard before rings out clearly, it is a sure
sign of a fresh scent.
Then, perhaps, the puppies will speak together with the
temerity of impetuous youth, while their elders look at them
CUB-HUNTING. 237
with a silent reproof that should be more cutting than the
whipper-in's stern "ware riot," to a young hound of proper feeling.
As the hounds know each other which to put faith in implicitly,
which to mistrust as a forward youth who speaks before he is
perfectly sure of being right, and which "must be watched closely
lest he steal away in jealous silence without giving a signal
by so much as one low whimper so the huntsman gets to
know them and all their peculiarities in the months of intimate
association between August and November. Thus, and thus
only, can a pack be raised to such all-round perfection as the
Badminton has long been celebrated for.
Most hunts have to be content with a more rapid and much less
complete process of training for the work of each season. They
may be divided broadly into two classes, one having such vast
extent of woodlands that a run in the open is of rare occurrence,
and the other coverts so small and far apart that, even in the early
days of Cub-hunting, hounds rarely kill without having some sort
of scurry across country. Woodland hunting pure and simple
does not suit the taste of everybody. It demands special
qualities both in the hounds and huntsman, while for full
enjoyment of it, followers need be deeply versed in all the
mysteries of woodcraft. The best huntsman in woodlands that
I ever knew seemed to trouble himself very little whether his
hounds stuck to one cub or changed to a fresh one, so long as
they kept well together ; but tendency to riot he would check
with a note like a thunderclap, and that was more effective than
any amount of thong the whipper-in could apply. If they kept
changing, so much the worse for them. Their reward was all the
longer in being earned, though perhaps the sweeter on that
238 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
account when it did come. At all events the system worked
well with him. A slack hound was never seen in his pack, which,
before the regular season opened, would drive a fox from end
to end of the vast coverts, and seldom leave that line for a
fresh scent. Perhaps he had secret methods too deep for
casual observers to fathom. The sort of sport, however, that
most men can appreciate without professed study of scientific
woodcraft is to be found in countries where coverts are com-
paratively small, and separated by open tracts not too formidably
fenced. These need not be all pleasant pastures, as in the
fashionable shires. A due proportion of freshly-turned fallow
or dry stubble gives hounds a chance of showing their hunting
powers, and prevents them from rolling the cubs over too soon.
There, however, the sport must be deferred until nearly every
acre of corn has been cut, and by that time the cubs are strong
enough to take care of themselves, though the chances are
that by being left so long undisturbed they have acquired stay-
at-home habits, and do not know their way about the country.
To teach them and the young hounds all that must be learned
in little more than a month is no light labour for a huntsman,
whose troubles are not lessened by the fact that chances of a
gallop, however short, are certain to attract a number of impetuous
youths for whom the slower incidents of woodland hunting in
August have few charms. When the first light frosts of late
September redden the copses, and misty sunlight rests on broad
stretches of stubble, Cub-hunting may begin in the least-favoured
countries. Then master and huntsman can shake off many cares
concerning probable claims for damage to crops, but they will be
still harassed by dread of the thoughtless pursuer, whose eagerness
CUB-HUNTING. 241
so often spoils sport at a time when every lesson is of importance.
The necessity for such training is not confined to young hounds
and cubs. There are some men who hunt, year after year, without
learning anything that the events of a single day at this season
should suffice to teach them, and a Ttnowledge of which would
enhance their own pleasure, while contributing materially to the
pleasure of others, instead of marring it. If they would only
remember what an unpardonable sin it is to holloa one cub away
while the hounds are running another in covert, and that they should
not shriek wildly, but simply content themselves with a " Tally-ho !
over," just loud enough for the huntsman to hear, when they view
the hunted cub across a ride, much waste of strong language
would thereby be spared. They had better hold their peace alto-
gether if not perfectly sure that it is the hunted cub ; and, at any
rate, all shrill holloaing should be left to the whipper-in, whose
voice the hounds know and can trust. There are always experts
enough in the field to help a huntsman by timely tidings when
they are sure he is at fault. Those who have not experience to
guide them will be wise if they keep their mouths shut and their
eyes open, watching every turn the hounds take as they work
hither and thither among the tangled brambles and tawny bracken.
The time for allowing hounds to get away will be hastened rather
than retarded by a little patience at the outset. Before the bleak
gales of October have blown many of the dead leaves down, the
pack should have brought the weaklier cubs in nearly every corner
of a hunting country to hand. A late beginning, where the coverts
are neither very big nor close together, is not wholly disadvantage-
ous. After the corn has been gathered lost days may be made up
for, and by this time the cubs are stout enough to show sport of
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242 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
the kind for which impetuous youth has been fretting since the
earliest notes of horn and hound were heard. The pack, too,
knows its work now, or never will, and the master is nothing loth to
let the mettle of his hounds be tried in chase of a stout-hearted
rover. The joy that thrills young nerves when the whipper-in's
halloa, no longer suppressed, tells that a good cub has gone away,
is contagious. The oldest among us cannot resist it. He would
fain gallop as they do when hounds are speeding over the rounded
uplands ; feel the keen rush of air that comes whistling out of the
gloomy clouds, and enjoy the rapture of rivalry once more. One
can hardly find it in his heart to blame even the man who, in his
eagerness to be with the pack, crashes over a fence and rides head-
long for the hounds, regardless of their having checked on the
river bank, where he, is in danger of killing them and drowning
himself. And what a disappointment it is to the huntsman if he
cannot write, " killed in the open " at the end of his hunting notes
for that day. It is, no doubt, a laudable ambition for one who
believes that the first duty, if not the sole mission in life, of hounds
and huntsmen is to kill foxes, and we all do our best to encourage
it while the run lasts. But somehow, the final scene that fills him
with a fierce joy brings a touch of regret to some true sportsmen,
who would always wish that a good cub might live to grow into a
good fox, and to lead us many more glorious chases than any we
are likely to see before the season of Cub-hunting ends.
OCTOBER.
PARTRIDGE HAWKING.
BY J. E. HARTING.
WE have described on a previous page the art of rabbit hawking
with the goshawk. The goshawk is one of the short-winged
hawks so called because the tail exceeds the wings in length.
The modus operandi with a long-winged falcon, like the
Peregrine, which is used for partridges and grouse, is very
different, and depends upon the different manner in which these
two hawks take their prey. A goshawk, as has been shown, flies
straight after the quarry from the fist, and overtakes it by
superiority of speed ; a falcon, soaring in the air, captures its
prey by descending rapidly upon it from a height, and this
descent with half-closed wings is technically termed a " stoop."
To witness the stoop of a well-trained falcon at a fast-flying
partridge or grouse, as it goes down wind at the highest speed of
which it is capable, is a sight to be for ever remembered.
Sportsmen who know what it is to shoot driven birds, and who
are wont to estimate the speed of a partridge at forty, fifty or
even sixty miles an hour, incline to the belief that a driven
partridge must be the fastest bird that flies, and few are prepared
to learn that neither a partridge nor a grouse can live long before
i i 2
244 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
a Peregrine Falcon. There is a popular notion and a pretty
theory that hawks are " Nature's police ; " that they carry off the
weakly birds of a covey, and so, by allowing the strongest and
best to escape, they help to maintain a good healthy stock of
game. This is an absolute fallacy. Having seen scores of
grouse and partridges taken by trained falcons, we are in a
position to assert positively that the power of wing in a Peregrine
is so great, that it can overtake and strike down the strongest and
best bird in a covey with as much ease as if it were the youngest
and weakliest of the brood. It would naturally be supposed that
on the rising of a covey, the hawk would stoop at the bird nearest
to it. This is not invariably the case. We have many times seen
a falcon ignore a grouse immediately under her, and single out
for capture either the leader of the pack, or an outside bird far
ahead of some of its fellows. It is the same in partridge
hawking. The hawk probably stoops at the bird of which
it first catches sight when the covey rises ; just as in partridge
shooting the sportsman singles out the bird he first sees on
the wing, unless it happens to be too near him, when he
aims at one further away, by which time the bird first seen will be
at a proper distance for his second barrel.
It will be inferred from what has been already stated that the
modes of flying a short-winged hawk and a long-winged falcon are
entirely different. In the former case the quarry is found before
the hawk leaves the fist, in the latter the falcon is put on the wing
and allowed to " mount " to a good " pitch " before the dogs are
uncoupled and allowed to range. As soon as they are steady on
point, and the falcon well placed overhead, the birds are flushed (
and the falcon, immediately catching sight of them, with a
PARTRIDGE HA WRING. 245
headlong rush, stoops at the one she has singled out. So true a
judge is she of pace and distance, that, unless the partridge drops
suddenly into covert, she rarely fails to strike it fatally. No
prettier picture could present itself to the eye of an artist than
the grouping of dogs, hawk, and falconer at the moment which
precedes the fatal stoop. The dogs setters or pointers, as the
case may be motionless on point, half-concealed perhaps in a
field of turnips, or patch of clover, or standing out in bold relief
upon the edge of a stubble ; the hawk, well understanding the
proceedings, " waiting on " at a considerable height above them ;
the falconers, advancing slowly in line, or pausing in their
enthusiasm, to admire the scene before them. A step forward, a
rush of wings, a shout of " Hoo, ha, ha," a grey meteor falls across
the sky, and amid a small cloud of feathers a partridge drops with a
dull thud amongst the turnip leaves, or disappears like a stone in
water, in the waving clover.
A finale such as this, however, is not to be effected as a matter
of course by any tyro who can procure a hawk. Its accomplish-
ment implies a good deal of previous trouble in the taming,
training, feeding, bathing, and general management of the noble
falcon before it can be trusted to fly at liberty, and exhibit
the exercise of its natural instinct for man's pleasure and benefit.
It would be impossible within our present limits to give any-
thing like a detailed account of the mode of training game-
hawks, a subject upon which many books have been written ;
but, with a view to encourage some attempts on the part of
those who have the leisure and inclination for such sport, it
will not be out of place to offer a few remarks upon the more
important points to be attended to. It may be stated, then, as a
246 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
general principle which underlies the whole art of falconry, that a
hawk is flown fasting, and is rewarded for killing, or for coming
back after an unsuccessful flight. Hence the use of the " lure "
a dead pigeon at the end of a string, or a couple of wings tied
together and weighted, and garnished with some raw meat, which
is only shown to the hawk at feeding-time, or when she is required
to return to her owner, or, again, if she is too far down wind, when
the dogs are " standing." As a rule hawks are fed but once a
day, about five o'clock in the afternoon ; but Merlins are all the
better for having a light morning meal in addition, about 7 a.m.
Indeed, we have found it a good plan to give all hawks a mouthful
or two in the morning, after they have got rid of their casting
(that is, after they have thrown up the indigestible portion of their
food, in the form of an oval pellet), and at the moment of taking
them from the "perch" to set them down upon the "block" to
bathe. This puts them in good humour, prevents them from
"bating" too much, and an hour or two after they have got
perfectly dry they are keen and in good order for flying. After a
hawk has been "called off" to the "lure," at first with a
" creance " or long light line attached to the "jesses," and
afterwards without it, she has to be " entered " to the particular
"quarry " at which she is intended to be flown. This can best be
done by previously shooting a partridge, and, while the hawk is
on the wing, throwing it out to her in a long line with which she
can be checked in case she should attempt to carry the bird
away.
When this has been done a few times, the hawk being always
allowed time to break into the " quarry " and get a few good mouth-
fuls before being taken up, she may be flown at a live partridge. And
PARTRIDGE HAWKING. 2 )9
here it should be noted that it is all-important not to disappoint
the hawk in her first flight. To avoid this it is a good plan not
to unhood her and put her upon the wing until a covey has been
found and marked down. The hawk may then be flown, and the
falconer, walking towards the spot where the birds have " put in,"
will be careful not to flush them until he sees that the hawk is
well-placed and with her head towards them, so that she may see
them the moment they rise. By this plan he will ensure the best
chance of success ; for if a hawk kills the first time she is flown, it
will be the making of her. Another piece of advice we would
give is, never to run up to a hawk the moment she has killed, but
give her time to plume the quarry and break into it, approaching
her quietly, and, when near enough, kneeling down with a bit of
meat or a partridge wing in the glove, and holding it under her.
She will at once seize it, and, stepping on to the glove, may be
lifted up gently by aid of the jesses, which must then be firmly
held, lest she should attempt to fly. The mischief of " making
in " too quickly to a hawk is that it alarms her, and causes her
either to carry off the bird she has killed to a distance, or to fly
away without it and give some trouble before she is retaken. The
fault of " carrying," thus induced by want of care on the part of
the falconer, is one that by all means should be guarded against
from the beginning.
On taking a hawk up from the quarry she should have a
mouthful or two given her by way of reward, and it is not a bad
plan to pull off the head of the partridge or grouse, as the case
may be and, crushing it to pieces, allow her to eat the brain and
such tit-bits as she can get off it. The hood being then replaced,
she is ready to rest a while before essaying another flight.
K k
250 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
Above all things, gentleness with a hawk is a sine qua mm, and
a light hand in hooding. The bird has then nothing to be afraid
of. Instead of being alarmed at the approach of her owner, lest
he should rob her of her prey, she comes to regard him as useful
in helping her to secure it, allows herself to be lifted up on his
glove, feeds before him, and exhibits every sign of confidence and
affection. Indeed, it is not too much to say that a hawk that
has been properly handled from the first by a kind master
will become as obedient and as much attached to him as a
favourite dog. The wonder is there are not more falconers !
OCTOBER.
ROUGH SHOOTING.
BY H. A. S. PEARSE.
THE man who can rent a thousand acres of rough shooting
ground on the borders of a certain moorland I know of has
material for health and contentment within his reach. He need
not envy pheasant preservers their big battues, nor deer-stalkers
their wide domains. If it be no more than a mere strip averaging
five hundred yards wide and following the tortuous course of a
river from rush-grown moor to wooded valley, so much the better
for chances of sport within its limits. With breechloader in hand
and a brace of spaniels for companions, one may wander about
the ridges and hollows of such ground week after week in
proper season without exhausting its resources of feather and fur,
or finding the frequent repetitions of familiar scenes monotonous.
A keen observer of nature sees endless variety within the
narrowest limits. Now it is the colour of foliage and ferns that
changes, or the form of trees as they cast off the gold-
embroidered vesture of regal autumn, or the river churned by
winter floods into foam that whitens tawny pools whereon, in rich
mosaic, leaves, flowers, sky, and sunlight cast their clear reflec-
tions but a few months ago ; and now the notes of animate nature
K k 2
252 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
making fresh harmonies for every day. Only an ardent lover
of nature and keen sportsman can appreciate such things fully,
but it is he alone who cares for rough shooting in preference to
all other, or knows the delight of trudging from morn to eve
through tangled heather and tall brake ferns, by reedy swamp
and rugged coombe, for the sake of a bag that pot-hunters would
consider beneath contempt. It is not the weight so much as
the variety that gratifies him ; and every bird, rabbit, or hare
bagged may represent in his eyes a triumph of skill in shooting
or in woodcraft. He does not assume superiority over nor affect
contempt for the battue men, as some of us do. He acknow-
ledges readily their dexterity in bringing down a " rocketer " or
stopping the leader of a driven grouse pack as it skims past a
peat stack ; but he thinks not without reason that they lose
more than half the sport in not finding their own game. His
great pleasure is to watch well-trained dogs at work, or to
exercise his own skill when their sagacity fails.
Among the trophies that he displays with pardonable pride,
you may perhaps see a black cock or grey hen, whose wary
wildness was only out-matched by patient strategy, of which few
but moormen know the alphabet. Black game are not difficult to
get within range of during the sultry August or September days,
when they are fat with good feeding ; but with the first frosts of
autumn they become so shy that they are more difficult to stalk
than a cunning stag, and nobody who does not know all their
habits can drive them to the guns. They seem to scent powder,
too, a mile off, and though a shepherd may walk close by them
without disturbing one, the faintest sound of a sportsman's
footsteps brushing the heather will cause wily old birds to rise on
ROUGH SHOOTING. 253
whirring wings and dart away long before he can get within
range of them. The arts by which a man accustomed to rough
shooting from boyhood will out-manceuvre the wildest of wild
birds are innumerable, but he cannot perhaps practise the same
trick twice running with equal success. ~ Curlews I have known
so shy and cautiously clever that they would lead a man on from
hill to hill without giving him the chance of a single shot at them ;
and, after all, I have succeeded in getting close enough to kill with
each barrel, by the simple expedient of driving in a turf-cart past
the birds. Golden plover are equally gun-shy, and yet in cross-
ing a bog one may at times flush them from a tuft of rushes
almost under one's feet.
In rough shooting, however, skill in woodcraft need not always
be exercised. In a little creek where the river is fed by water
that trickles down from a bog, over mossy slopes to the still pool
fringed with sedges, some wild ducks have reared their brood.
There the old birds and the young will have their headquarters
until sharp frosts drive them away to warmer estuaries. You
may pass and repass their haunt without disturbing them, but if
you pause to get a view through the network of branches, or
stalk cautiously, intent upon a shot at them, they will be up and
away towards a great tarn on the moor. Your best chance is to
send a water-spaniel in upon them and wait. Then they will take
one narrow circle before shaping a course, as if doubtful about
allowing themselves to be driven away by such an intruder, and
you may bring one or more down, if your nerve be good and hand
ready, as they wheel above the low tree-tops. Now among the
larch trees that stretch their slender twigs like a hazy network
across the riverside path your dogs may flush a woodcock, who
254 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
darts in zig-zag flight between the shafts, or with apparently lazy
wings goes down the long alley straight from you. There are
some men, and good shots too, who cannot hit a woodcock
going away from them so. His seeming slowness baffles them,
and they would rather take their chance at one darting right or
left through the netted branches. If shooting companions are
with one and few of us like quite solitary sport the cry of
" Mark cock" is sure to be frequent in this copse, for there is
favourite feeding found yonder in the soft mossy banks of a tiny
streamlet beside which holly trees grow.
By some giant boulders in the next glade we may pause for
luncheon a frugal meal and, after one welcome pipe, trudge on
towards the moor. Our path thither leads through a gorse brake,
where a friend's fox terriers are of timely use to draw for rabbits,
and I know no phase of rough shooting that has more fascination
than this. It is well to have a wire-haired terrier for working
the runs in gorse brakes or thorny thickets. His size enables
him to get through where a spaniel would be frequently caught
by the ears, and his pluck makes him regardless of scratches.
The one fault that mars his usefulness in other forms of shooting
is a merit among the furze bushes, where his freedom of tongue
serves as a guide to the way rabbits are running, and if he babbles
sometimes, one soon learns the difference between that and a
genuine cry. Once out of the brake, that fox terrier must be
kept well at heels, or, still better, in leading strings, for his
tendency is to range wide with frequent yelps, disturbing every
kind of game that may happen to be about.
Now, with spaniels working close ahead, we make our way
across a stretch of short heather and reddening branches of the
ROUGH SHOOTING. 557
whortleberry, where black game delight to feed at morn and
eventide, but it is useless to look for them there now. Partridges
sometimes sun themselves on the next slope. We try for them
in vain, and make up our minds that they will be found later
among the turnips or long stubble on "steep uplands along the
coombe, where no reaping machines have ever been seen at work
yet. In the hollow yonder between two waves of brown heather
is tawny moorland grass that looks withered and dry. Let us
work that steadily with guns wide apart like skirmishers, and
always keeping a keen look-out forward. Moorland hares are
wild and fleet of foot. One is certain to start out from a tussock
presently, and if you are not ready to shoot when the chance
comes, there is little hope of bagging her. The next moment she
will have disappeared in one of the furrows she knows so well,
speeding away with ears laid back and legs outstretched, so that
a little ridge serves to hide her from view until she crosses the
crest sixty yards off. But better luck is likely to be in store for
you if the dogs are not too eager. In that grass-grown hollow
which has now the colour of an African veldt in hot summer-time,
I once saw three hares on foot at the same moment, and each fell
before the gun of a different sportsman. A minute later we
started an old dog fox from the lair in which he had been curled
up, sleeping peacefully after his midnight feast, or perhaps
waiting patiently until the rabbits should come out to feed on the
short sweet grass and wild thyme leaves that grow about the
rocky mounds of a neighbouring burrow. There is our favourite
ferreting ground, and we may be sure of a full bag on days set
apart for that sport. Towards evening we may knock over a few
of them, as with white skuts showing clearly in the fading light,
L 1
258 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
they scamper off to their holes at sound of a footstep. There is a
rustle among the grass not twenty yards off, and you see a tiny
yellow head with black stripes on it raised above the tufts. Then
it disappears suddenly, to pop up again many yards further. It
is a stoat hunting some game, and he pursues it with unfaltering
instinct. When next the head is shown a clever shot lays it low,
and then a rabbit darting across an opening from one remorseless
foe falls victim to another not less sure or deadly.
Now we work on up the coombe towards a rushy bog, and
cartridges of smaller shot are slipped into the barrels, for we
know that presently snipe will be rising in zig-zag flight from
beside the little rill that trickles slowly down there. In a few
minutes we have bagged all that can be found, and then we turn
for the four-mile walk homeward, adding two brace of partridges
to the miscellaneous collection as we cross the stubble field, and
getting another woodcock among the birches where shadows
begin to deepen, so that one can hardly see to shoot. After such
aday of pleasant exercise and varied sport the homely dinner of
a moorland manor house is better than any feast to which
fastidious gourmets can sit down in crowded cities.
NOVEMBER.
CHANTREY'S FAMOUS SHOT.
BY OSWALD CRAWFURD.
ON the 20th of November, 1829, at Holkham, in Norfolk, was
fired the most memorable shot from a gun that is recorded in the
annals of sport. On that eventful day, a little after noon, Sir
Francis Chantrey, the sculptor, then plain Mr. Chantrey, the
guest of Mr. Coke, of Holkham, was shooting in the woods of
that notable sportsman's domain when two Woodcock rose to the
great artist. He shot both dead with the first barrel.
The most unsportsmanlike of readers need hardly be told that a
Woodcock, rising in covert, gives, by reason of its rapid and twisting
flight as it threads the branchage of trees and shrubs, the most
difficult of shots. Hardly two Woodcocks fly quite alike. While
one will flit silently with the smooth wing-motion of an owl, the
next bird that rises will turn and twist with the zig-zag flight of a
snipe on the wing. Moreover, the Woodcock is a comparatively
rare bird in most parts of this country ; few men therefore can
reach the perfection of shooting at him which comes of much prac-
tice. Then, again, the Woodcock is almost always shot in thick
covert, with the chance of the pellets from the gun being hindered
or diverted by tree branches and twigs. Often six or seven wood-
L 1 2
260 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
cock or more are put up in a day's shooting late in the year,
and what with the real difficulties of hitting them and the nervous-
ness occasioned to the shooters, sometimes not a single one will
be brought to bag. To have shot the one cock bagged in the
day is an exploit and an honour ; to kill two and by the same
shot, of course, confers lasting fame. When we add to these
difficulties that Chantrey : s feat was accomplished with the clumsy
fowling-piece of sixty years ago, with a flint lock, with the often
unspherical shot of the day and the unimproved gunpowder, the
credit of the great sportsman-artist is enhanced.
Sir Francis Chantrey was a frequent guest of Mr. Coke's at
that famous centre of sporting Norfolk, Holkham, and a wooded
hill close to the house, known till then as " Quarles' New Planta-
tion," was the scene of his exploit. The shooting party consisted
of the host, the sculptor, Archdeacon Glover, and the Rev.
Spencer Stanhope. " Chantrey," says the latter gentleman, "was
standing in the gravel pit just under the Hall. I was standing
next to him, but hid from him by the bank formed by the pit.
Knowing how keen a sportsman he was, I was amazed at seeing
him run up without his gun, waving his hat over his head. ' Two
cocks at one shot ! ' burst from him."
The sculptor not only shot his birds, he carved them in marble,
and their monument is of course one of the treasures of the great
house of Holkham to this day. The next thing was to procure an
inscription, an epitaph for the birds who had attained death and
the monumental immortality which the famous sculptor had
conferred upon them. Inscriptions were invited from the men of
letters of the day, and, as it is difficult to imagine a subject that
so lends itself to easy epigram, short poems in various languages
CHANTREY'S FAMOUS SHOT. 263
Greek, Latin, Italian, French and English began to flow in ;
Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, and Lord Jeffrey, Baron Alderson,
Dr. Moberley (Head Master of Winchester), Dr. Scott (the
Master of Balliol), Peter Cunningham, Lord Tenterden, Dean
Milman, Bishop Maltby, Sir John -Williams and Archdeacon
Wrangham, are a few of the names of eminent men who
responded to the invitation for inscriptions. Lord Brougham is
credited with a Greek epigram on the happy shot and the
monument to which it led, but all his lordship did was to obtain an
epigram from Lord Wellesley. Very few of these distinguished
and learned gentlemen had wit enough to get beyond the some-
what obvious point that the man who killed the birds with his gun
conferred immortality upon them with his chisel. And it is
noteworthy that not one of the many pieces sent in was deemed
worthy of being inscribed on the monument. Bishop Maltby's
epigram in Greek, to the effect that " By one man's skill both
perished, but the life the sportsman took the artist gave," is neat
rather than classical, and more classical than correct, for the
epigrammatist has to call a modern English gentleman with a gun
" an archer ; " though to be sure he is outdone by Archdeacon
Wrangham, who declares that the sculptor slew them una sagittd,
with " one arrow " ! A better epigram is Dean Milman's :
" Uno ictu morimur simul uno vivimus ictu."
" By one stroke we died, by another lived " though, to be sure,
it takes a good many strokes to accomplish a marble bas-relief.
One of the best English epigrams on these rather obvious lines is
Mr. Bacon's, barring the two redundant syllables in the last line :
"They fly, they fall, by Chantrey's hand they die ;
Yet live, for he to life gives immortality."
264 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
The couplet has, for an epigram, a surplusage of ideas as well as
of feet, and would perhaps be better thus :
" The hand that slew, a life-in-death did give ;
Together died we, and together live."
Killing and conferring life is the gist of the epigram of Lord Jeffrey,
the great critic and Scotch Law Lord, who finds a fair pun in his
brief, and converts it very pleasantly into
" The sculptor killed them with one shot ;
And when the deed was done
He carved them first upon one toast,
And then upon one stone."
There are two circumstances, however, which none of the
epigrammatists took into account. Being in the main bookish men,
they probably never knew that to shoot two Woodcocks by design
with one shot is as nearly a physical impossibility as anything done
with a gun can well be. Men are fabled to have killed two snipe,
meaning to, with a single shot, and I can almost believe it, for
snipe are often very thick on the ground, and they are found in
open country. I have myself known a Spaniard who frequently
killed two quails with one cartridge ; but the quail is a bird of the
open, too, its flight very direct, like a partridge's, and in August it
is extremely abundant in the maize-fields of Spanish Estremadura.
The Spaniard would cover his bird as it rose at his feet, and wait
till the last moment of its being within range on the chance of
another bird crossing the line of flight, and of his hitting both.
Sir Francis honestly admitted that the double shot was a " fluke " ;
he saw but one bird when he aimed. The other circumstance,
which the epigrammatists were too polite to record, or too art-
ignorant to perceive, is that Chantrey's carved effigy of the
Woodcocks is extraordinarily second-rate as a work of art, so that
CHATREY'S FAMOUS SHOT. 265
the poor birds had to lament, not only their sudden death at the
hands of a gentleman who was not their proper enemy, an artist
that is, not a sportsman, but that the monument which was to
perpetuate their fame did them no sort of posthumous honour. All
this would probably not have gone uns~aid had the epigrammatists
not been contemporaries and flatterers. Posterity, if it were now
called upon for an epigram, might word it as follows :
Luckless our fate : a doubly luckless lot ;
A sportsman carved us whom an artist shot.
M m
NO VEMBER.
TWEED SALMON FISHING.
BY GEORGE LINDESAY.
THE angler on Canadian and Norwegian salmon rivers may boast
that there is nothing in the way of excitement to be compared to
the first rush of a heavy spring salmon on these northern streams,
and that the magnificent scenes of nature among which they flow
cannot be surpassed ; but there are few things more delightful to
the true fisherman and true lover of nature than an autumn on the
banks of the Tweed, and fortune must indeed be cruel if, during
his stay, he fail occasionally to obtain sport of a high kind.
The valley of the Tweed has incidental advantages apart from
propinquity and civilized accommodation which a man must be
cold, indeed, in fancy and dead to all spiritual emotion not to
count for something. The rock scenery of foreign salmon rivers
may be grander in point of fact much of it, in Norway at least, is
bare and even tame but where in Canada or Norway can we find
a stream so crowded with the deathless memories of great his-
torical events ? Not historical associations alone, but every knoll,
every hill-side, every ford, and every pool has a record in fiction, or
song, or ballad. These things, that the imagination of man has
created, engrave themselves on the mind more deeply than even
TWEED SALMON FISHING. 267
historical events, and the fisherman is a dull man who walks by
Dryburgh, and Melrose and Smailholme Tower, unmoved, and past
the meeting of Tweed with waters that are famous in song and
story Gala, Teviot, Leader, and Till.
Tweed is par excellence a late auturrm er early winter river so far
as salmon-fishing is concerned, and that is why we have chosen
this most famous of Scottish streams it is English, too, in part
of its course, for that matter for illustration in November.
From one cause or another the spring fishing on Tweed is not
of much account ; the glorious tints of autumn have appeared
among the Border woodlands before the best of the rod-fishing on
Tweed is in full swing, and not infrequently the unmistakable signs
of early winter have made themselves manifest in what used to be
the debatable land between the two sister countries.
Not until the I5th of September are the nets removed, and the
fish afforded a clear run to the upper waters, but even then, not
having yet acquired the cloud-compelling powers of our American
brethren, the autumn rains are often slow of coming, and October,
if not November, sees the best sport of the season. With the first
" spate" the salmon rush up the river in thousands, and when the
waters have subsided in volume, and assumed the clear brown tint
so dear to the fisherman's eye, he reaps the reward of his patience
in grand sport ! The charmingly situated little town of Kelso
may be said to be the central spot for the splendid fishing which is
obtained on Tweed in the autumn months. Close by is Floors
Castle, the seat of the Duke of Roxburgh, and his Grace's water
is second to none on Tweed, and immediately below Kelso Bridge
is the celebrated pool, '' Maxwheel," the subject of our sketch,
where the late Duke than whom no better angler ever threw a fly
M m 2
268 A. YE AX OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
killed to his own rod in one day no less than twenty-eight salmon
and grilse.
In addition to the Floorswater, about three miles in length,
which includes over twenty fine salmon-casts, the Duke owns the
fishing on the right bank of the river for another six miles as far
as Carham Burn, which forms the " March " between Scotland
and England. Among the many capital casts on this stretch of
water there is perhaps the finest salmon pool on all Tweed,
" Sprouston Dub." Within twenty miles of the sea, unless the
river be very low, the salmon have a clear and easy run through to
it, and the angler who is fortunate enough to have the Dub in his
day's beat when it is in order, and after the close of the netting
season, need go no further he will have his work cut out. Many
is the good day's sport I have enjoyed on this grand salmon-pool
in early autumn, when the air was soft and balmy, or in chill October
and in bleak November, when the ice particles "crinkled " on the
surface of the water, and the frozen drops sparkled on trie line and
fly, and when the north wind blew.
One day in especial I recall vividly. It was towards the end of
October ; there had been a series of floods, but each succeeding
so closely upon the other that the river never got into real order ;
it was always more or less " drumly," and although I had been
killing two or three fish a day, nothing great " eventuated." At
last one afternoon " She" showed signs of clearing, and during the
last hour's fishing I killed a couple of salmon and rose several others.
There were very evident signs of frost, the glass was rising and
the water falling. As we trudged homeward that evening, there-
fore, Jimmie and I opined that " the Dub '' would fish on the
morrow.
TIVEED SALMON FISHING. 271
Although we were both aware that it was in the highest degree
improbable that the fish would take until well on in the forenoon,
we were at the waterside soon after 9 a.m. making preparations
for what promised to be a great day. A more magnificent morning
I never saw ; the air was keen and perfectly still, the woodlands
stripped of their leaves by the recent storms, and the brown, ferny
undergrowth, and all nature beside, sparkled in the rays of a brilliant
sun. The way the fish were rolling about the pools was a sight to
see, some of them showing the broad silvery 'flanks of clean run
salmon, others again the brown and red of fish that had been in the
river some time. The water was perfect in colour and height, and
by ten o'clock a gentle breeze sprang up, bringing with it some
welcome clouds.
The previous half hour had been spent in trying and selecting
a casting-line worthy of the occasion, and, most important of all, in
choosing the fly. We examined dozen afterdozen of exquisitely dyed
and gorgeous insects, Doctors, silver and blue, Durham Rangers,
Stevensons, Dusty Millers and innumerable other beautiful speci-
mens of the fly-tyer's art, but at last, after a tremendous discussion
and a stiff glass of whisky for luck, we came to the conclusion that
a double Jock Scott was the thing, and armed with my nineteen
foot " Forest " and perfect tackle, we got afloat soon after 10
o'clock. In spite of their numbers, however, the fish rose very
badly and short at first, and when we got down to our piece de
resistance, the celebrated " Sprouston Dub," we had only two fish in
the boat. But by that time things had altered for the better, the
frost had gone out of the air, the breeze had freshened, and the
clouds more frequently overshadowed the sun. At the third cast
a good fish rose, and jamming the double steel hard into him, I
2 7 2 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
found myself fast in a lively clean run salmon who made the reel
shriek, and did not end his first rush until he had close on a
hundred yards of line out. But the hold sufficed, and I held on
very hard in order not to waste time, and in ten minutes Jimmie
had him in the big landing-net (the use of the gaff on Tweed, from
the 1 5th of September until the 1st of May, has very properly been
made illegal), a bright twenty-two pounder. The fun then became
fast and furious ; fish after fish rose, boldly and well. Some
escaped after an intimacy of longer or shorter duration with my fly.
but a good many were accounted for, and by two o'clock, when the
pangs of hunger began to make themselves felt, we had nine
splendid fish and a couple of grilse in the boat. So slow is the
current in this fine pool that in order to " bring the fly round ' '
properly it is necessary to begin at the foot. The boat in which
the angler stands is then slowly rowed upwards, and the motion
thus conveyed assists that of the stream, the line being cast out at
a right angle to the boat (which is, of course, kept well out of the
fishing-water), and allowed to " come round " until it reaches the
near side of the current, where it is permitted to dwell for a few
seconds. More than once I lost fish that day by withdrawing the
fly for another cast too quickly, only just pricking them ; they had
followed it in from the far side, and had waited until it assumed a
convenient position before they rose at it.
Although the work had begun to tell on my backbone, luncheon
was very quickly got over, no interval being allowed for " baccy,"
and with pipes alight we went at it again. The first fish of the
afternoon was a noble fellow of 30 Ibs., but not so bright a salmon
as most of the others. Then came three others, a grilse and a
catastrophe. The brief autumn day was fast approaching its
TWEED SALMON FISHING. 273
termination, and we were just shoving off to try our fortune once
more, when right out in mid stream I saw the rise of a fish greatly
exceeding in size anything we had seen before. Jimmie declared
his belief that it was as big as a " coo," and after an extra careful
examination of my cast I put up a Dusty Miller, in the hope of
tempting the huge salmon. But Dusty Millers were not apparently
in his line ; he would not move, and we retired discomfited, only to
return to the assault, however, with a Silver Doctor.
It was a moment of almost painful interest when the new fly
dwelt temptingly over the spot where the huge tail had last been
visible, and Jimmie's eyes seemed jumping out of their sockets.
Then there was a heavy swirl in the brown water, the line slowly
tightened, and I was into a real heavy salmon such a fish as one
gets a chance of perhaps once or twice in a lifetime. Down he
sank into the depths, and secure in his great strength, took no
notice of the vicious " strike'' with which I drove the hook into his
jaw, or for some minutes of the heavy pressure I immediately
brought to bear on him with the powerful Scotch rod. There he
lay, some ten or twelve feet beneath the surface, the line humming
with the strain, the good greenheart bending double; Jimmie and
I, with our hearts in our mouths, awaiting his first move.
It came with a vengeance ; slowly at first, and then more quickly,
as if gathering way, he began to travel against the stream, until his
progress became a mad and irresistible rush, with which Jimmie's
oars had no chance. 120 yards of line had been taken off my reel,
when at last he came to the top of the water with a mighty roll,
and turning, shot off across and down the pool. Then came the
disastrous finish. He had been on rather over twenty minutes,
when, in the middle of another grand rush, the fly came away, the
N n
274 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
rod straightened, and all was over ! Only one of the double hooks
had entered the fish, and the strain had proven too much it had
broken clean off.
Language not being equal to the occasion, both Jimmie and
I wisely held our peace ; indeed, several days passed before we
could discuss the episode with anything approaching equanimity.
We pulled ashore, the dog-cart soon turned up, and I returned
to Kelso, after one of the best day's salmon-fishing I ever had
on Tweed.
NOVEMBER.
HARE HUNTING ON THE
BRIGHTON DOWNS.
BY H. H. S. PEARSE.
FOR full enjoyment of sport, as followers of the Brighton
Harriers delight to describe it, one need be well mounted on a
quick and clever horse that can gallop up hill or down, have
steady nerves, a firm seat, good hands, and a stout heart. You
may perhaps have seen among the horsemen and horsewomen
riding out of Brighton towards a fixture on the hills, some who
did not seem to be endowed with all these qualifications ; but
they would be the last to admit that it was possible for anybody
to get on creditably with less. Their vivid descriptions of the
precipices down which they ride at headlong speed are enough
to take a listener's breath away, if he does not happen to
have learned by personal observation how small, in proportion
to the people who hunt and talk about it afterwards, is the
number of those who greatly dare. Pace is, without doubt, a
characteristic of hunting on open downs where hares are stout,
and there are neither fences, nor furrows, nor tangled undergrowth
of bracken, brambles, and sedge, to prevent hounds from viewing
their game frequently. Sport under these conditions differs very
N n 2
276 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
widely from the slower pursuit across lowlands, especially if among
them ploughed fields and dusty fallows prevail so greatly that
harriers cannot run a hundred yards in full cry without being
brought to their noses. Equally true is it that many followers
of the Brighton pack care for nothing but the pace, and ride
down steep hillsides at the risk of life and limb as if " the image
of war " were worth nothing without its dangers. The majority,
however, content themselves with excitement in a much milder
form, and keep to the ridges, well pleased if, by cool judgment
and skilful skirting, they can cut in occasionally with hounds and
enjoy a quick burst ; while the bolder few, having dashed madly
down the slippery slopes, are toiling slowly up again. Southdown
hares are not so timid as to be easily turned from their points or
driven into intricate doubles at the sight of horsemen galloping
hither and thither ; but one can remember how in old days
many a good run was spoilt by eager riders pressing too closely
upon the scent, or by scores of skirters foiling it in their anxiety to
be with the pack for a few brief minutes. One master used rather
to encourage wildness by his own example. Mr. Hugh Gorringe
has, however, changed all that, and will have his hounds hunted
on scientific principles or not at all. Hard riders and skirters
alike are kept under due control, and so a day with the Brighton
Harriers, instead of degenerating into a series of quick scurries
that would make hounds as wild as their followers, becomes a
very pleasant experience, in which old-fashioned sticklers for
every formality, not less than the lovers of pace, will take
delight. If fortunate in the selection of a good fixture, and
enthusiastic enough to ride with the hounds wherever they run,
a stranger will find his day's sport quite as much as horse or
HARE HUNTING ON THE BRIGHTON DOWNS. 277
man can get through without fatigue, and neither will care for
a parade on the King's^Road afterwards, though that is apparently
the end to which a good many frequenters of Brighton who
don hunting costume direct their ambition.
A fashionable fixture with these harriers is in many respects
unlike any other gathering of hunting men and women in
England. Not even the Queen's buckhounds on their opening
day at Salt Hill attract such a variety of followers as may be
seen scampering over the South Down hills in pursuit of health
and sport. The rough element is, however, generally con-
spicuous by its absence, and the riders, if not all distinguished
for grace or skill, are on the whole harmless. The Devil's Punch
Bowl is one of their favourite trysting places, because there
the attractions of hunting and of a monster picnic may be
combined. To see the motley cavalcade wending its way over
the hills when spring sunshine tempts all Brighton folk that
way, one might imagine that the whole population had turned
out to keep some time-honoured festival. Along the ridges
that command views down precipitous steeps northward and
across a wide expanse of green waves in other directions, vehicles
of every make and shape are sure to be ranged in line. Round
the pack crowds of horsemen gather so closely that the kennel
huntsman is kept in a state of perpetual anxiety lest some of
his favourites may be kicked or trampled by the restless hoofs,
and nobody is so glad as he when the master waves a signal
for the hounds to begin drawing. There are some among the
hundreds on horseback who do not welcome the call to action
quite so joyously. They have begun to realize the possibility
of difference between themselves and their impetuous steeds,
278 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
who, knowing all about this business, are eager to play a
conspicuous part in the first rush. Doubts as to whether man or
horse may be master are a little discomforting when the chase
seems likely to lead down hillsides steep as the roof of a house.
The time comes quickly for a solution of such questions. In
the nearest gorse brake, or in a patch of turnips beyond, the
hare has been lying snugly concealed, yet wide awake to all
the sounds of bustle round about. So much on the alert is he
that he does not wait to be found by the pack or ignominiously
whipped out of his form. Confident in the possession of speed
and cunning, he is ready to try conclusions with the enemies
whom he has perhaps beaten by some clever ruse more than
once before. A March hare is proverbially wild, and the bright
sunshine, or a keen, cold breeze in this fickle month, will often
befriend him. Once well away, he can show the clamorous
pack his heels and bid them defiance for an hour at least, if he
does not escape them altogether. But it is not so easy to get away.
The first note of hound music, or a shrill " See ! Ho ! " uttered
in quavering treble by some spectator who does not know the
rules of the game, is certain to let loose the impatient horsemen in
a rush which no mandate of master, or entreaty on the part of
his self-elected deputies, can restrain. The timid are carried
along in that rush by the bold, and for a time it looks as if
everybody were trying his utmost to catch the hare without the
aid of hounds. But those who still hold command of their
horses find discretion the better part of valour very quickly.
The hare, by a dexterous turn, dodges the moving maze of hoofs
and dashes down a hillside steeper than many care to risk
descending. The pack swings round quickly on the line only
is
1
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c
~
a
S
HARE HUNTING ON THE BRIGHTON DOWNS. 281
just in time to escape destruction at the feet of some hot-
tempered steeds whose riders have lost all control, and then
there is a sudden halt of the main body, which by one impulse
comes to a standstill on the verge of that forbidding declivity. A
few bold riders push through the throng, and, with horses well in
hand, follow the lead of hounds. The less experienced try going
down aslant the slope, until they discover how risky that crab-like
motion is ; but two or three who have hunted over these downs
from boyhood go straight, so that their nimble steeds with
cautious bounds may find firm footing at every stride. They go
slowly at first, but weight and impetus begin to tell, until every
horse seems to roll like a ball, with a speed that carries him
far across the rounded fields below. It is not always safe to
stay on the ridge in expectation of the hare coming back, as the
timid and too clever discover when they hear the chase rolling
away from them in the distance. Over a brook and stretches of
level meadow, beyond, the hounds speed on, followed by no
more than half-a-dozen riders ; into a belt of copse, then out
again, and run wide rings across enclosed fields, where stiff
fences give the fortunate few a merry time. Finding no safe
refuge in woodland, hedge, or sheltered hollow, the hare tries at
length to make for a haven of rest on the hills, but strength
failing before that can be reached, he falls into the jaws of his
relentless pursuers, and people waiting on the ridge see only
the end of a good run. Not very often does this happen. More
frequently hares found in the lowlands take at once to some
favourite point on the- hills, and if native there they seldom
leave high ground except for a few minutes, and with the evident
object of shaking off pursuit on the steep ascents as they come
o o
282 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
back again. There is method in every twist that a cunning
hare makes, and if on the South Downs they run straight more
frequently than in other countries sometimes making a point
of three or four miles as the crow flies it is not because they
lack the subtlety that distinguishes their race elsewhere, but
rather because the Brighton Harriers push their game along
too fast for shifts and subterfuges to be of any avail.'
NOVEMBER.
DUCK-SHOOTING- ON THE
BROADS.
BY OSWALD CRAWFURD.
All ducks are grey in the dark, might pass as a proverb with the
flight-shooter who practises his sport at nightfall, or with the punt-
shooter who works when the deeper shades of night are on him,
and at times can see so little of the form and colour of his quarry
that he points his great punt-gun towards, and fires at the mere
sound of feeding wild-fowl. The shooter by daylight, however,
needs to be something of a field naturalist, and to know a mallard
or a pintail from a scaup, a smew, or a merganser. If he fail to
distinguish his Ducks, he may easily fill his game-bag with some of
the most uneatable of winged creatures.
Ducks are divided, not so much by the naturalist as by the sports-
man, into two distinct kinds the diving Ducks, or those which
seek their food at the bottom of the water ; and the non-divers, or
those which only dip their heads beneath the water for food, but
not their bodies ; or, if they dive, dive but a little way down. The
divers seem to find some very questionable food in the muddy
depths, for the flesh of nearly all of them is fishy in taste, tough,
oily, and unfit for food. Among the divers are the pochard, the
golden dye, the different kind of scoters, together with the smew,
scaup, and merganser above mentioned. These Ducks are all, as a
rule, frequenters of the sea, and all except the pochard nearly un-
002
284 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
eatable ; while the surface-feeding Ducks who are, if I mistake not,
eaters of vegetable matter only haunt the sea only occasionally,
and love best the river, the reedy pool, and the marsh. The
surface-feeding ducks comprise the mallard, or common wild duck,
the teal, shoveller and garganey, the pintail and the widgeon all
birds that give excellent sport in the marsh and by the river-side,
and make an excellent dish in the kitchen. From this latter point
of view, it may be remarked that they probably owe their agreeable
flavour, not so much to any intrinsic culinary virtue of their own, as
to the fact that they feed on the wholesome weeds that grow in
fresh water ; while the non-cookable fowl feed among the fishy,
briny slime of the sea-bottom. I n proof of which it may be observed
that the diving pochard is only good to eat when he resorts to fresh
water, and then he is very good ; while the non-diving widgeon
loses all fitness for the spit or oven when he goes to sea, as he is
far too fond of doing.
There is no easier bird to approach in his inland haunts and
none easier to kill flying, and none better to cook and eat than the
common Wild Duck. All this is particularly the case if he be found
in some such rich inland feeding-grounds as our Norfolk Broads.
Here a succession of shallow lakes, rich in all the water-weeds that
make good duck-food, are margined with reeds and rushes, and
interspersed with patches of land that are seldom dry enough to
grow aught but the osier and the alder. Through this paradise
for the Duck and his human enemy, the shooter may wander in his
punt passing quietly through the dividing reeds, and entering one
after the other of these silent pools. Every here and there he will
come unseen into the midst of companies of mallards, teals, pintails
and gadwalls ; and get the best of sport and the easiest of shots.
NOVEMBER.
COURSING.
Bv AUBYN TREVOR-BATTYE.
IT is not strange that the votaries of coursing should assert
emphatically, as so many of them do, that England holds no other
sport so fine. The marvellous speed of the greyhound is in itself
sufficient to account for this. It is said I believe with truth
that the Cheetah (Chita), or hunting leopard, can for a short dis-
tance surpass the greyhound on a turn of speed. But it is, is it not,
matter of history that the famous racehorse, Flying Childers, was
beaten by a Greyhound ? And even now there are rumours again
of a match impending between a champion of either kind. But
matches of this sort are very hard to bring fairly off. It is almost
impossible, under these circumstances, to ensure your Greyhound
running "all it knows." The writer personally will never believe
that the best racehorse that ever was foaled could beat a crack
Greyhound, if the Greyhound meant to win.
With the exception of the bulldog, whose use has passed away,
the Greyhound, as a specialized type of domestic animal, stands
quite alone. There is far more difference between a Greyhound
and any other form of sporting dog the deerhound excepted
than between the closest bred racer and the clumsiest cart horse
that ever pulled a plough.
288 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
Those who are not personally interested in coursing have
no idea of the forethought, care, and anxiety that is implied by a
dog being fit to win in any company. The breeding itself entails
a knowledge of points, structure, performances, and ancestral cha-
racteristics, a power of selection partly intuitive and partly learnt,
that comparatively few men possess. The treatment of puppies
and the training of " saplings " are provinces in themselves upon
which as much care is lavished as in the preparation of a prince
for the duties of a throne. A pup may have to be brought up " on
the bottle," it may have to be reared on Dr. Ridge's food, and
very carefully must it be kept from draught and damp, and from
anything that would hurt it. It must, as it grows older, have just
so much freedom as will develop it to the uttermost, but not so
much that it is ever left to look after itself. Above all it must
never be chained up, for that will bring bowed legs and many other
ills. When the puppies called saplings till they have passed their
first season are at exercise or training, everything must be
avoided that can hurt their feet, such as flinty ground or stubble
fields. On the other hand, the more road exercise they can have
the better, for this hardens their feet and makes the pads firm.
Nor is it wise to let them do much galloping up hill, for even
though the gradient be slight this will tend to spoil the dog's
shoulders and throw him out of form.
The Greyhound was not always trained with such care as now,
for match coursing is a practice of comparatively recent growth.
The first coursing society was formed, we are told, by Lord
Orford, at Swaffham, in 17/6, and this was followed, at varying
intervals, by several others, till 1825 saw the birth of the
Altcar Club, and 1836 the establishment of the Waterloo Cup.
p p
COURSING. 291
But the year 1876 was marked by the introduction of quite a
new feature in coursing history, and one which it is impossible to
leave unnoticed here. I refer, of course, to " enclosed " coursing
meetings. It has been said, I know not with what truth, that the
idea of the Plumpton enclosure, the earliest made, was suggested
by the anticipation of the Hares and Rabbits Bill, and the
consequent decrease in the supply of hares that was foreseen.
This Bill has been the death-blow to many meetings, but that the
enclosed meetings were no wise alternative is seen from the fact
that Plumpton, Gosforth, and all the others are numbered with the
past, excepting, I believe, two, one of which is Haydock, the
scene of Fullerton's early laurels. The objection to coursing in
an enclosure rests on two grounds, sentimental and practical.
Sentimental, because there is something in the very idea of crowd-
ing hares together in a patch of covert and then letting them out
one by one to be hunted between wire walls, however wide apart,
that is opposed to the breezy spirit of true sport ; and practical
because, being always over the same change of ground, and
always on the whole in one direction, it taught the dogs to run
cunning and develop too much calculation. As against this it has,
no doubt, tended to give the Greyhound of to-day a finer turn of
speed. In the old days in quite the old days speed was every-
thing. The dog that first caught the hare won. But there was to
come a time when reflection showed that if there was one incident
more than another in a course that turned on chance, it was the
kill, and thus they came to reckoning points. And of these
points, as Mr. Thacker says, "a go-bye, a cote, a turn, a wrench,
a tripping, a jerking, or a kill of merit may be called the
fundamental ones," and so they may be to-day, excepting that
p p 2
292 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
" cote " has dropped out, because it was a term of confusion, and
" jerking " is lost in -the rest.
And now that we are fairly out upon the flats, the story of just
one course may show how the points come in, though we must
tell it very shortly because of want of space.
Down on an Essex farm a farmer is out with his boys, trying, in
view of a local meeting, two young dogs, a brindle and a black.
The scene is one of those large grass flats cut up by dykes in
all directions, crossed by planks and waggon-ways, and widening
down to the tidal marshes where the wild ducks come to feed.
A strong hare is started, and presently the greyhounds are
slipped. Somehow the brindle is quicker on his legs, and puts a
good clear length between himself and his rival before the other
is well under way. But the black is not to be denied, and running
gamely, fairly distances the brindle and is soon a length ahead.
This gain in a straight run is the " go-bye," and scores two ; and
now the dogs are close upon their hare. And the brindle, running
on the right, pushes the hare so close that she swerves a bit away,
and the brindle scores a "wrench," in value half a point. But
that wrench, slight as it is, has favoured the black, who, running
finely in, fairly turns the hare at a right angle and almost into the
brindle's jaws. This is the " turn," and counts one.
And so the chase goes on with varying chances till presently
the hare, with the Greyhound on the top of her, leaps at a half-dry
dyke. Over goes the brindle and lands clear. The black is not
so fortunate, just dropping short to emerge dripping wet and
stand with her rival looking stupidly around, for where is the hare ?
By a device not seldom seen she has jumped short, and doubled
in under the culvert of the bridge. And there, if she lies still, the
COURSING. 293
black and the brindle may both go hang, for they are not smell-
dogs but only gazehounds, and are now "unsighted," to use the
proper term.
There is neither trip nor kill "this journey," for there was no one
there to see. Nobody, that is excepting the artist who drew the
illustration to this chapter.
NOVEMBER.
ROE SHOOTING.
BY J. MORAY BROWN.
THE roe (Capreolus capria) is the smallest of the three species
of deer indigenous to the British Isles, the male being only
somewhat over two feet in height. The colour of the roe-deer
varies considerably with the season of the year, being reddish
during the summer, and changing to slaty, bluish grey as winter
approaches, while the coat becomes very thick.
Shall I describe the haunts of roe-deer as amid the wild,
romantic glens of the North, where from the tangled brown
heather, vivid green birch-trees, with their delicate, silvery barked
stems, uprear their heads ; and where rock, mountain, and water
combine to render the scenery romantic and vivid ? Hardly ;
for. though you may, and indeed often will, find roe-deer amid
such surroundings, you will more often meet with them in sombre
pine-woods, or among plantations of young fir and oak, and
on the borderland, between cultivation and the barren forest
region. There you may often see them feeding on young clover
or oats, and if you be a naturalist as well as a sportsman, you
will derive no small pleasure from watching their movements,
and noting how the fastidious, graceful little deer wander hither
ROE SHOOTING. 295
and thither, nibbling the tender shoots of the wild rose and
bramble that clothe the wood fences ; you will often see them
play sad havoc with the tops of young oak-trees, a habit that
has given them a bad character for destructiveness with foresters.
Until the leaves fall, oak woods -are favourite resorts of
roe-deer ; then, once the branches are bared by frost and wind,
they quit these for fir plantations, as affording better shelter and
more quiet. Roe, like other deer, shed their horns, and it is
generally the first week in April before the new growth is clear of
velvet. In this respect, however, they vary with seasons, being
more backward some years than in others ; but in regard to
fitness for food, they can hardly be said to be in condition till
November, and they are at their best about the end of December
and during January.
Compared with deer-stalking, roe shooting is naturally inferior
as a sport, for the quarry is more insignificant, and its surroundings
are different ; yet it may be made a very effective substitute if
the habits of the animal be studied, for it will be found in some
methods of pursuit a sufficient test of that knowledge of woodcraft
which is the very essence of sport.
Roe-deer shooting may be followed under various conditions
and in various ways. They may be stalked, beaten for, or
hunted by a hound or hounds, and so driven to the guns posted
in " passes," for roe-deer, like hares, have their regular runs.
In Germany, indeed, another method obtains, viz. " calling "
the bucks during the rutting season in July, when the roe
forgets and forgoes his generally cautious habits, but this method
rightly finds no favour with the British sportsman, and when
shot at this season the animal is nearly worthless for food.
296 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
Let us now glance at one of the methods of pursuit usually
employed in Scotland, for that is nowadays their main habitat,
though roe are still fairly abundant in parts of Dorsetshire and
Somersetshire (I remember seeing no less than seven one day
when hunting with the Cattistock hounds a few years ago).
As stalking roe-deer will most commend itself as a form of
pursuit to him who loves to kill his game unaided, we will
describe that form of sport. But it is not to be imagined that
there will be any spying the ground, any great number of miles to
be traversed, any great exertions, or any stalker to take you
up to your game, and, after making you assume every undignified
attitude and contortion of which the human body is capable,
finally put a rifle into your hand and tell you to " tak' time."
Our sport will perhaps be more prosaic, less fatiguing, and yet
hardly less satisfactory, and if by our own individual skill and
observation we attain our object to wit, the shooting of a roe-
buck with a good head we shall feel nearly as proud as the
slayer of a " muckle hart."
We will suppose you are on suitable ground, a stretch of beech,
oak and fir forest, with young plantations trending up to some
mountain ridge, where the young trees get smaller in growth the
higher the altitude ; the day a bright crisp one towards the end of
November, and the afternoon at your disposal. Your weapon a
Holland's rook rifle or a Winchester repeater the latter perhaps
for choice. We will suppose you know your ground, and that
during the summer and autumn months you will have made
yourself acquainted with the habits of your game noticed their
" runs," observed where they go to feed, and that you have
marked some trees round which the roe are in the habit of
ROE SHOOTING. 299
playing. Under such trees, the ground will be found cut up
and trodden down just as a field is where horses have been
exercised. First you will stroll through a stretch of woodland
where the dark pines, yellowing larches and russet beeches
give colour to the scene ; and as~ you go, you will do well to
cast ever and anon a glance upon the soft spots in the ride,
in order that you may ascertain if roe are still about in the
woods. You can see no signs, so, climbing the wall of loose
stones that surrounds the wood, starting a rabbit as you do so,
you cross some grass-fields where a few sheep and cattle are
feeding, then strike across a furzy, heather-grown common, and
finally reach a narrow strip of young fir-trees, which, some
five hundred yards further on, joins a large plantation. There
will probably be some four hundred acres of covert, and it
would appear that looking for roe-deer here would be much
like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. But now your
woodcraft comes into play. You will search the runs of the
deer, noting if tracks be fresh, and in which direction they lead ;
then, too, you will perhaps remember a certain patch of wild roses
and brambles that you have noted as a favourite feeding spot,
and so you will form your plan of campaign. Several passes
or runs have been examined with no result, till in a bare, moist
spot in the ride along which you are walking a fresh slot
arrests your attention. There is no mistaking the sign, for a
blade of broad, coarse grass has been partly trodden in, and, from
where the roe-deer's hoof has crushed it, the sap is still exuding.
Yes, it is fresh enough, and your deer, probably not ten minutes
in front of you, is heading towards a patch of oats you know of,
green still, and unlikely ever to be harvested. You hurry on,
Q q 2
300
A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
till, as you turn a corner, you come suddenly on a doe and her
two well-grown, large-eyed fawns. A moment they stand and
stare at you, then bound into the covert, showing the white
patch on their quarters as they go, and luckily in the direction
opposite to that which you are taking. For half-a-minute you
catch a faint sound of their progress, and then all is still. Now
you breathe freely ; ten to one they will not alarm the buck,
but the incident has made you cautious. At length you near
the spot where you expect to find your game ; the wind, what
there is of it, is blowing in your face, and the boundary fence is
only some twenty yards in front. Lie down now, and worm your
way like a snake through the tangled heather, and underneath
the young fir-trees, creep on silently and carefully, and when
the fence is reached, peer cautiously through the straggling gorse-
bush that surmounts the dyke.
Ah ! there is the buck, right out in the open, for most of the crop
round the outer edge of the field has been beaten flat by wind and
rain. Ever and anon he raises his head suspiciously. But he is a
good hundred and fifty yards distant, and stern on. It will not do
to risk a shot ; he has too good a head for that, and a stern shot
is not sportsmanlike. Further on, and to his and your right, the
fir-trees grow higher. A deep ditch, too, runs under the dyke, and
on the covert side ; so you creep back, make a wide detoitr } run up
one path and down another, and finally reach the ditch, up which
you creep, crouching till you get to a patch of tall heather growing
on the bank. Now, look ! A glow of satisfaction pervades you as
you have ocular proof that your tactics have been successful, your
judgment correct; for there, only some fifty yards away, is the roe-
buck, still feeding, and with no suspicion of your presence. It
ROE SHOOTING. 3i
seems a sin to slay him, and now that the moment for which you
have toiled has come, you would almost wish it had not. But the
hunter instinct prevails, the deed has to be done and then that
fine pair of horns ! You push your rifle over the bank, give a low
whistle, and as the buck raises his "head, aim at his neck just in
front of the shoulder and press the trigger. He makes a wild
bound forward and rolls over, dead. Success is yours ; those
gracefully-shaped, spiked, and rugged horns will be a memento of
sylvan sport, and you won't forget the venison, for cotelettes de
c/ievreuil with " rowan " jelly is a dish by no means to be
despised.
DECEMBER.
DECEMBER SPORT IN THE
HIGHLANDS.
BY GEORGE LINDESAY.
THE last leaves of departed autumn have long mingled with the
dead fern and undergrowth of the woods and coverts ; and the rod,
which has for so long held its own, has been finally laid aside for
the gun. Yet it seems but yesterday when, beneath the shadow of
the " Hawks' Rock," I killed the last salmon of the season, with
wily old Rob, the cleverest fisherman and poacher in all the country
side, to gaff it. The pool was in good order, but owing to the
number of dead leaves floating down, not a fish would move ; time
pressed, I was under a promise to shoot some distance off by noon,
and having tried three or four good patterns in vain, was about to
give up, when after sundry dives into the recesses of a most ancient
volume, Rob fished out an insect of strange aspect. Obedient to
the expert's mandate, I proceeded to fish the pool down once more,
and at the fifth or sixth throw was fast in a twelve-pounder, which
formed no unwelcome addition to our dinner that night, after a hard
afternoon's shooting.
But now the salmon are intent on matters domestic ; they have
ceased to interest, but we have plenty to do without them. The
DECEMBER SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS. 303
grouse have packed long ago, and are as wild as hawks ; but even
now, within a few days of the close of the season, odd birds are to
be picked up on the moor after a frosty night, when the sun
comes out bright and warm ; the woodcock, too, have arrived, and
are to be found here and there throughout the coverts and coppices,
while on the tracts of heather-covered and tussocky bog, snipe are
fairly numerous, and duck not unknown.
To-day, Jack and I are going to have a day on our own hook,
just to see what we can do in the shape of a mixture ; and, accom-
panied only by Ross, the keeper, and a single gillie, we sally forth
as soon as we have swallowed an eight o'clock breakfast. A mag-
nificent morning; yesterday there was a slight fall of snow, and
during the night a hard black frost ; the snow lies dry an inch or
so deep upon the frozen ground, and in feathery festoons decks
the branches of the pine-trees ; beyond the line of dark woods, the
blue waters of the Cromartie Firth ripple in the early breeze, and
a brilliant sun lights up the wintry scene. Within a couple of
hundred yards of the house, and before steady-going, painstaking
old Fan, the retriever, has quite got into trim, up jumps a lively
coney among our feet, and receives three hasty barrels with
apparent enjoyment, but the fourth enables Fan to bring it back
to us in triumph, grunting and puffing with delight. Now we
approach the line of a tiny streamlet, which here finds its way
through the broad strip of open covert we are beating. Fan knows
as well as we do that there should be a cock or two about, and acts
accordingly. Carefully the old bitch feathers along among the
frozen fern and undergrowth which border the little watercourse,
her grey muzzle close to the ground, her black and curly tail
quivering with excitement " Mark cock " comes from my left, and
304 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
one brown bird falls to Jack's gun within twenty paces of where I
stand, while another, rising to the report, falls to my first barrel.
Two woodcocks for two cartridges, a real good beginning !
Beyond the brook there is a mile or so of broken sandy hillocks
interspersed with sundry bare-looking and stunted pines ; here the
rabbits are numerous, giving us some pretty sport and Fan much
excitement, but eight bunnies only are added to the gillie's bag
before we reach the strip of thick juniper and tall heather which
runs along the foot of the abrupt ascent to the moor. This
generally contains a blackcock or two, and as we enter it I have
the luck to bring down, with a desperately long shot, a magnificent
old bird in full plumage, which Fan retrieves, after a somewhat
lengthy pursuit, one wing only being broken. Presently from under
her nose there bounds away a great brown hare, looking nearly as
big as a donkey and a good deal fatter, but she is not fast enough,
and Jack stops her with his second barrel just as she tops a bank
of peat. This hill-side, or " face," extends for a distance of about
a couple of miles, and is really a capital bit of shooting, but it
wants, at least, six guns in line to do it justice, the ground being
extremely rough, and requiring close work, so we leave it. alone for
the time being. Now we have reached the top ; before us the
brown moors stretch away as far as the eye can reach, and behind
us at our feet lies a great tract of " Easter Ross," with its rich farm-
lands, its noble woods, and its firth-washed shores.
A pair of very steady setters are now let loose, and Fan takes
their place in the leash, not ill-satisfied with her morning's work
apparently, and not averse to a rest, for she knows quite well it will
not be long before her services are again brought into requisition.
"There they go," " Hang the grouse," " Next parish," "Steady,
R r
DECEMBER SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS. 307
Don," are the remarks, as a great pack of birds get up at least 200
yards off, and disappear over a heathery brow. As we approach
the spot where they had been, the dogs crouch low and come to a
dead set close together. " Gone away, Don ! Gone away, Paddy !
Hold up!" The words are hardly- out of Ross's mouth, when up
gets a splendid old cock within easy shot, promptly receives two
barrels, and is stone-dead before he reaches the heather. Fan is
allowed to retrieve the bird, which she deposits at our feet without
ruffling a feather, and returns to Ross's heel radiant and quite
pleased with her sleek, curly self. In some broken ground we are
fortunate in surprising a few single birds, occupied no doubt in the
mysteries of a grouse's toilet and enjoying the warmth of the sun ;
there we bag four brace by dint of our choke-bores, and curving
back towards another part of the " face," sit down to lunch, Jack
bowling over a white hare on the way with a regular eye-opener
ninety paces, it turned out.
We feast our eyes upon the beautiful landscape spread out before
us, but I fear our chief interests are centred in exploiting the
contents of a certain grouse and woodcock pie, and arranging the
programme for the afternoon. Half-an-hour is all we can allow
ourselves, and at the end of that space of time there is nothing left,
either of the pie or of a substantial chunk of roast mutton. A liberal
allowance of whisky is handed round, the gillie takes the setters in
leash, and preceded by Fan, we resume operations on a clump of
very thick covert, wherein pheasants are sometimes found. Very
shortly a hen gets up, but we let her off ; we get a few snap-
shots at rabbits, but the covert is too close, and we only get a
single bunny, and are beginning to regret the clemency extended
to the hen, when from a thick clump of bracken a great cock
K r 2
3 o8 A YEAR OF SFORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
pheasant rises with an amazing commotion. Although in the
agonies of a struggle through a horribly tough bit of juniper, I let
go, and have the pleasure of seeing the greater portion of the bird's
tail carried away by the shot, and its owner departing but little the
worse ; then comes the report of Jack's gun, and I have hardly
realized the fact that I have gone through the interesting process
of having my "eye wiped," when up gets another "long-tail,"
which comes down to my first barrel, spread-eagle fashion. Two or
three more hens are let off, a woodcock causes the discharge of
four cartridges, which do not appear to inconvenience it in the
least, and we make our way to the " Bog," an extensive tract of
moorland interspersed with patches of turnip, clumps of stunted
pine-trees, and bits of marsh.
A snipe is the first thing added to the bag, and having marked
down another, I am poking about for it in a very wet bit when a
fine mallard rises. My first barrel brings down the duck and puts
up the snipe, which falls to my second shot, altogether a useful
right and left. The first patch of turnip we enter is drawn a blank,
but in the second a covey of partridges get up, out of which Jack
knocks over a brace, and a third, that had sat close, later on.
Then we drop upon no less than three cock in one spot, but only
get two of them, the third, although wounded, succeeding in eluding
Fan's best efforts to recover. These are followed by sundry snipe,
seven of which, and another splendid mallard, are accounted
for in rapid succession. But the short winter's day is draw-
ing to a close, the sun is setting in a frosty haze, and although
the gymnastics necessitated by our perambulations in the " Bog "
have made us warm, the air strikes keen and chill. We are further
warned that it is high time to give up by the outrageous muddle
DECEMBER SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS. 309
we make over an old blackcock about the size of a house, which
rises within very easy shot and gets away scot-free.
And so in the fast waning light we turn toward home, well satis-
fied with our day's winter shooting, for have we not bagged no
fewer than ten different sorts ? ArTd'even now all is not absolutely
over, for as in deep shadow we are skirting a piece of woodland, a
shot from Jack's gun rings out sharp and clear on the still air, Fan
rushes forward and we discover a roe-buck with a very decent head
indeed lying stone-dead among the bracken. Though not a very
big one, our bag shows a mixture that it would be hard to beat else-
where in Scotland. Four woodcock, one blackcock, nine grouse,
two pheasants, three partridges, two ducks, nine snipe, one brown
and one white hare, ten rabbits, and last, but not least, a roe-buck.
Old Ross for once condescends to admit that we shot decently
well, but does not forget to modify his praise by some strong
expressions regarding that last blackcock we missed !
DECEMBER.
A COCK DRIVE IN SCOTLAND.
BY GEORGE LINDESAV.
A MONTH of hard frost had brought in a lot of cock, of whose
presence we had been well assured at sundry of our neighbour's
shoots, and we determined during the last week in January, with
the assistance of these friends, to have a final drive in the Birch
Wood.
It is ga.m. on the day fixed. All have arrived, some with rather
rubicund visages after the early drive through the frosty air, but all
keen as mustard. The only dog guest is my friend Frank R -'s
inseparable companion, " Abe," a huge, black, curly-coated retriever
of great strength, whose unerring sense of smell is only equalled
by the extreme delicacy with which he mouths his birds, and his
intense good nature. Doses, varying in quantity, of ginger-brandy
having been indulged in and pipes lit up, we march to the scene of
our day's sport. Everything is as hard as iron. As we tramp along
the woodland path our steps ring out with metallic sound. Im-
printed on the thin layer of snow, which covers the ground, are the
tracks of roe-deer, hares, and of wild birds ; while here and there
the hoar-frost, which everywhere sheaths the trees and undergrowth
with its glistening white needles, has been shaken off a clump of
A COCK DRIVE IN SCOTLAND. 3 u
juniper or faded fern by a blackcock or pheasant. Just as we
emerge on to the open piece of rough bog, which separates the bit
of covert from the slope on which stands the Birch Wood, the first
cock gets up, is saluted by every member of the party with at
least one barrel, and departs scathless.
The Birch Wood is a wonderful place for wild game, and
especially good for woodcock, but the walking is diabolical. It is
a strip of wood pretty nearly a mile in length, planted on a steep
slope, the surface of which is covered with huge boulders, rocks,
and debris. These are, more or less, overgrown with moss, fern,
and juniper, while over all there is a thick growth of birch.
From this it will be understood that progress, even in winter,
through this fine piece of covert, is necessarily very slow, and that
close and careful beating is required. When a large party is
assembled we do it in one beat, but on this occasion " we are
seven " only, and must make two bites of it, while even then the
outskirts next the moor will not be quite thoroughly worked. Two
guns are sent forward to the first ride, accompanied by the under-
keeper and a retriever, then Ross, having marshalled us in a line, a
gillie between each, gives the word, and we enter the sacred
precincts of the Birch Wood. The fun is not long of beginning-
The rabbit-holes have been stopped as much as possible ; the
owners rush frantically about, causing the expenditure of no small
amount of powder ; several pheasants rise and fall, and within five
minutes of the beginning of the beat there comes from my right the
welcome cry of " Mark cock," and a single shot from the same
quarter brings the bird down. Then from my left there comes the
same cry, accompanied by the rapid discharge of two barrels. A
brown bird glides swiftly between two birch trees in front of me,
3 i2 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
. and in a twinkling " Fan " has brought me my first cock of the day,
to the old lady's infinite satisfaction.
Several shots ahead of us announce that game has gone forward,
and that the men in the ride are not idle, while the reiterated cry
of " Mark cock" tells that there is no lack of the birds.
On emerging in the ride, preparatory to a fresh start, all show
symptoms of a struggle ; two of us confess to having come sur-
prising croppers ; the face of one man is bleeding freely, the result
of too close contact with a bramble-bush, and everybody is more
or less smothered with snow and hoar-frost. These, however, are
very minor griefs, and the same two guns having been again sent
forward, and the line of guns and beaters re-arranged, we once
more start on our necessarily slow and somewhat difficult march.
As I am endeavouring to cross a collection of large moss-covered
boulders, the nails of my shooting-boots slip on a bit of smooth
rock, and, to the astonishment of my next neighbour, I disappear
from mortal gaze in a snow-filled cavity, just as a coney, alarmed
at my sudden advent, bolts out of it. With a little help from a
gillie, I emerge from my temporary retreat, smothered in snow and
with a good many aches about the legs, but thankful there are no
bones broken ; whisky is applied internally with manifest success,
and again we urge on our somewhat erratic career. In this bit the
thickness of the covert makes the bird-shooting very hard, and the
irregularities of the ground contribute materially to the escape of
the rabbits ; still we do not let everything off, and several woodcock
and a few conies are added to the general bag. The last beat
before lunch is expected to be the best, as a good deal of game
is believed to have gone on ; instead of only two guns, therefore,
three are sent forward to take their stand at the extreme end of the
A COCK DRIVE IN SCOTLAND. 313
wood, and the shrill whistle announcing that they are in position
having been sounded, we and the beaters and dogs again advance.
This proves a hot bit of shooting, and the walking is better ; up
gets a great " gollaring " cock pheasant close in front of the beater
on my right, and therefore within easy shot of my nearest neigh-
bour or myself. Thinking he is bound to take it, I refrain from
shooting, so does he, and away goes the bird back over our heads
in triumph. "Why on earth didn't you shoot that pheasant?"
bawls one. But two more of the escaped one's friends getting
up at that moment pretty handy, render reply to this question
unnecessary for the time, and the argument is deferred, sine die.
As we get on to the end of the wood, a number of cock are flying
about, a good many rabbits are crossing and re-crossing the wood,
and the firing from the men with the beaters is very sharp ; but I
notice that both fur and feather show a strong disinclination for the
open, and for the most part break back or upwards to the unbeaten
portion of the wood. The consequence is that when at length \ve
emerge from its depths we are saluted with sundry inquiries and
remarks by the three sportsmen who had been placed as stops.
" What the deuce had we all been firing at ? " "A nice noise
you've been making, certainly ! '' "I suppose you'll want more
carts ! " and so on.
But the morning's work has just put a keen edge on our appetites
which will admit of no delay, and we immediately proceed to a
small "bothy," where on such occasions as the present we are in
the habit of indulging in the luxury of a hot lunch. There is a
gigantic fire of turf burning in the little cottage, on which rests an
immense iron vessel, crammed with Irish stew, the finest dish possi-
ble for luncheon on a cold winter's day, and of that Irish stew, mira-
s s
314 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
culous though it may seem, not one little bite or sup will remain
in half-an-hour ! No one thinks of drinking anything but whisky ;
indeed, it would be a farce to suggest any other fluid, and of this
there is a supply which, anywhere but in Scotland, might be con-
sidered superabundant. I much doubt, however, if any goes back
home again. Then, just when we are feeling a bit lazy, and the
pipes are in full blast, it is announced that time is up. Like their
masters, the dogs stretch their stiffened limbs, the keepers and
gillies have a final nip, and soon all are in their places for beating
the upper portion of the Birch Wood, back to the end where we
began in the morning. There is a general consensus of opinion
that, instead of sending guns forward, the line should be extended
by one making his way along the rough face above the wood and
another along the extreme edge thereof. For this last duty I am
detailed, and an enthusiastic sportsman belonging to the Clan
Mackenzie scrambles up the rocks and takes up his position on my
right.
But once more the fun becomes general. Woodcock dart
swiftly among the trees, while rabbits fly for refuge among the rocks
on the face, and are freely slated by my neighbour and myself,
while an occasional rocketing pheasant gives variety to the bag.
By the time the final beat is ended it is close on four o'clock,
and the light is fading fast ; but there is enough to admit of an
inspection of the game killed. The number of head will not bear
comparison with the cartridges discharged ; nevertheless, the bag
is not a bad one, composed, as it is, of forty-three woodcock, thirty-
three pheasants, two hares and eighty-four rabbits. All agree that
it has been a capital day's sport.
DECEMBER.
'LONG-SHORE [SHOOTING.
BY OSWALD CRAWFURD.
SHORE shooting is a form of sport with the gun, not so fashionable
as the grouse or partridge drive, or as the battue " shoot ;"
not so sociable, and perhaps not so exciting as rough shooting in
marsh or woodland ; not so costly, not so murderous, and not
so productive of rheumatism as punting after wild fowl, but a
sport that requires qualities of eye and hand, and endurance,
and a keen sporting instinct as great as these sports require, and
a knowledge of natural history far greater. No account of
Shore Shooting is to be found, so far as I am aware, in sporting
books none, I believe, in the excellent and fashionable series
edited by the Duke of Beaufort. It is not the pursuit of the
idle, or the rich. Shore shooting may be pursued all through the
autumn months, but in mid-winter it is at its best. Many of the
smaller shore-birds, such as the dotterel, and the ringed plover, the
redshank, and the sandpiper are chiefly summer or autumn
visitors, and afford fair, if trivial, shooting along our sea-shores
during the period of their visits ; but with the strong frosts of late
October and early November, when the sea is curling with the first
keen winds of winter, and changing its summer hues for the
S> fc>
S S 2
316 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
slatey grey reflected from the lowering skies, then the 'long-
shore shooter knows that in his solitary walks between sea
and land he will meet with bigger and better fowl.
No inland region has half the variety of bird-life to offer to the
sportsman that he finds on the strip of sand and salting, often
not two hundred yards in width, which lies between low-water
mark and the first tussocks of turf that grow where sea-sand
or shingle stones meet the alluvial inland soil.
The shooting itself is partly in the nature of stalking, partly
in that of flight shooting ; partly the birds rise to the gun like
snipe in a marsh, or partridges in a clover-field. There are
constant surprises, too, in shore shooting, and the bird that
the shooter leasts expects to see often rises at his feet. When he
has used his field-glass, perhaps in vain, to find a flock of
curlew or whimbrel on the miles of smooth sand, a belated knot or
godwit will rise from the rocks between the shooter and the sea
and give him an easy cross shot at forty yards ; or a brace
of teal will start at his feet from a rushy, fresh-water drain as
he crosses it, and afford the prettiest of double shots. Then
again the path through the air for all the shore-birds is along the
narrow strip between land and sea afore mentioned, and the
'long-shore shooter comes in for the benefit of such fowl as
are ill-advised enough to fly within forty or fifty yards of his
head.
The chief expectation of the shore gunner is to stalk and
kill such of the larger waders as he can descry with his field-glass
on the wet sands between high and low water-marks. Of these
the most sought for is perhaps the curlew the great, grey,
long-legged woodcock of the barren moorland and barren sea
'LOXG-SHORE SHOOT/XG. 317
sands. He is a bird much in the mind of the shore shooter,
less often in his game bag, for he is as wary as a much stalked
"royal" stag in a Highland deer forest, and he must be
approached by such arts as the deer-stalker uses. The shooter
must utilize every inequality of gFound or jutting rock, and be
very particular to come near his bird up, not down, wind.
When the inland resorts of many of our winter migrants are
hardening with frosts, and the sea is tossed into "white horses'"
by a strong north-easter, the meeting-place of land and sea,
being least affected by cold, is the resort of many birds ; waders,
divers, wild duck and wild geese, that in more temperate weather
keep to the hillside or the valleys of the interior. Then again,
the purely deep-sea birds such as the brent geese, that in most
districts are more numerous than all other kinds of wild goose
put together, that hate dry land, and go far to sea to seek their
rest, even they are at times driven in by stress of weather, and
seek refuge in sheltered inlets and on the oozy flats. This late
autumn and early winter season, too, is the migratory time for the
larger wild fowl from the north, many of which make their abiding-
place in the estuaries and in the great marshes that neighbour
the sea. Then again, every change of wind or weather causes
the shore-birds, and especially the many kinds of duck or geese,
to change their quarters from land to sea, and vice vers<i, and at
these seasons the shore shooter enjoys many a chance of an un-
expected shot not counting that twenty minutes before dark
comes on, when the water-fowl pass regularly over certain parts
of the coast from the offing to their feeding-grounds on shore.
Most shore shooters work alone. The true shooter, like the true
angler, or the true philosopher, loves solitude, and if he tolerates a
3 i 8 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
companion, it is not for his society but for his co-operation. A com-
panion whose room is not twenty times better than his company must
be silent and discreet. He should carry unselfishness and obedi-
ence, even to the point of subservience. He should be prepared at
a moment's notice to make a circuit of half-a-mile for the chance of
flushing a curlew and sending it back over his friend's head. I am
not sure that he should not carry compliance to the point of going
up to his waist in the surf and risking a cold, or a watery grave,
to retrieve a wounded duck. If a man won't perform this trifling
service for his friend, a dog will, and on the whole, therefore, dogs
are to be preferred as companions in 'long-shore shooting. A
really well-trained retriever that will boldly face a wintry sea,
that will never leave his master's heels till he is bid, and that will
crouch on the sand and stay where he is told while his master
makes a long detour in pursuit of game, is worth all the biped
companions in the world.
As for 'long-shore shooting, some people use long, single-
barrelled guns, muzzle-loaders, of No. 8 calibre, with a heavy
charge. When a man does nothing but stalk sitting birds, this
slow and old-fashioned weapon may serve his purpose. With
such a gun I have seen some surprisingly Pong shots made ; birds
killed dead perhaps sixty or seventy yards off, or even more ; but
if a man wants to take all comers in the shape of fowl as they fly
from, over, or across him, he must be more abreast of the time
and use a strong No. i 2 double breech-loader, weighing not less
than 7 i Ibs. The gun should have a moderate choke say of twenty
thousandths of an inch, and as the effect of such a choke
is to crush the shot against the sides of the barrel and destroy
its spherical shape, he must use hard shot. The shot should be
'LOXG-SHORE SHOOTJXG. 319
No. 5 and the charge a full one, say 3^ drs. of black powder,
or 50 grs. of Schultze, or of E. C. with i^ oz. of shot. This is a
heavy charge, and it takes a heavy gun and a good one to stand it
without unpleasant recoil. Let it be remembered that to obtain a
good close " pattern " at fifty yards the case of the cartridge
should be only slightly turned over just enough to keep the wad
and the shot in position. Another hint for shooting in very
cold weather may be useful. When a man is warmly and thickly
clad for winter, he will find that the gun he shot well with when he
wore a thin coat in August or September will no longer come
easily to his shoulder. He is awkward at snap-shots, and misses
his birds. Let him have a quarter or half an inch taken off the
heel of his gun-stock and he will shoot as well as ever. This, of
course, only if he can spare a gun for cold weather shooting
alone.
DECEMBER.
GAMEKEEPERS.
BY AUBYN TREVOR-BATTYK.
'"WELL, my Lord/ says Cox, 'I'll do my best; but the foxes,
you see, my Lord, kill a deal of game.' ' But you are not to kill
the foxes, nevertheless ! ' says my Lord. ' By no manner of
means, my Lord ; on'y you see they ain't always at home ; foxes
will travel, and ' Cox,' says his Lordship, quite solemn-like,
'listen to me: No Fox, no Cox! Good-night, Cox.' And the
gorse was never without a fox after that."
You remember where that comes from ? Of course you do.
From one of the most charming books that ever were written.
The laconism expresses very fairly this general truth, that in an
average sporting district you have a right to expect an ample
supply of game and foxes, for the keeper who knows his business
can give you both. If this is so and it is written quite
deliberately the man who does not feel that he is master of the
subject may be wise to take refuge in this general principle : Ask
no questions, but judge by results.
It is probably true that there is no class of English servants
that has its employers under its thumb to anything like the same
extent as the gamekeepers. The reason for this is not far to seek.
For of all those who employ a gamekeeper, how many have them-
GAMEKEEPERS. 321
selves any practical knowledge of the things that belong to his
craft ? How many could undertake the keeper's duties for a
single week ? Only, we suspect, a very small proportion. The
butler, the coachman, the gardener even in a majority of cases
can do very good work by rule of thumb. But the game-
keeper, to do good work, must be a business-like and methodical
student of nature, with trained habits of observation and a power
of rapid deduction. He must be, then, a man of intelligence
above the average. But, as it is, only too many of them just shuffle
through the seasons, for only too many are recruits from the ranks
of the shiftless loafers. Let us take the seasons through and
begin with the rearing of birds.
There are all the duties of the pheasantry. The seeing that all
conditions are maintained that are most favourable to laying, e.g.
proper proportion of sexes ; the freshness of the ground"; the right
number of birds in each compartment, where a bird or two too
many may spoil the whole ; just so much food and of such a kind
as will keep the birds in perfect health, but will not check their
laying, as so easily may happen if they grow too fat; the
deciding which nests of the wild birds are in dangerous places, and
had better be removed ; the keeping a good healthy stock of
fowls of the right size and sort for foster mothers ; the careful
moving of the sitting hens off their nests for feeding purposes
every day, and the seeing that the eggs are not over-dry. And
then, when the birds are hatched, anxieties multiply ; for how-
ever clean he may keep the coops, and how often soever he may
shift their position, there are still the chances of pip and gapes to
be met and fought, and this is generally a losing game. The
gamekeeper must try to believe though few of them will that
T t
322 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
as the gape worm, after the wont of Nematode worms, makes a
" host " of some worm or mollusc, it is important that the coops
should not be in damp situations, and, more important still, that
all bodies of dead birds should be burnt. Then there is ants'
" e gg s " collecting to be done ; the gentle to be reared ; the fox
and sparrowhawk to be defeated, and many a small duty that the
day's work brings which we have no time to notice here.
When the birds are run off into the coverts they still need a
careful eye. Apart from the regular feeding, corn stacks should
be placed at points in the woods, and the keeper, as he goes his
round in the morning, will be able to tell within a little whether he
is losing birds or no. He must not leave these things to anyone
else ; he must see to them himself. He may find that the wood
pigeons are stealing most of his maize, that a stoat is running the
bank, or a strayed cat living in the covert. They must be
stopped, and this brings us to the question of trapping.
The keeper who is not an accomplished trapper is of little use,
for trapping forms one-half of his business. Cats, rats, rabbits,
stoats, all have to be taken by a different method ; the cat in a
trap bushed and baited, the rat in an unbaited trap concealed in a
run, the rabbit in a wire, the stoat in a drain pipe, and so on.
The trap is the gamekeeper's weapon, and not the gun. Indeed,
it is quite an open question whether he should ever carry a gun
at all.
That keeper who was not blinded by prejudice, and who was
not a slave to the common habit of generalizing from a single
instance, would come very soon I venture to believe to class
together his enemies, the vermin, under two heads in his own
mind :
GAMEKEEPERS. 3*5
First. Inveterate foes.
Second. Occasional foes, or possible friends.
In the first group he would probably place the cat, fox, a cunning
and inveterate poacher crow, sparrowhawk, magpie, stoat, rat.
In the second, the tawny owl, barn owl, rook, jay, kestrel,
weasel, hedgehog, badger.
The writer, at any rate, has very good reasons for so dividing
the vermin ; but, for want of space, he cannot give them here.
But to take just one instance. Of all the enemies the keeper has,
not one is more persistent, more insidious, or more deadly than the
barn rat. And yet many keepers, who will expend a vast amount
of trouble in catching owls and jays, either under-estimate the
rat's power or are content to accept him as an unpleasant but
endurable fact. He is in truth the deadliest enemy of game.
There is one little trick the keepers are much inclined to try
on. It is to leave crows, sparrowhawks, and such like until they
have young, and then to kill the lot, and so to make a good show
in the keeper's larder. By that time, needless to say, all the
harm is done. Few keepers can keep a good dog or, rather,
keep a [good dog good and fewer still can make one. It is a
question of tact and temper. And of all the things that go to
spoil a day's shooting these two are the worst : the dog that runs
in and the keeper that rates or punishes him.
The keeper must have in him something of generalship, for it is
he who has to order the management of the "shoot." He
must be possessed of discretion and of pleasant manners, or your
shooting may be ruined by the tenant farmers. The keeper must
be a man of strong moral character, for his temptations are great,
and are often made greater through the fault of his master.
326 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
So far we have but touched the fringe of a very interesting
subject. But now that we have seen a little of what " keepering ''
means, it is not strange that the perfect keeper should be a very
rare fact indeed. But the well-intentioned, the hard-working, and
the obliging keeper is not rare. We each of us know many such
in our own little sporting circle. Without the least wish to be
didactic, we may be allowed, perhaps, to recommend the following
suggestions as the results of long experience :
It is seldom wise to employ a keeper in his native district.
It is seldom wise to bring a man from north to south, or vice
versa.
It is never wise to keep a man, however " sober," who frequents
the beershop.
It is never wise to let the local dealer buy your game or rabbits.
And lastly, when one thinks of the keeper's immense oppor-
tunities for studying natural history, one is strongly tempted to
add this precept : insist upon your man keeping a general note-
book.
DECEMBER.
PIKE FISHING,
BY GEORGE LINDESAY.
IT has constantly been maintained, by learned and unlearned alike,
that the pike is not a native of these islands, but imported pro-
bably by the monks in the reign of Henry VIII. The date of
the introduction 'of this great and greedy fish is even fixed at
I 5o7> an d one common form of a popular couplet is that
" Turkeys, carp, hops, pickerel and beer
Came into England all in a year."
If the pickerel, or pike the fish has as many aliases as a burglar
is indeed a naturalized alien, he has certainly made himself
thoroughly at home, for there is no one of his compatriot fishes,
save perhaps the perch, with his prickly dorsal fin, that the pike
does not dearly love and eagerly feed upon.
The learned have now " changed all this." The pike, they
maintain, is as much a native-born British fish as the eel or the
gudgeon. The savant has discovered his pre-historic bones in
abundance in the marshes near Ely ; though this indeed may only
prove that he lived once, may have grown extinct with the cave-
bear and mastodon, and has been reintroduced by the monks in the
Middle Ages. The late introduction of the. pike into England has
328 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
been so often asserted by the manual-making angler, that it is odd
that these industrious gentlemen have never taken a walk to the
British Museum and consulted the most ancient of all manuals on
the fisherman's art, "The Boke of St. Albans," by Dame Juliana
Berners. This famous work was published by Wynkyn de Worde
in 1496, and the pike was evidently then looked upon as a native.
" The Pyke," she says, "is a good fysshe, but, for he devoureth so
many as well of his own kynde as of others, I love him the lesse. For
to take hym ye shall doe thus," &c. A hundred years before this
the pike is mentioned by Chaucer as a common and highly-valued
fish ; but as he calls him by the name Luce, which, so far as I
know, is not now used in any part of these islands, and was,
perhaps, nearly obsolete in Shakespeare's day, the passage has
doubtless escaped the eye of the manual writer. In speaking of the
Frankelyn in the '' Canterbury Tales," the poet tells us that
" Full many a fat partrich had he in mewe,
And many a brem and many a luce in stewe."
The pike is the salmon of sportsmen who want means or leisure
to hire fishings in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, or rivers in
Norway. He is not nearly so good to eat as any one of the
Salmonidae, though Isaac Walton maintains that a pike baked with
a pudding in his belly is a dish for a king ; nor does he show such
sport as the salmon when he is hooked. Indeed, he often hangs
on the line like a water-logged piece of tree trunk, but this is
probably because we set about to catch him with a complication
of great hooks enough to paralyze the energies of a shark. On
the other hand, he has none of the caprice of the salmon ; where he
lives he abounds, and an hour's journey by train from London will
land the fisherman in good pike waters.
PIKE FISHING.
329
Of the numerous streams where pike are to be found, there are
none where he makes himself more thoroughly at home than the
Thames, and it is in the waters of the metropolitan river that we
Londoners mostly seek his acquaintance. A Thames jack is no
fool, and, especially when he has arrived at years of discretion, he
wants a lot of taking. In the days of my youth I can recollect
fishing for pike with gimp about as thick as my little finger and
other tackle to correspond. It was considered quite fine enough,
and the fish apparently accepted our theories on the subject
implicitly, allowing themselves to be captured with engaging
ease.
Not so the Thames jack of to-day ; he must be lured with all
sorts of delicacies of the most elaborate kind. These must be
mounted with scientifically arranged hooks, and the trace must be
of single salmon gut. It would almost seem, indeed, as if the
time were not far distant when the proper and only thing to use
will be trout gut, so great is the objection that Thames pike dis-
play for anything but fine gear. Apropos of gut, I recollect some
years ago killing, on a well-known Scotch loch, when trolling for
trout, a pike which weighed over twenty-five pounds on a trout gut
trace and with a fourteen-foot rod.
The season for pike begins on the i6th June, but this date is
much too early to begin pike-fishing on the Thames. The fish
recover condition after spawning very slowly, and it is the opinion of
many anglers that September is quite soon enough to try for them.
From October to the end of January good sport may be obtained,
according to weather. Moreover, during these months the
pleasure traffic ceases, and fish and fishermen are not being con-
stantly disturbed by the ubiquitous steam launch. If there has
u u
330 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY.
been a flood, too, the weeds have rotted away, and the fish are to
be found in the deeper waters in search of food. On a rough
boisterous day in November or December the angler, whether from
boat or punt, is pretty sure of sport among the jack on any well-
chosen reach from, say, The Bells of Ouseley, at old Windsor
upwards ; and later on in the year I have had some of my best
sport when the frost has been so hard that the ice extended several
feet from the banks, and when, clad in the warmest garments
and hard at work, it was no easy matter to keep up the circulation.
On such a day 1 have seen jack take greedily, more especially if
the water chanced to be a bit discoloured, and the sun coming out
induced some warmth during the middle hours of the day.
Spinning and live baiting in their various forms are, of course,
the recognized methods of taking jack in the Thames. I am not
sure, however, whether these might not with advantage now and
then be supplemented with the fly. In open water in Scotland I
one day landed thirty-four small jack of from 4lb. to ?lb. apiece
with the fly. If the fish can be induced to take the fly it has
many advantages ; no baiting (possibly with fingers half-frozen) is
required. The casting is as for salmon, and with a salmon rod.
The fish undoubtedly give better sport than when they have got a
whole flight of hooks down their throat, and they don't mind
coming back half a dozen times after being hooked.
The rise, too, is to me a very attractive part of the performance,
and no bad substitute for that of a salmon. When the fisherman
seeks to lure the jack, winter has thrown her grey mantle over the
scene ; the biting wind sighs in melancholy fashion over the surface
of the silent river, and rustles among the reeds and the leafless
woodlands. Nevertheless, although the luxuriance of summer and
PIKE FISHING. 331
the brilliant tints of autumn are wanting to the landscape and the
song of birds is no longer heard, Nature is never without some
compensating charm to her lover. For him there are inner beauties
in the reaches of the Thames beyond those that lie in scenery i
even when the land is frost-bound and the January north wind
blows. The good angler is always more or less independent
of weather or scenery ; and the chances of taking a heavy fish are
quite enough for him, even were the scene as disconsolate as the
shores of Acheron, or the banks of the Manchester Canal.
THE END.
LONDON :
GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD.,
ST. JOHN'S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.c.
12 1937
NQV 30 1937
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
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AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS
WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
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WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY
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