THE LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Digitized by tine Internet Arcinive in 2010 with funding from University of Britisii Columbia Library http://www.archive.org/details/gamebirdswildfowOOknox 7? .>'• ' .f .:<< DEATH OF THE MALLARD GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL THEIR FRIENDS AND THEIR FOES. A. E. KNOX, M.A. F.L.S. AUTHOR OF 'ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES IN SCS3EX.' LONDON : JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW M.DCCC.L. LONDON: Printed by Samuel Benti,ht and Co. Bangor House, Shoe Lane. PREFACE. The following papers are chiefly derived from the observations and experiences of the Author, in reference to those birds which are usually the objects of pursuit with the British sportsman ; and to certain other animals which, either justly or erroneously, are supposed to be injurious to their welfare and increase. The ornithologist, therefore, who opens this little book in the expectation of finding a scien- tific treatise on those families of the rasorial, grallatorial, and natatorial orders which might be supposed to be included in its rather comprehen- sive title, will be doomed to disappointment ; while those indulgent readers who could find amusement, or relaxation from graver pursuits, in the author's ' Ornithological Rambles ' may per- haps give a favourable reception to these pages, in which he has endeavoured to blend entertain- ment with instruction, and thus add new votaries to a loving observation of Nature. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE The Partridge — Game of the Farm — Certain Agricul- tural Improvements injurious to the Partridge and ad- verse to the Sportsman — Common Partridge scarcely ever known to breed in Captivity — Easily domesticated — Anecdote — A Friend to the Farmer — Has many Enemies, Quadruped and Biped — Destructive mode of Netting — The Quail — Its Capture in France, Sicily, Malta, &c. — Identical with the Bird of Scripture — Red-legged Par- tridge and Common Partridge — Affinity and consequent Hostility — Examples among Birds and Quadrupeds. . 1 CHAPTER II. Peregrine Falcon — Truthfulness of Virgil's Description — Haunts of the Peregrine — Hereditary Dominions — Extensive Geographical Distribution — Grouse and Pere- grine— Incident in Ireland — Paradise for Wild Fowl — The Falcon's Watch-tower — Disappointment — Change of Tactics — Attack and Pursuit — Unsuccessful Swoop — Chace continued — Death of the Mallard — The Rod and the Gun — Falcon and Teal. 15 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. PAGE The Woodcock — Summer and Winter Haunts — De- crease in England — Erroneous Reason assigned — The true Cause suggested — Slaughter on the Shores of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic — Clumber Spaniels — Colonel Parker's Notes — Shooting Expeditions to the Morea and Thessaly — Kornupeli — Aspect of the Country — Covers of Arbutus and Oleander — Gulf of Salonica — Reflections on the preceding Account— Protection recom- mended—Distribution in the British Islands — A Wood- cock Battue in Ireland — The Common Snipe— The Soli- tary Snipe 35 CHAPTER IV. Severe Season of 1838, 1839— Winter Scene on the Coast — Preparations for an Expedition to Pagham Har- bour— Equipment — Irish Water Spaniel — Frozen Fish — Arrival at the Harbour — Flocks of Waterfowl — Wild Swans — Observation and Plan of Operations — Mysterious Object— Formidable Rival— Ambuscade — Various species of Wild fowl— Suspense— The Great Gun— Off at last- Cripple Chace — Retriever and wounded Swan — The Hero of the Gun-boat — Return 56 CHAPTER V. The Pheasant — Care and Attention necessary for his Increase and Welfare— Tame Pheasants— Outlying Nests Eggs— Foster Mothers- Barn-door and Bantam Hens —Food of the Chicks— Ants' Eggs— Best Mode of Col- lecting them— Out-of-door Management of the Young Pheasants—' The Gapes'— Prevention better than Cure — Singular Instance of its Malignity— Origin of the Disease, and consequent Incfficacy of ordinary Recipes— Colonel CONTENTS. Vll PACK Montagu's Cure — Pheasants' Eggs — The Practice of Purchasing them reprehended — Importance of obtaining them in a Fresh State — Experiment to effect that Object — Accident — Open Pheasantry — The Rivals — The Victor vanquished — Nature the best Guide — Unex- pected Result 72 CHAPTER VI. Various Species of Wild Geese — Grey-lag and White- fronted — Distinguishing Characters — Origin of the Do- mestic Stock — Bean Goose — Pink-footed Goose — Ber- nicle — Brent Goose — Shieldrake — Foreign Ducks and Geese unadvisedly admitted into the British Fauna — Pro- bable Cause of the Error — Ducks on the British Coasts — Diversity of Haunts, Habits, Food and Structure — Decoys — Wild Fowl Shooting — Young Water Fowl devoured by Pike — The ' Bird-fly' — Observation. . . 99 CHAPTER VII. Red Grouse — Limits of its Range — Natural Enemies, winged and four-footed — The Badger unjustly proscribed — Unsuccessful Attempts to re-establish the Red Grouse in the South of England — Ptarmigan — Its Haunts and Habits — British Game Birds — Order in which they arrive at Maturity — Annual Importation of Ptarmigan — Highland Moors — Mayo Mountains — Shooting Expedi- tion— Lodge — Backward Season — Operations deferred — Wild Scenery — Youthful Ardour and Veteran Coolness — Variety of Sport 114 CHAPTER VIII. The Woodcock — Modes of Capture — Net and Gin — Woodcock trapped — Attempts to Rear it in Confinement VIU CONTENTS. PAGE — Insatiable Appetite of the 'Bird of Suction' — Rapid Digestion — Crepuscular Habits — High-road Gunners — Netting — Snares, Ancient and Modern — The Old Poacher and his Springe 138 CHAPTER IX. Falconry — Youthful Attempts in the 'Noble Art' — Heron Hawking — The Look-out — The Chace — An Irish Bog — Fabulous Errors — Magpie Hawking — Colonel Bonham's Hawking Experiences — Scardroy — Peregrine Falcons — Grouse Hawking — Russian Setters — The Gos- hawk compared with the Peregrine — Their respective Merits — How does the Falcon strike her Quarry 1 — Woodcock Hawking — Convincing Fact — Anecdote — The Falcon's last Flight —' Falcon' and ' Tiercel' — Wild Duck, Blackcock, and Ptarmigan Hawking — 'Playing' the Hawks — The Falcon at Sea — Recognition and Re- covery. 152 CHAPTER X. Favourite Haunts of the Pheasant in a state of Nature — A more general Distribution of the Species desirable — Inefficiency of the Game laws — Importance of a quiet and secure Place of Retreat — Asylum for Pheasants at Walton Hall — Descriptive Sketch — Crowing of Cock Pheasants — Scenery — Valley of the Rother — Singular Occurrence — Importance of Evergreen Timber Trees in Preserves 181 CHAPTER XI. Injuries inflicted on various Birds during the Breeding Season — Robbery of Eggs — Plover's Eggs — Eggs of Terns and Gulls — Blackheaded Gulls — Preserves of those Birds CONTENTS. IX PAGE — Gullery at Scoulton — The Gannet or Solan Goose — Wild Geese and Ducks — The Eider Duck — Its Distribu- tion and Domestic Economy — Plunder of the Eggs and Down — Traffic in the Eggs of Rare Birds — Injurious Con- sequences— Scientific and Amateur Collectors — Eagles* Eggs — French and Dutch Purveyors — Tricks of the Trade — Depredations committed on Game Birds during Incubation — The Red Grouse — Feathered Bandits — Grouse and ' Scaul Crows ' — Poachers — The Egg Stealer the most Mischievous and Difficult to Detect — Indirect Encouragement thoughtlessly Afforded — Pheasants' Nests — Habits of the Hen Pheasant — Tactics of the Egg Stealer — Ignorance of Game-keepers — Persecution of comparatively Harmless Animals — Duties of a Keeper during the Breeding Season 191 CHAPTER XII. The Capercaillie — Characteristic Habits — Nature of the Country suited to it — Unsuccessful Attempts to Naturalize it in England — Restoration of the Capercaillie to Scotland — Mode of Management and Propagation — Present Condition of Capercaillie at Taymouth — The Black Grouse — Its introduction into Ireland desirable — Natural facilities for its establishment there — Obstacles to its Increase in England — Plan recommended — Diffi- culties to be surmounted — Unity of Interest and Mutual Advantage 218 CHAPTER XIII. The ' Random Shot ' — Field Sports — Cruelty tempered by Mercy — Museum Lectures — Maxims for Young Sports- men— Destructivencss of a Bad Shot — A Case in Illus- tration— Retriever over-matched — Evil Consequences of careless Shooting and Random Shots — The best not infal- X CONTENTS. PAGE lible — Necessity and Use of a good Retriever — The most promising Breed — Experiments and Observations — Im- ]iortance of Discipline — A Field Day 233 CHAPTER XIV. Four-footed Vermin — Less Destructive than the Human Poacher — The Fox — Conflicting Interests of the Fox- hunter and Game-preserver — Wild Cat — Its Predatory Habits and Ferocity — House Cats running Wild — A Retriever Cat — The Marten — The Polecat, Stoat, and Weasel — Utility of the Weasel — Anecdote — The Hedge- hog— Devours Eggs — The Mole — Not only Harmless but Beneficial — Witnesses to his Good Character — The Squirrel unjustly Accused — Trial without Jurv. . . 249 ILLUSTRATIONS. Death of the Mallaiui . . Frontispiece. ' Off at last ' . 68 The Old Poacher's Springe 150 Grouse and 'Scaul Crows' 206 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. CHAPTER I. " All nature's tlifference keeps all nature's peace." — Pope. The Partridge — Game of the Farm — Certain Agricultural Improvements injurious to the Partridge and adverse to the Sportsman — Common Partridge scarcely ever known to breed in Captivity — Easily domesticated — Anecdote — A Friend to the Farmer — Has many Enemies, Quadruped and Biped — Destructive mode of Netting — The Quail — Its Capture in France, Sicily, Malta, &c. — Identical with the Bird of Scripture — Red-legged Partridge and Common Partridge — Affinity and consequent Hostility — Examples among Birds and Quadrupeds. Among our native game birds there is not one more essentially fera natura than the common partridge (perdix cinerea), and yet there is none whose increase and welfare have been so di- rectly favoured by the improvements in modern agriculture. The inaccessible peaks of the highest mountains are the resort of the ptarmigan ; the B ^ GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. blackcock loves the unreclaimed swamp and the birchen or alder glen ; and the red grouse haunts the moor and the barren heath, retreat- ing invariably before the progress of cultivation. Even the quail would seem to prefer the compa- ratively slovenly mode of tillage pursued through- out the greater part of Ireland, to the refined system of husbandry now carried on in England.* It is indeed a remarkable fact, that for the last fifty years these birds have been gradually dimi- nishing in the latter country; and, apparently from an opposite cause, have been steadily increasing in the sister island. I have myself found them far more numerous during the winter on the half reclaimed arable grounds, in the immediate vici- nity of the great bogs, which had produced a scanty and precarious crop of oats, than in the large, well-fenced, and thoroughly drained wheat-fields. But the partridge is par excellence the game of the farm, and, ceteris paribus, the finer the crops of cereal grain and the higher the turnips, the larger and more numerous will be the covies found in such districts. Yet there are certain recent refinements in agriculture that are decidedly injurious to the welfare of this bird, and others which must be earnestly deprecated by the sportsman. The * Tliompson's ' Nivtural History of Ireland.' MODERN FARMING VERSUS SPORT. 5 system of grubbing the wide old fashioned hedges or * shaws/ and replacing them by narrow, well- clipped quickset fences, wooden palings, or iron rails, ostensibly for the purpose of increasing the surface of ploughing land, deprives the par- tridge of a favourite nesting place, and the shooter of an excellent and convenient cover into which he could always calculate on driving them when the covies were wild, and the turnips thin. A still more objectionable 'improvement' is the introduction of the ' fagging hook,' which in many counties has superseded the good old fashioned sickle. From the shape and size of this instrument, and the manner in which it is used, the stalks of the wheat are cut close to the ground, and the stubble — the glorious stubble — is thus relentlessly shaved down as effectually as if the operation had been performed by a scythe ; and the birds, finding no place of concealment there, or in the neighbouring fences, are quickly alarmed at the approach of the shooter, and, almost before his dogs have begun to range the field, run to the opposite side, scud over the hedge, and take refuge in the nearest piece of turnips. Here, too, ' the modern system ' is against the sportsman. The white rounds or Swedes have been sowed in drills for the freer admission of air, and more perfect drainage of B 2 4f GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. the soil, so that the fiekl is intersected from one end to the other by straight narrow alleys, along which the birds run with extraordinary speed; and instead of finding them well scattered at or near the spot where they were marked down — as was the case when the old broadcast style of sowing was in vogue — he has the mortification of seeing them far out of shot, topping a gate in a compact body, and may thank his stars if their next flight should happen to be into a patch of clover or standing oats. But although the common partridge may thus be said to follow in the steps of civilized man, and to be attracted by the labours of the agriculturist, still there is scarcely an instance * of its having ever bred in captivity, while the experiment has frequently proved successful with the red-legged species, as well as with grouse and black game ; and yet, individually, the bird is eminently sus- ceptible of domestication in confinement, and has been known to evince the strongest personal attachment to its owner. A lady in West Sussex had a tame partridge for many years : it was a * " There is but one record, as far as I am aware, of the partridge breeding in confinement. Sir Thomas Marion Wilson, Biirt., had a small covey of seven or eight hatched and reared by the parent birds in his aviary at Charlton in the summer of 1842. I saw these birds in 1843." — Yarrell's ' Hist, of British Birds,' second edition. THE PARTRIDGE A FRIEND TO THE FARMER, i) mere chick when it came into her possession, and no dog or parrot ever presented a more perfect model of affection and docility. Although it had the run of the house, its favourite quarters were in the drawing-room, where it would sit for hours on the back of the chair usually occupied by its beloved mistress, and never fail to exhibit every symptom of grief and concern during her occa- sional absence. When she retired to rest it would accompany her to her chamber, and take up its position near the head of her bed. No wonder then that many a tear was dropped when, from an untimely accident, it '^went the way of all ' pets. The partridge is decidedly a friend to the farmer, even more so than the pheasant ; as his consumption of grain is less, and the quantities of injurious weeds and noxious insects devoured by him at all seasons of the year are more considerable, in proportion to his size. The Rev. G. Wilkins, who has bestowed much attention to agriculture in Essex, thus addressed a neigh- bouring farmer who had solicited his advice. " If you have a nest of partridges, encourage them. All the summer they live upon insects, wireworms, &c., and consider how many millions a covey will destroy in a single summer ! " He might have added, and in the winter and spring ; 6 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. for, if the crop of a partridge be examined during those seasons, it will be found to contain chiefly grasses, grubs, and minute coleopterous insects, which in the larva state are, in a greater or less degree, injurious to vegetation. Where the country is open and magpies nu- merous, the nest of the partridge is subject to frequent depredations, especially during hot dry summers, when the herbage is scanty, and the eggs therefore easily discovered. The peculiar mode of roosting at night generally adopted by the whole covey, who are squatted in a circle in an open part of a stubble field, with their tails in the centre, and their heads turned outwards, although apparently well calculated to enable them to perceive the approach of danger, yet exposes them to certain deadly enemies, among whom the night-prowling fox and the human poacher stand pre-eminent. The former, from his keen scent and stealthy mode of advance, frequently succeeds in springing into the midst of the family, and in sacrificing several of their number — especially in wet weather. To say nothing of the various systems of wiring, snaring, trapping, and shooting, usually employed by man, there is one mode of netting — although many are practised — that is not much known, and seems to deserve especial notice from its destructive cha- DESTRUCTIVE MODE OF NETTING. i racter, and the success with which it is frequently attended. Two or three poachers, disguised in respectable attire, travel about the country in a gig or dog-cart, accompanied by a single pointer or setter. One of the party alights at the out- skirts of a village or country town, and proceed- ing to the public room of the nearest tavern, soon falls into conversation with some of the unsuspecting inhabitants ; and passing himself off as ' an intelligent traveller,' or keen sportsman, about to pay a visit to the neighbouring Squire, soon obtains sufficient local information for his purpose. The other * gentlemen ' have in the mean time put up their horse and gig at an inn in a different quarter, and while discussing their brandy-and-water at the bar, have ' pumped ' the landlord of all the news likely to prove useful to the fraternity. At a certain hour in the evening the trio meet by appointment at some pre- arranged spot outside the village, and commence operations. After comparing notes, the most promising ground is selected. A dark night and rough weather are all in their favour. The steady old pointer, with a lantern round his neck, is turned into a stubble field, and a net of fine texture, but tough materials, is produced from a bag in which it has hitherto been closely packed. The light passes quickly across the field — now 8 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. here, now there, like a ' Will-o'-the-Wisp ' — as the sagacious dog quarters the ground rapidly, yet with as much care and precision as if he were working for a legitimate sportsman in open day. Suddenly it ceases to move, then advances slowly, stops, moves once more, and at last be- comes stationary. Two of the men then take the net, and making a circuit until they arrive in front of the dog, shake out the meshes and place it in a proper position on the ground. Then standing opposite to each other, and holding either end of the string, they draw it slowly and noiselessly over their quadruped ally — whose exact position is indicated by the lantern — fre- quently capturing at the same time an unsuspect- ing covey huddled together within a few inches of his nose. When this operation is carried on by experienced hands, an entire manor may be effec- tually stripped of partridges in an incredibl}' short space of time. Although the quail {coturnix vulgaris) is known only as a summer visitor in most parts of England, yet in Ireland it has of late years been met with in considerable numbers during the winter. The London market is well supplied by quantities which are netted in France and sent alive to this country in the spring, wliere they are sub- sequently fattened for the tabic. Mr. Yarrell THE QUAIL. y " found, on inquiry, that three thousand dozens have been purchased of the dealers by the Lon- don poulterers in one season." Most of these birds are males, which arrive from the south a few days before their partners, and are then decoyed into the net of the fowler by a well- imitated love note of the female. In Italy, Sicily, and Malta, they are still more numerous. As they ily by night, and generally close to the shore, long nets stretched on poles and extended over the edge of the water are used in capturing them. One hundred thousand have been taken in a single day on the western coast of the Nea- politan territory. Great numbers are also killed, not only by regular sportsmen in the field, but by the motley population of the maritime vil- lages on the Mediterranean, on the return of these migratory flocks to their winter quarters in Africa and Asia. Mr. Yarrell has shown very ingeniously and satisfactorily, that there is every reason for be- lieving that this — the only migratory species of quail — was the identical bird alluded to by the Psalmist, when it pleased the Almighty to furnish an ample supply of food to the famishing Israel- ites in the Wilderness : " He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven, and by His power He brought in the south wind. He rained flesh also b5 10 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea, and He let it fall in the midst of their camp round about their habita- tions ; so they did eat and were well filled, for He gave them their own desire." * But a verse in a subsequent psalm even more distinctly points to the bird in question : " The people asked and He brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of heaven." f The introduction into this country of the red- legged partridge {perdix rubra), called also the Guernsey partridge and the French partridge, is a subject of regret with most sportsmen, espe- cially in some parts of Norfolk, where the value of certain manors has been much deteriorated by its increase. In the first place, their extreme wildness, the rapidity with which they run, and their reluctance to take wing, are serious objec- tions, as they not only spoil the dogs, but disap- point the shooter. In the next, even when killed — although their varied plumage, and espe- cially the brilliant colour of the beaks and legs, cannot fail to be admired — yet the flesh is far inferior to that of any of our game-birds ; in- deed, in m}' opinion, scarcely to be distinguished from that of a guinea-fowl. Lastly, it has been found that in those districts where they have * Psalm Ixxviii. 26-29. t Psalm cv. 40. AFFINITY AND HOSTILITY. 11 once obtained a firm footing, the disappearance of our indigenous partridge {perdix cinerea) has been the result: one to be regretted in every point of view, sporting and culinary; for, with so many disadvantages, the foreigner does not possess a single redeeming quality to justify his usurpation. It has often struck me as a singular fact in natural history, that when two species which are very closely allied are brought into juxtaposition, the weaker or less warlike will gradually give way to the other, and eventually become exceedingly rare or extinct. It would appear that similarity in habits, as well as a near relationship or affinity, is a necessary condition. The old English black rat {mus rattus), now almost unknown in his native land, had existed in this country for ages on good terms with the water rat {arvicola am- phihius), and even with the common mouse — with whom he was specifically allied — until the importation of the voracious grey rat {mus de- cumanus), to whose superior strength he was at last obliged to succumb. Thus the pheasant and the common partridge had prospered and in- creased on the same manor for centuries, until the latter was in some instances turned out of his inheritance by his continental relative. Two species — or rather varieties — of the common 12 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. pheasant were originally introduced into this country ; the Colchican from Asia Minor, and the ring-necked from China. The latter was the less robust of the two, and, besides other well- marked distinctions of plumage, was characterised by a white ring round the neck. In process of time the Colchican increased and multiplied, while the Chinaman diminished in an equal ratio. It is said, however, that they bred freely toge- ther, and that the former, being the more powerful, gradually absorbed the other, while the white collar, that still adorns the necks of many of our modern pheasants, is all that remains of the plumage of their remote ances- tors. A friend of mine, whose residence adjoins an ancient building, under the massive eaves of which great numbers of swifts annually rear their young, has observed that previous to their ar- rival in the beginning of May, the air overhead is filled with swallows and martins at all hours of the day, but as soon as the swifts have regularly taken possession of their summer quarters, their smaller congeners retire from the immediate neighbourhood ; scarcely an individual is to be seen tliere during that season, whik> the sin-ill notes of the 'scrcechcr' resound from mornincr o till night. About the middle of August the CHOUGH AND JACKDAW. 13 scene again changes. The swifts, the last to come, are the earliest to depart. The swallows once more make their appearance at ' the old hospital,' and continue to haunt the neighbour- hood until, with the early frosts of October, they wing their way to the warmer regions of the southern hemisphere. But the most remarkable example of this hos- tile tendency in animals of similar habits that has ever come under my own notice is that afforded by the chough and the jackdaw. I have else- where stated * that all my attempts to discover the former species on the maritime coast of East Sussex — where it was once plentiful — were un- successful, nor could I ascertain to my satisfac- tion that a single specimen had been killed or seen for many years between Brighton and Beachy Head. Subsequent observation and in- quiry have satisfied me that it has been banished by the jackdaw, whose numbers have palpably in- creased of late, and I believe that the same process is taking place on the cliffs of Dover, and on many parts of the southern coast of England. Some years ago, I found great numbers of choughs on the precipices of Caldy Island, off the coast of Pembrokeshire, and procured several specimens ; but observed no jackdaws, although I saw two or * ' Ornitholosfical Rambles in Sussex.' 14 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL, three pair of ravens who from time immemorial — as at Beachy Head and Newhaven — had lived on excellent terms with the red-legged crow. But the daw has, I am told, since made his appear- ance there, and the graceful, slender bill of the chough can prove no match for the hard, conical beak of the grey-pated intruder. Indeed, I can- not help fancying that his doom is sealed : that, like the black rat, he must eventually give way to his more robust cousin and disappear from the cliffs of Albion ; and thus, as too frequently hap- pens in analogous circumstances among a nobler race of bipeds, the instinct of selfishness is often most powerfully developed by the ties of rela- tionship and the clash of interests. FALCON AND WILD FOWL. 15 CHAPTER II. " Quam facile accipiter saxo, sacer ales, ab alto Consequitur pennis sublimem in nube columbam, Comprensanique tenet, pedibusque eviscerat uncis : Turn cruor et vulsae labuntur ab sethere plumse." Peregrine Falcon — Truthfulness of Virgil's Description — Haunts of the Peregrine — Hereditary Dominions — Extensive Geographical Distribution — Grouse and Pere- grine— Incident in Ireland — Paradise for Wild Fowl — The Falcon's Watch-tower — Disappointment — Change of Tactics — Attack and Pursuit — Unsuccessful Swoop — Chase continued — Death of the Mallard — The Rod and the Gun — Falcon and Teal. How obviously has * the poet of nature ' pointed to the peregrine in this passage ; although certain learned systematists — in compliance, no doubt, with the imperious necessities and refine- ments of modern classification — have deprived him of one of his ancient titles {accipiter) and conferred it on the ignoble sparrowhawk, whose short wings and general conformation are better adapted to a denizen of the lower regions of the air and of the woods, than of the clouds or the 16 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. precipice. Indeed, the description will hold good even as regards the favourite prey {columha) of the peregrine as every falconer knows, and as I can myself testify from personal observation of his habits in a state of nature. On one of the most inaccessible ledges of a lofty maritime cliff on the north-west coast of Ireland a pair of these hawks have for many a long year been established : there have I frequently seen either of them plunge into the midst of a party of rock pigeons {columha livia), as they issued from a deep fissure in the face of the rock, and carry one off to their expectant family. Even the deadly clutch of the falcon at the moment that he grasps his quarry {comprensamque tenet) is true to the life, for although at other seasons, and in different situations, he usually fells his victim to the earth at a single blow, yet when foraging for his young he selects from the motley inhabitants of the cliff one of moderate size — a pigeon, a puffin, a herring gull, a jackdaw, and occasionally even his congener the kestrel — for a greater burden might impede his ascent to the eyrie ; and it would be irretrievably lost if struck in the ordinary manner, and suffered to fall into the sea, perhaps many hundred feet below. But although sacred to the gods (sneer ales) in classic times, and although to the vigour, HAUNTS OF THE PEREGRINE. 17 courage, and docility of this noble bird our ances- tors were indebted for so large a share of their amusement — when his value was so great that in the reign of James the First a sum equivalent to a thousand pounds of our money was once given for a well-trained ' cast,' or pair — yet in these degenerate days he attracts but little notice, except where his occasional forays among grouse and partridges, or his wholesale depredations in the neighbourhood of decoys or on preserved lakes or ponds which are stocked with water- fowl, draws down the vengeance of the keeper and consigns him to the deadly trap. His eyrie too is occasionally plundered of its contents by some adventiu'ous native, to whom the sale of the eggs or young may prove a . fortunate specu- lation— and strange to say, the latter are less likely to find a purchaser now-a-days than the former — but although from the danger and diffi- culty of robbing the nest of the peregrine, and his now comparative worthlessness in a sporting point of view, together with his great wariness, his wonderful powers of wing, and the altitude at which he flies when searching for pre}' or per- forming his migrations, it might be expected that the species would have multiplied of late years, yet such does not appear to be the case. In- creased attention on the part of ornithological 18 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. observers may have been the means of revealing to the public the precise situation of the breeding place of a pair or so in most of our maritime counties, but nevertheless its existence was well known from time immemorial to the neighbour- ing inhabitants, and the traveller will always find, on prosecuting his inquiries, that the bird is honoured with some provincial title which has generally a direct reference to his prowess, the species on which he preys, his powers of flight, or to the locality itself. During my own wanderings I have invariably found this to be the case. I have seen peregrines at their eyries in Sussex, in the Isle of Wight, in Devonshire, on several parts of the coasts of North and South Wales, and in similar situations on the north-west, and south-west of Ireland ; and although in some of the more remote of these places I might have occasionally flattered myself that I was the first actual discoverer of the fact, yet an ornithological chat with the natives was always sure to dispel the pleasing illusion. I found that the circumstance of the peregrine being established in their neighbourhood, and even the exact situation of the eyrie was well known to them, and tlic tradition of its having been simikirly occupied in bygone times regu- larly handed down fi'om their ancestors ; and that EXTENSIVE DISTRIBUTION'. 19 the gull-hawk, the puffin-hawk, the duck-hawk, the sharp-winged hawk, the great blue hawk, the great hawk of Benbulben, the hawk of Cadia, &c., invariably turned out to be the peregrine, whether the appellation was conveyed in the language of the Saxon, the ancient Briton, or the Celt. The jealousy inherent in this bird and certain other raptores prompts them to expel their young from the neighbourhood of the nest as soon as they are able to provide for themselves, nor do they appear to tolerate the intrusion of another pair within many miles of the original stronghold. The extensive geographical distribution of the peregrine — for it has been found in all regions of the old and new worlds — together with its hardihood and enduring powers of flight, will account for these exiles being able to pitch their tents as colonists in any quarter of the globe. Certain it is, that many birds of the year, or ' passage hawks ' as they were termed by our ancestors, to distinguish them from the ' eyas,' or bird taken from the eyrie, are known to ap- pear in Holland, and different parts of the Con- tinent, at the period of the southern autumnal migration, when the old falconers used to capture them by means of a net and a lure ; and evidence is wantinj? to show that these birds ever return 20 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. to their native country for the purpose of estab- lishing themselves in the breeding season : j^et the species must be almost omnipresent, for there is no nest of this falcon on the face of the earth, however remote or isolated, where, in the event of the death of one of the proprietors, the survivor will not succeed, generally within twenty- four hours, in finding a helpmate of the opposite sex, even when none but the original pair had ujD to that moment, perhaps, ever been observed in the neighbourhood. Although the most formidable foe that any bird of moderate size could encounter, yet from its general partiality to an open country, the grouse and ptarmigan more frequently become its prey than any other species of British game ; indeed, there are few sportsmen who have shot much on the maritime moors of Scotland or Ire- land, who could not recal to memory having seen some of their wounded birds struck and appropriated by the peregrine. I particularly remember an instance of the kind occurring to myself at the close of a grouse-shooting expedi- tion, during which the fates had been decidedly unpropitious. It was one of those days that a sportsman abhors. The weather was sultry, and the scent bad. My dogs, as tired as myself, had dropped to heel, or now and then perhaps GROUSE AND PEREGRINE. 21 would suddenly start off on a brief but ineffec- tual beat, and soon slink back to their former station. I was dragging my weary limbs up the interminable slope of the last mountain that separated me from the lodge, and already antici- pating the pleasure I should derive from the first glimpse of its chimneys in the valley beyond, when at an unexpected moment up sprang an old cock grouse from a little gully formed by the bed of a narrow stream, and wheeling over my head, away he went, ' cucketing ' down the hill. I had only time for a random shot, which appeared merely to stagger him, and left a few feathers floating on the air. His flight, however, became gradually more laboured and difficult, and I had just raised my hands to my eyes in hopes of marking him down, when a shadow passing over the ground near my feet caused me to look upwards, and I saw a peregrine in rapid pursuit after my wounded bird, and gaining on him every moment. He had already cleared the valley in safety, and was evidently struggling to attain the shelter of the thick heather a few hundred yards up the opposite brow : but before he could reach it down she came and stopped his career in an instant. Having no wish to dispute the prize with my successful rival, or to be com- pelled afterwards to reascend the tedious hill 22 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. which I had already surmounted, I made the best of my way, with a light bag, and a heavy gun, to my quarters at the lodge. The myriads of gulls, puffins, guillemots, and razor-bills, which generally inhabit the same cliffs as the peregrine during the breeding-season, furnish a constant supply for itself and young diuring the summer; while the various flocks of wild ducks and water-fovvl which visit this coun- try on the approach of winter and haunt our inland lakes and estuaries on the coast, are fre- quently attended by a falcon of this species, who, on these occasions, finds himself in the midst of plenty, seldom failing to decimate his victims if allowed to remain sufficiently long without molestation. He usually abstains from striking his prey immediately over the water, unless it should happen to be a teal or some other bird of small size. I had many oppor- tunities, about two years ago, of observing the tactics of a fine female peregrine, who had taken up her quarters for the Annter in a secluded part of the demesne of Parsontown, which was fre- quented by numbers of wild ducks. Two rivers, the Birr and the Brosna, here unite their waters. The former, rapid and turbid, rises in the distant mountains, and flows in a distinct current, until gradually lost in the dark yet transparent stream PARADISE FOR WILD FOWL. 23 of the latter, which forms the boundary between Tipperary and King's County; and having its source in one of the vast bogs which extend through this part of Ireland, winds along, deep and silent, occasionally contracting itself as it hurries over some declivity, or stretching out now and then into wide sluggish pools, whose swampy banks, well fringed with beds of reeds and tall sedges, present a combination of every- thing that can be supposed to constitute a para- dise for wild fowl during the winter. Towards the close of a day's snipe-shooting, wishing to vary my bag with a few teal or wigeon, I approached this spot as stealthily as possible, just before the witching hour of twilight, when the shades of evening might favour my design, and before these birds had yet begun to quit this, their favourite haunt during the day, and scatter themselves over the bogs and morasses, their usual feeding places at night. By crawling along the side of the river, frequently on my hands and knees, keeping as near as possible to the margin, so as to avail myself of every inequality on the banks that might serve to mask my approach — while at the same time the crackling of the dry sedges, as I wormed my way to the edge of the pool, might be drowned by the noise of a rapid just above — I at last found myself, though up to 24 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. my knees in mud, and gradually sinking deeper and deeper, yet in a capital position for a family shot at the first party of ducks that might rise from the cover. Two mallards and a teal had abeady passed at a short distance, but I still reserved my fire, and at last clapping my hands to give the alarm, a group of about a dozen sprang from within a few yards of me, and after blazing right and left into them, I could see that about half their number had dropped into the deepest part of the pool. The pointers were far away with an attendant, and having no retriever with me, I was obliged for the present to give up all idea of recovering them. The report of my gun had roused every bird in the neighbourhood, and up they started in all directions, chiefly ducks, wigeon, and teal, and provokingly wheeling round me within pistol-shot — a common occurrence, as every wild fowl shooter knows, under similar circumstances — while I was loading as quickly as I could, attained such an altitude by the time that opera- tion was completed, that I had nothing left but to gaze at them as tliey swept aloft in wide and increasing circles, until they disappeared in the distance. Just at that instant I saw a peregrine falcon pass rapidly overhead, in full pursuit of a batch which liad cleared the opposite bank, and were evidently making the best of their way to INCIDENT IN IRELAND. 25 Killecn Bog, aLoiit a mile off. She soon singled out one, a duck, who, as if aware of her danger, suddenly quitted her companions and endeavoured, by making a wide circuit, to attain a greater elevation. This manoeuvre brought both her and the falcon again within view, and nearly over the spot where I was standing. Little did I think of my own dead or wounded birds in the absorbing anxiety of that moment. It was already growing dark, and I feared lest, after all, I should not be a wdtness to the termination of the chace. The falcon was just then above her quarry, in a favourable position for dealing the fatal stroke, but evidently waiting until the latter had cleared the banks of the river. Another mo- ment and down she came, the sound of the blow reaching my ears distinctly, and as the duck tumbled through the air, head over heels, into the callows on the opposite side of the Brosna, I saw her conqueror descend with closed pinions just above her, until an intervening bank of sedges shut them both out from my view. Of all the incidents which can occur in the wanderings of an ornithological sportsman, per- haps such an example as this of the powers of the falcon, unchecked by any artificial influences, is one of the most exciting. The performances of trained hawks, even under the most favour- c 26 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. able circumstances — although by many degrees the noblest sport in which man has ever indulged — yet to a certain degree are wanting in that unspeakable charm which attends the unrestrained operations of Nature and adds such a keen zest to the pursuits of her real votaries. Such at least have always been my own feelings, and acting under their impulse on this occasion, I abandoned both dog and gun for a couple of days, and relinquished for that time some of the best snipe-shooting in Ireland, for the sake of improving my acquaintance with the peregrine in her winter-quarters. Many a cold and anxious hour did I pass in a well-concealed position which commanded a good view of both banks of the pool not far from the junction of the two streams. On one side spread the wide callows, or flooded meadows, stretching away towards the great bog of Killeen, with the fairy mountain of Knock- shegowna * in the distance. Immediately in front, near the edge of the river, stood a dead tree, the topmost branch of which was the falcon's favourite resting-place. There she sat, erect and motionless, as if scorning to conceal her person, and in full reliance on her own irresistible powers whenever she chose to exert them. * See Crofton Cmkcr's ' Fuiry Legcmls of tlie South of Ireland.' DISAPPOINTMENT. 27 On the other side lay the grounds of the de- mesne watered by the upper river, here working its obscure way through the trees, many of which, uprooted by a late flood, were still floating on its surface ; there rushing down an abrupt de- scent in a foaming cascade, or suddenly turning away into open ground and expanding into many a little bay where neither bush nor bramble could interfere with the tackle of the fly-fisher ; while the grey turrets that flank the monster telescope, and the summit of the great tube it- self, frowned over the tops of the trees near the castle. I had waited long and anxiously, but although a duck or teal had passed now and then up the river, yet they failed as yet to rouse the attention of the imperturbable falcon. I noticed that they kept close to the surface of the water, especially as they neared the tall tree, and I almost fancied that the position of their enemy had not escaped their observation, for they always dropped sud- denly into the stream close to the sedges. As my own place of concealment was too far from this retreat to admit of my flushing them again, without at the same time alarming the peregrine, I was obliged to leave matters to take their course, and thus the flrst day wore away without any satisfactory result. On the following morn- c 2 28 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. ing I adopted a more successful expedient. Des- patching a light-footed native, who was well acquainted with all the favourite resorts of wild- fowl among the labyrinthian recesses of a distant bog, through which the river meandered in its earlier course, I directed him to flush them from these haunts, while I resumed the post which I had occupied on the preceding day. For the first half-hour I was almost in despair ; for the falcon was absent from her accustomed station, and I thought it not improbable that the operations of my coadjutor might have attracted her attention, and that she was perhaps at that very moment in full enjoyment of a chace which I was fated not to witness ; but on looking up a few moments afterwards, there she sat, bolt upright as usual, and now every minute appeared an hour, as I strained my eyes continually in the direction from which I expected the arrival of the first detachment of ducks. Presently a cluster of dark spots appeared against the distant sky, gra- dually becoming more distinct, and sinking lower and lower as they neared tlie river, and at last keeping close to its surface, until they scudded by within a few yards of the commanding position of their enemy; who, probably from her reluctance to strike so large a quarry as a wild-duck, which she could not have clutched and carried ofl" with ATTACK AND PURSUIT. ^29 ease across the water, suffered them to pass unmo- lested. Next came two or three wigeons, which also ran the gauntlet with impunity. I now began to fancy that the appetite of the hawk must have been satisfied by some recent prey, or that perhaps the bird which I had seen her strike two days before might remain still undi- gested. Just at that moment, however, a whist- ling of wings reached my ear ; and I perceived a party of five or six wild ducks and a few teal approaching from a different direction, and nearly at right-angles to the course of the river, which they would apparently have reached at a point about thirty yards distant from the falcon's posi- tion. But she had no intention of allowing them such an advantage. In an instant she was on the wing, and had cut them off from their retreat. For a few seconds it seemed doubtful which was to be the victim, but one of the mallards having made a bolder dash at the stream than his com- panions, she seemed to mark him at once for destruction, while on his part he endeavoured to mount above his pursuer, and strained every nerve to accomplish this object by ascending spi- rally. In the meantime his comrades, availing themselves of this diversion in their favour, scud- ded down to the water and dashed at once into the friendly shelter of the sedges. Almost at the 30 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. same instant the falcon made a swoop, but miss- ing her quarry, she suddenly appeared a consi- derable distance below him, and now it seemed doubtful whether she could recover the advantage which she had lost by this unexpected failure. While she struggled upwards again in circular gyrations, and the mallard also made the best of his time to attain a higher elevation by execu- ting a similar movement, but in a much wider curve, the two birds frequently seemed to be flying in opposite directions. The superior ease and rapidity, however, with which this manoeuvre was performed by the peregrine, soon convinced me that the result of the chace could not be doubtful; for the drake was now far from his favourite element, and as each successive evolu- tion brought his enemy nearer and nearer, he seemed to relax in his efforts to ascend any higher, and at length turning his tail to the wind, away he went towards the bog of Killeen, trusting for escape to the rapidity of his flight, and closely pursued by the falcon. I felt that not a moment was to be lost if I wished to witness the denouement ; so, scrambling to the top of the bank, I was just in time to see the mallard tumbling headlong to the earth, while the falcon checking her downward career for a moment, as if to satisfy herself of the success of the stroke, DEATH OF THE MALLARD. 31 dropped to the spot where he had fallen in the middle of a wide marsh, which I might have reached, by crossing the river at a higher point and making a circuit of about half a mile; but fearing that any closer inspection of her proceed- ings might tend to alarm her from her favourite haunts, and being quite satisfied with my share of the sport, I left her to discuss her well-earned prize \%dthout further interruption. Many a subsequent visit, however, did I pay to the same spot before my return to England, frequently without seeing anything of the falcon, but occasionally finding myself amply rewarded by witnessing a display of her powers. I always forbore from carrying my gun, lest I should be tempted to take a shot at some of the wild-fowl, and so disturb or perhaps scare away the pere- grine, which was now the chief object of interest to me. I therefore employed my rod as an ac- cessory to the day's sport, and although it was not the regular season for fly-fishing, yet on a muggy day, with ' a southerly wind and a cloudy sky,' I could always catch a good dish of well- flavoured trout from the upper stream, with the small black-midge or the dun-hackle, aided by fine tackle and a light hand. At other times the tantalizing rumours that reached me of some enormous pike having been seen, as he lay asleep 32 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. in the recesses of the lower river, where he looked ' for ail the world as big as a calf,' would tempt me to sally forth with the approved paraphernalia of trolling, to endeavour to capture one of these monsters of the deep, who, I was assured, had baffled the arts of every previous visitor, and was destined to become a troj)hy of ' my honour's superior skill.' But although well aware that these leviathans existed only in the excited ima- gination of my informants, yet as their reputed whereabouts lay in the immediate vicinity of the falcon's retreat, I used to listen with apparent credulity to these pleasing fables ; and if I failed to land a larger fish than any of my predecessors, yet I obtained at least the reputation of possess- ing a greater share of those indispensable qualifi- cations of an angler, patience and perseverance. One afternoon especially I remember, when tired with want of sport, I found myself close to the spot where I had witnessed the last performance of the peregrine. Having waded into many parts of the stream during the morning, I had now the less hesitation about venturing into the sedges ; so converting my trolling-rod into a beater's stick, I walked boldly into the swamp, and flushed several ducks, wigeon, teal, and a few pochards ; pausing every now and then, when an opportu- nity occurred, to take a reconnoitring glance FALCON AND TEAL. 33 through the thick sedges. These glimpses, how- ever, were so partial, and the ducks continued to rise so frequently without my being able to see them, that I at last struggled through as quickly as the nature of the ground would admit, and oc- casionally above my waist in the water. I was well repaid, however ; for just as I cleared the cover, a small flock of teal, which had probably seen their enemy overhead and skulked before me to the edge of the reed bed, now sprang up at my feet and took wing with evident reluctance. Almost at the same instant I saw the falcon dash into the midst of them, as if she had fallen from the clouds, and in spite of the sudden and simulta- neous whirl of the whole party towards the sur- face of the water, she succeeded in clutching one of them and carrying it across the pool, until she plunged with it into a thick clump of reeds and oziers, which clothed a little promontory that pro- jected from the opposite side of the river. Kind reader ! I have perhaps detained you too long on the banks of the Brosna, but my remi- niscences of almost every spot that I have visited are so intimately associated with birds, that ' for the life of me ' I could not help it. Had I been less of a sportsman or more of an astronomer, I might perhaps have edified you with marvellous, yet strictly veracious accounts of all that was revealed c 5 34 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. to my wondering eyes by the monster telescope — under circumstances too which were unusually propitious for such observations. Of the stars or nebulas I will say nothing ; and of the queen of night herself I will merely remark, that I ascer- tained to my perfect satisfaction — in spite of Milton and Galileo to boot — that there were neither seas, lakes, rivers, woods, nor forests ' on her spotty globe,' and that whatever may be the ordinary occupations or the favourite diver- sions of ' the man in the moon,' he is at any rate neither a fisherman nor an ornithologist. THE WOODCOCK. 35 CHAPTER III. " liOng have I roamed through lands which are not mine, Adored the Alp and loved the Apennine ; Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the deep." The Woodcock — Summer and Winter Haunts — Decrease in England — Erroneous Reason assigned — The true Cause suggested — Slaughter on the Shores of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic — Clumher Spaniels — Colonel Parker's Notes — Shooting Expeditions to the Morea and Thessaly — Komupeli — Aspect of the Country — Covers of Arbutus and Oleander — Gulf of Salonica — Reflections on the preceding Account — Protection recommended — Distri- bution in the British Islands — A Woodcock Battue in Ireland — The Common Snipe — The Solitary Snipe. While the pheasant, the partridge, and even the grouse, are exposed to considerable danger during the breeding-season ; the woodcock is then in the enjoyment of comparative security ; the great majority of the species having returned from their winter quarters in the British islands, and the swamps and orange-groves of Italy, Greece, and Albania, to the vast unexplored forests of the North, where they rear their young S6 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. and remain until the early frosts of the follow- ing autumn prompt them to repeat their southern migration. It is singular enough that while too little at- tention is generally paid to the welfare of our game birds during the season of reproduction — more especially in preventing the depredations of the egg-stealer — and while their diminution is often exclusively and falsely ascribed to the practices of the night-shooter, or the unrestrained indulgence of the sportsman himself; the mani- fest decrease of woodcocks in many parts of Great Britain, of late years, has frequently been erroneously attributed to the wealthy gourmands of Stockholm and Christiania, who, it is alleged, evince the same predilection for the eggs of that bird as is shown in this country for those of the pee\\dt, or lapwing, and we are told that many thousands are thus annually sacrificed for the gratification of the Scandinavian epicure.* On this subject Mr. Lloyd very properly says, " If persons, wlio entertain such an opinion, were to * Since the above was ■wTittcn, I have been inucli pleased in perusing Mr. Tliompson's recently published work on the Birds of Ireland, to fiiul my own ojiinion confirmed by Mr. George IVIattliews, who made a sporting excursion to Norway in 1843. " His notes state that the Norwegians seem to know little about woodcocks, and in some places will not eat tlicni." — Thompson's ' Natural History of Ireland,' vol. ii. p. 25. DECREASE OF THE WOODCOCK IN ENGLAND. 37 see the almost boundless northern forests, they would probably think with me, that if the whole of the scanty population of that part of the world were to go out for the purpose, they would not be able to explore the hundredth part of the woods in the course of a year, and consequently they could not take or destroy any considerable num- ber of eggs. If they are really scarcer than they were, it is doubless in some degree attributable to the greater number of persons who are in the habit of shooting at the present day than was the case formerly." * There can be no doubt that this conjecture is correct, and the wholesale destruction by shooting does not take place in any part of the Scandinavian provinces — for Mr. Lloyd him- self says that he never killed more than three in any one day during his residence in the north of Europe — but is carried on principally by British sportsmen, not only in their native land, but in various parts of the south of Europe ; where their performances have occasionally been such as to ' astonish the natives,' and even to ex- cite the surprise of many a veteran gunner at home. I have had good woodcock-shooting in Wales and in Devonshire, and in some of the larger * Lloyd's ' Northern Field Sports.' 38 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. covers of the Weald of Sussex, and have also formed one of a party who had tolerable sport in the neighboui'hood of Rome and Terracina several years ago, but I have never seen so many killed as in Ireland. The most wholesale slaughter, however, of these birds would appear to be on the shores of the Mediterranean and of the Adriatic. Several British officers who have been quartered at Malta and the Ionian Islands have made expeditions to these wonder- ful swamps, and wild groves of orange, oleander, and arbutus, where the objects of their pursuit are found in incredible numbers. Many sporting members of the Royal Yacht Club too, tempted by the success of their friends, have been induced of late years to steer towards the South, instead of laying up their vessels at the close of the season ; and to vary the charms of a winter cruise in the Mediterranean with woodcock and snipe- shooting on the classic shores of Greece and Thessaly. Immense numbers are occasionally killed when the majority of the party are good shots, but it is generally admitted that the birds are not in such condition as those which are met with in the British islands, nor do they present so difficult a mark to tlic sportsman. A pack or team of wild spaniels is a great desideratum. The Clumber breed is the best, as their superior WOODCOCK SHOOTING IN GREECE. 39 strength enables them to work their way through the jungles of blackthorn, where the more dimi- nutive cocker would be soon bafHed or exhausted. Half broken dogs are superior to those which are perfectly trained, as it is absolutely necessary that they should wander as far as possible from their keeper or huntsman, and bustle about in the tangled recesses of the cover, which would of course be inaccessible to him, while even the habit of crying or giving tongue — so serious a fault in the eyes of the sportsman at home — is considered a natural accomplishment of the highest value by the woodcock shooter in Greece. Never having had the good fortune myself to pull a trigger on the banks of the Eurotas, to shoot snipes on the plain of Marathon, or to hear the echo of a double-barrel among the sacred heights of Ossa and Olympus, I am unable to speak of the subject from personal experience ; but the kindness of a friend — Colonel Parker, 1st Life Guards — has enabled me in some mea- sure to supply the deficiency, and to furnish the reader with information which, although it may excite very different feelings in their breasts, cannot fail to prove interesting to the ornitho- logist and the sportsman. Colonel Parker's notes refer to an expedition which he made in the Louisa yacht, with his 40 GAME BIRDS AND AVILD FOWL. uncle, Sir Hyde Parker, and a few friends to the Morea and Thessaly, during the winter of 1844-5; and although the season was singularly unpropitious for the woodcock-shooter in the south of Greece, yet the records of the expe- dition show that besides the great variety of sport afforded by deer, hares, herons, bitterns, quails, pheasants, partridges, plovers, snipes, wild ducks, &c., the number of woodcocks killed on several occasions was incomparably greater than the most fortunate and skilful party could pro- cure in any district of the British islands with which I am acquainted. This communication also contains some account of the proceedings of two other parties who, during the same period, visited the Peloponnesus, as well as the shores of Albania, for a similar purpose, in the Diram and Floioer of Yarrow yachts. As the testimony of an eye-witness is generally best conveyed in his own words, I gladly avail myself of Colonel Parker's permission to insert here a portion of his letter to myself, with extracts from the journal containing the result of each day's sport. " You will perceive that the party in Albania had better shooting than in the Morea. This is quite dependent on the season. When the win- ters are mild, and there is not much snow on the mountains — as was the case in 1844-5 — Al- KORNUPELI PALAMETOCIII. 41 bania affords the best sport ; in the hard winters the Morea. " Chiazenza, in the Morea, is the usual landing place from Zante, and twelve miles distant from it. Castel Tornese is the fortress above it. The ground here is moderately undulating, of a dry- sandy soil; the covers formed by arbutus and bay-trees. In previous years this had been very good woodcock ground, but owing to the pre- valence of fine weather this year, 1845, and absence of snow from the hills, the cocks had not come down so low. The same remark applies equally to several of the other shooting grounds that we visited. " Kornupeli on the Morea is to the north- east, about thirty miles from Chiazenza. From this anchorage we got our best shooting in the Morea. The ground of Palametochi showed the most sport. Near the convent of the above name are some small woods, with strong undercover of blackthorn, very difficult to work through. Ad- jacent to these is one very large wood, which, owing to the strength of the blackthorn, is nearly impossible to beat. We could not get the Clum- ber spaniels to go far into the cover away from their master, and the kirtled Greeks did not — in fact, could not — face the thorns, so that we did not half beat these covers, which will partly ac- i2 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. count for our always finding, upon our return to these places, nearly as many cocks each time as the first. Part of this cover was low and marshy, but not very wet this year. The grounds of Maldonada, Cortiche, and Ali Tchelebi, are open plains with a good deal of fern and oaks, much like our English park scenery, with rivers and streams intersecting the plains, along which run narrow stripes of slight cover. " Catacolo Bay in the Morea is the harbour to Pyrgos. Here the ground is varied. A good deal of it currant gardens,* very unpleasant to shoot in, the dwarf vines just reaching to your middle and catching you every moment. There are some wild, scrambling, small covers in the hollows — like the * shaws ' of Sussex — some wheatfields and some undulating sandy hills, with thick cover formed by arbutus, bays, and olean- ders. The whole of this district — Catacolo, Pyrgos, and the Alpheus river — furnished but little sport this year from the great mildness of the season. Most days were like an English July. The sandy soil, on which grow the bay, arbutus, and oleander, had produced in former * Colonel Parker, no doubt, alludes to tlic Zantc, or Corinth grape ; the well known little fruit wliieli, when dried and im- ported into this eountry, is familiar to all housekeepers under the name of currants. GULF OF SALONICA. 43 and wetter seasons a good show of cocks, but this year they were thin. " In the gulf of Sparta, on the plains of the Eurotas, we did not find much shooting, although there were some good low covers near the mouth of the river, and the banks of it in many places afford good shelter for game amidst its high reeds and rushes, which form a border, in some parts, of good depth. " In the gulf of Salonica our first anchorage and shooting ground was Lentorochori, supposed to be the ancient Methone, at the siege of which place Philip of Macedon lost his right eye. It is on the plains of Thessaly. Our first day's shooting here produced a great variety of game. Upon landing we took a line nearly direct — with- out reference to the likelihood of the ground for game — to our intended quarters at Sphintza, a village twelve miles inland. "Near the sea-shore there was a good deal of low blackthorn and reedy and marshy cover. In this we first found the pheasants. The ground gradually ascended from the shore and partook of the character of flat park scenery — high fern with plenty of Velani oaks — none of very great size. In the fern we found pheasants and deer. Further up again were cultivated whcatlands, on which we found a good many partridges and 44 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. hares. The partridges were of two kinds, the grey and the common brown. " We descended again to the level of a small river, and shot along the line of it ; a succession of wild, rushy, small covers in which we found our great variety of shooting. Pheasants, wood- cocks, snipes, wild ducks, teal, all in the air at the same time. Neither the pheasants nor wood- cocks differ in appearance or plumage from the English. We fancied the pheasants were drier than ours from want of good feeding, but we invariably put them into soup, and had there- fore no fair trial of what a plain roasted one might have proved. The whole day we shot in sight of Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus. *' Our expedition into the interior did not answer our expectations, as the extracts from the journal will show. In fact we got among such large strong blackthorn covers that we could not work through them ourselves, neither would the Clumber spaniels face them, and I suspect that without * stops' the Thessalian pheasants run as fast as the British. Three guns had again a very good day on their return to the yacht. As far as our experience went the shooting was always best nearest to the shore, and it is better not to go far inland. On the 3d of February we got under weigh for the Vardar river, where we were told REFLECTIONS. 45 that we should find tlic best shooting in the gulf of Salonica, but the wind changed to ' on shore,' so we could not anchor there, and therefore stood on for Salonica — and here our shooting ended." * That the number of woodcocks in England, and even in Ireland, has greatly decreased during the last twenty years, I take to be a fact established and admitted on all hands. The question that arises is to what cause the diminution of the species is to be ascribed. I think that from the actual observations of Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Matthews, to which I have already alluded, it does not arise from the persecution of the woodcock in his summer abode in the North of Europe ; neither is it attributable to the num- ber which fall to the gun of the sportsman in these islands during the shooting season. But I believe that such wholesale slaughter as that which Colonel Parker describes on the shores of * The following extract from the journals will show the result of six of the best days vvoodcock shooting. Woodcocks. f 196 Two days at Butrinto I -.'cq Two days on the Fanara, or Acheron river ... < ,qo Two days on the Achelous river \ ni-.i Grand total of six da vs 1026 46 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. the Mediterranean is the chief cause of the birds being drained off from other quarters. The tem- perate climate of the southern countries of Eu- rope will always afford strong attractions for the woodcock — whose food is so essentially derived from moist and marshy ground — during the winter months, at which period, in the inhospitable, regions of the north, the snow-clad earth and ice-covered waters bid defiance to the efforts of his slender bill ; and when arrived on those shores his further progress is possibly arrested by the philosophical reflection that having already at- tained a sufficient supply of food he might ' go further and fare worse ;' which would cer- tainly be the case should he adventure himself towards the interior of Africa ! Although wood- cocks have no doubt been occasionally found in Barbary and in Egypt, I think we are not to infer that they are by any means common in those countries ; but on the coasts of the Morea, Thes- saly, Macedonia, and Albania, at Athens, and in many parts of Italy, we know that they abound, and indeed they appear to be concentrated on the shores of the Mediterranean during the winter months. Here they might probably be exposed to but little danger from the natives; but if our own countrymen, with all that ardour which characterizes an English sportsman, should PROTECTION RECOMMENDED. 47 engage in an annual crusade against them, and especially if there should be many such deadly shots as Colonel Parker and his friends, the spe- cies must manifestly be soon greatly reduced. Here too let me observe, that I think it would tend much to the preservation and increase of the woodcock in this country, if all proprietors would extend to it the same immunity which is so properly granted to our gallinaceous game birds, namely, not to allow it to be shot after the 1st of February. At present we know that it is customary in many counties to shoot hares and rabbits long after the pursuit of the pheasant has ceased, and on such occasions not only the keepers and farmers — who so far as I am inte- rested would be most welcome to their share of the sport — but also many idlers about the neigh- bouring towns and villages, form a rabble rout with all the curs of the district at their heels, to drive the covers and exterminate certain quadru- peds and birds over which the law has not ex- tended the aegis of its protection. Amongst these the poor woodcock is a frequent martyr ; and his fate is the more to be lamented, that being by general habit a migratory bird, the scattered examples that are found during the spring and summer had probably resolved to become perma- nent settlers and colonists amongst us, and had 48 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL, no doubt already paired and selected some se- cluded spot for their honeymoon, where, if spared, they would have nested and reared a brood. Now by encouraging the woodcock to do this, or at least by protecting him during the summer, we should go far to secure him as a constant resident, and the result would almost certainly be that in a few years the number in our covers would be materially increased. I am happy to say that some judicious game preservers in my neighbourhood have lately enforced this regulation, and with them, after the 1st of February, the woodcock is as sacred as the pheasant, and the consequence already is a palpable and undeniable increase in the number to be found on their properties during the regular shooting season. The first arrival of these birds in England is on the eastern coast, during the latter part of Oc- tober or early in November, when there is either little or no wind, or a favourable breeze from the north-east. After resting for a short time they resume their journey towards the south-west ; invariably revisiting, if possible, their haunts of the preceding year, and showing a strong prefer- ence for large woods, extensive heaths or swamps, and, above all, a moist and warm climate. Ac- cordingly, after the early part of the season has passed away, they are more numerous in the DISTRIBUTION. 49 southern and western than in the northern and eastern counties, more plentiful in Cornwall and in Devonshire than in any other part of England ; and as the western migration continues, under the influence of severe weather and protracted frosts, they abound in Ireland at the very period when they have almost disappeared from their usual haunts in this country, as was especially exempli- fied last year, 1849. In the early part of the season there was a fair sprinkling in a great wood of West Sussex, where they were suffered to remain undisturbed till a later period, when the covers were to be beaten for pheasants and hares. In the meantime a hard frost set in ; the ground was covered with snow, the brooks and springs were frozen up, and at the termination of the grand day on which it was expected that we should bag at least twenty woodcocks, a solitary emaciated individual was to be seen at the end of a long row of pheasants. About the same time I received a letter from a friend in the county of Galway, informing me that the woodcock-shoot- ing in the west of Ireland was better at that very moment than it had been for many pre- ceding years. It is almost unnecessary to remark that the sister island has long been famous for affording this sport in perfection. Indeed, my own earliest D 50 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. recollections of the gun are identified with it, and I had become a tolerable snipe and woodcock shooter before I had fired at a pheasant or even seen one on the wing. The southern and western provinces are more celebrated than the northern and eastern, although I have had good sport in all of them. When the party is nume- rous, as is generally the case, a great number of cocks are killed in the large woods ; twenty-five, thirty, and even forty couple being frequently the result of one day's sport. It is usual on such occasions to employ a host of beaters, whose pro- ceedings are conducted upon a very difierent plan from that generally observed by the steady-going assistants of the pheasant-shooter in England. A heterogeneous army of men and boys — whose appearance might recal the description of Fal- staff''s ragged recruits at Coventry, — each fur- nished with a long pole, are drawn up at one side of the cover. The guns are either placed at intervals where the backward growth of the brushwood may afford them the chance of getting a shot as they work through its mazes — for rides or alleys are but little known in these wild natural woods — or else station themselves in dif- ferent parts of the coppice, or on some eminence that commands a wider range of view — and these are the most knowing ones of the party — WOODCOCK BATTUE. 51 until at last the word is given to advance, when each beater shouting ' Heigh cock ! ' at the very top of his voice, and laying his stick about him with all the energy of a thrasher, such an unin- terrupted and discordant row ensues as might well start every cock within hearing from his place of concealment, and, in fact, causes num- bers of those birds to spring prematurely from distant parts of the wood. Here, however, those wary gunners who have previously taken up their position on favourable heights possess a great advantage, and bring down many woodcocks as they fly in various directions, sometimes towards the beaters, sometimes in the face of the shooter, each struggling to escape the danger, but not knowing from which quarter it proceeds. By this time all discipline is at an end. Some of ' the boys,' having caught a glimpse of a falling woodcock in the distance, now fling away their poles and rush towards the spot, all anxious to be the first to pick up the bird and to congratulate the successful shooter on his dexterity ; who, by the way, receives their compliments with marked ingratitude as they come rushing through the cover, insist on keeping close to his person, and so, effectually spoil his sport for the rest of the day. The same scene is probably enacting in ten different places at once. All order is at D 2 52 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. an end. Far away in the distance the cry of * Heigh cock ! heigh cock ! ' may now and then be heard during the intervals of the con- fusion from a solitary beater who as yet has listened to nothing but the sound of his own voice, and, instead of proceeding in a straight line, has made a wide circuit and now finds himself unexpectedly at the very point from which he started ; while another who has inde- pendently advanced all alone, and at least half an hour too soon, to the opposite end of the wood, is flushing the cocks by dozens, without for a moment considering where the guns are, or which wa}' the afii'ighted birds take, but delighted all the time at his own performance, while the distant sportsman inwardly curses him from his heart. Many a cunning old beater, too, who has been too long used to the thing to feel any excitement in it, drops quietly into the rear, and squatting under a holly-bush, lights his * dudeen ' with the utmost sang froid, regardless of all that is passing around him. At last the storm gradually subsides. A few dropping shots alone proceed at intervals from the outskirts of the wood. The shooters and beaters emerge, one by one, at different sides, all eloquent on the subject of their own performances; not excepting him of the dudeen, who exultingly points to SOLITARY SNIPE. 53 sundry recent scratches on his face and shins, and swears that he ' never had such hard work in the whole coorse of his life.' The great or solitary snipe {scolopax major) is less frequently met with here than on the con- tinent. Its favourite breeding-places are in the north of Europe, and its autumnal line of mi- gration lies rather to the eastward of the British islands. Among the hundreds of snipes that I have seen on the wing and killed in Ireland, I never could detect a single example of scolopax major, although until I became acquainted with the characteristic distinctions between this and the common snipe {scolopax gallinago), I used occasionally to fancy that I had obtained a spe- cimen of the rarer bird when I had only bagged an unusually large or well-fed individual of the other species. It is sometimes found in the cen- tral and sovithern counties of England, but, as might be expected, occurs most frequently on the eastern coast. Some years ago, when shooting on the Pontine Marshes near Rome, in the early part of the winter, I killed three great snipes : their flight was different from that of the com- mon bird ; their bodies appeared much larger, and the wings shorter in proportion ; they kept much closer to the ground, and did 3iot — at least as far as my experience went — utter any cry. 54 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. showing a similarity in these respects to their diminutive congener the jack-snipe {scolopax gal- linula). In all the examples that I have seen, the bill was much shorter than in the common snipe ; but the most obvious distinction consists in the brown marginal markings extending over the feathers of the breast and belly, nearly as low as the vent, while the same parts in the common species are of a pure white. A friend of mine, who passed some time in the Austrian provinces to the south of the Da- nube, told me that he frequently killed these birds during their autumnal migration, but that he rarely found them when the winter had set in. He remarked that they well deserve the title of ' solitary,' as he did not remember having ever sprung two at the same moment. Although still abundant in some parts of Ire- land, the common snipe is less generally dis- tributed even there than formerly, while it has almost disappeared from many districts in Eng- land, where, about twenty years ago, it might have been considered plentiful. Indeed, tlie ad- mirer of snipe-shooting will find comparatively little room for indulgence in his favourite pastime on this side of St. George's Channel. He should betake himself to the great bogs and rushy swamps of the sister island, or the marshes of Italy and COMMON SNIPE. 55 Greece. If anxious to have a preserve of these birds in this country, and if his love of the sport is sufficiently strong to induce him to make the necessary sacrifices, he must possess at the same time considerable territorial authority, and make up his mind to run counter to the prevailing spirit of. the age. He must refrain from an in- terference with nature, and boldly stem the torrent of modern innovation ; but as the rage for agricul- tural improvement has lately increased to such a degree as to become a fashionable mania, and the proprietor of land may feel it no less his duty than his interest to increase the productive capabilities of his estates, it would perhaps be too much to expect that those who have the pecuniary means should practise such self-denial. Nevertheless, he who undertakes the drainage of a marsh, or the reclamation of a bog, at the same moment issvies an ' order to quit,' not only to snipes, but to various species of grallatorial birds, resident as well as migratory. 56 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. CHAPTER IV. " Now, all amid the rigours of the year, In the wild depth of winter, while without The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat Between the groaning forest and the shore Beat by the boundless multitude of waves." Thomson's Seasons. Severe Season of 1838, 1839— Winter Scene on the Coast- Preparations for an Expedition to Pagham Harbour — Equipment — Irish Water Spaniel — Frozen Fisli — Arrival at the Harbour — Flocks of ^^^aterfowl — Wild Swans — Observation and Plan of Operations — Mysterious Object — Formidable Rival — Ambuscade — Various species of Wild fowl — Suspense — The Great Gun— Off at last — Cripple Chase — Retriever and wounded Swan — The Hero of the Gun-boat — Return, The severe winter of 18o8-1839, will be long remembered. The ornithologist and the wildfowl- shooter, who fortunately happened to be then located on our southern shores, will recal to mind the acquisition of many a rare bird, and many a sporting expedition by day and night which it has never since fallen to his lot to realize. It is true we have had hard frosts and deep snows since then, and the winter which has just passed (1S19-1850) SEVERE WINTER. 57 has been unusually harsh and protracted : but whatever may have been the rigour of the season in more northern latitudes, it has never, at least in this part of England, reached such a point of intensity, or been attended with such results as marked the memorable period to which I have alluded. Many feathered visitors of rare occurrence have certainly been met with lately in different parts of Great Britain, but they have been found more frequently in the interior of the island than on the southern coast, the cold having been sharp enough to drive them from their usual haunts, and to scatter them over the face of the country, but not sufficiently severe to induce them to continue their progress to the southward or to concentrate vast flocks of different species in the sheltered bays and estuaries of the channel. Our evergreens, too, have escaped unhurt. The laurel groves exhibit their wonted verdure and luxuriance, and the bay-tree flourishes as before. Even the myrtle has withstood the chilling blasts of the last four months. How differently did they fare in 1838 ! While on our sandy soils they were perceptibly affected by the severity of the season, in the clay district of the weald they were killed outright, their foliage in the ensuing spring presenting the appearance of deciduous 58 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. trees in the autumn ; but as brown and brittle as if it had been parched by a burning sun. I resided during that winter in a cottage on the coast of Sussex about two miles to the west of Bognor. A small meadow lay in front of my windows, flanked on one side by a grove of stunted oaks, which were gradually disappearing before the inroads of the sea — for with spring-tides and stormy weather it rushed over the frail bank, tearing away the shingle and washing the pro- jecting roots of the trees — and on the other by a wide expanse of the channel as far as the en- trance to Pagham harbour, where the low flat coast appeared to extend suddenly to the south- ward until lost in the low promontory of Selsey Bill, above which the loftier outline of the Isle of "Wight was visible in the distance. About the middle of January the severity of the season appeared to have reached its climax. A cutting north-easter swept the water and car- ried the foam from the waves out of sight in an instant. All the larger features of the landscape seemed to have lost their natural colours, and were bathed in the extremes of light and shade. The surface of the earth, houses, banks, hedges, and corn-stacks were covered with snow. The sky was black and lowering, blended, as it were, into one vast cloud which looked still more PREPARATIONS. 59 gloomy in the distance as you faced the blast for a moment and peered into the eastern horizon. The sea was as dark as the sky, but its surface was broken by the white crests of the angry waves as they hurried towards the west, and thus relieved the obscurity on that side of the pic- ture, while long files of various species of wild- ducks, and small parties of cormorants and guille- mots, might be seen scudding along close to the surface, but at a considerable distance from the shore, and every now and then a great black- backed, or a herring gull, swept past, a few yards overhead, and flocks of sand-pipers skimmed ra- pidly along the margin of the beach in the same direction, all bound for the muddy flats and calm waters of Pagham Harbour. I had made preparations over night for a re- gular field-day. The distance from my residence to the mouth of the haven was little more than a mile along the shore, and I was thus enabled — though not without a certain degree of labour, which, however, the intense cold rendered less irksome — to carry my own guns and ammunition, and at the same time to dispense with the services of an attendant, who, as experience had taught me, proves rather an incumbrance than an advan- tage on an expedition of this kind. My long duck-gun was now unpacked, and a heavy double. 60 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. weighing about eleven pounds, also put into requisition. A suppl}^ of Eley's cartridges suited to tlie calibre of each, with well-dried powder and waterproof caps, were stowed away in the larger pockets of my shooting-coat, while the smaller receptacles contained the minor sundries necessary to complete my equipment. But although I willingly dispensed with the services of a biped attendant, I had one compa- nion whose assistance was ail in all to me on such occasions. This was an Irish water spaniel, whose education I had myself superintended in his native bogs and on the shores of the Atlantic, and whose sagacity, courage, and docility far sur- passed those of any dog that I have been able to procure in this country. He was rather larger than a setter, but his legs were shorter and stronger : his coat was curly, entirely of a liver colour, and of a fine silky texture ; his ears long and pendulous ; his feet were webbed like a duck's, to the very toes ; his face was smooth ; his forehead broad and open. But the most striking feature was his eyes. Nothing in canine physiog- nomy could surpass the intelligence of their expression. They were of a bright golden colour, like those of a sparrowhawk : restless, and always on the move ; indicating a joyous and adventur- ous spirit, and an ardour and perseverance, which SMALL BIRDS AND SPARROW-HAWKS. Gl indeed were prominent qualities in tlie character of their possessor. Thus attended, and with a gun in each hand, like Robinson Crusoe, I hastened along the shore to Pagham. On my way I met with a singular evidence of the extreme intensity of the cold. Several fish of different kinds lay scattered at intervals on the beach, some dead, others dying, but all in a perfectly fresh state, having been frozen in their rocky lairs at the bottom of the sea, and cast up by the waves. Some of these were of a species entirely new to me, and which I have never since met with. Their colours were in- describably beautiful. Every hue of the rainbow seemed to have been transferred to their scales.* My astonishment could hardly have been sur- passed by that of the poor fisherman in the ' Ara- bian Nights,' when he drew forth the variegated fish from the enchanted lake. I could not help regarding this discovery as a lucky omen for myself, so having selected half-a-dozen of the brightest, I concealed them under a heap of peb- bles, and continued on my way to the harbour. Innvimerable flights of small birds were col- * Mr. Yarrell, to whom I related the circumstance, conjec- tures that these fish belonged to the Wrasse family {labridce), some of the rarer species of which are remarkable for their beautiful iridescent colours. 62 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. lected in the fields, and along the hedges, near the coast, consisting chiefly of larks, woodlarks, grey linnets, chaffinches and yellow hammers. So densely, indeed, were they crowded together that they seemed to be almost blended into one vast flock, which was continually reinforced by fresh arrivals from the interior, while every now and then a Kttle male sparrow-hawk would suddenly appear on the outskirts of the army, and dashing into the midst, carry ofi" with ease a starved and half-frozen victim : indeed, at one moment I observed several of these active little camp fol- lowers all busily plying their trade at the same time. Not far from the narrow entrance to the har- bour I found a coastguard-man perched on the summit of a mud wall, and attentively recon- noitring some distant object through his spy-glass. From this position he commanded an extensive view of the haven which — as it was now about full tide — spread like a great lake into the inte- rior. The absence of large vessels, and indeed of almost all kinds of sailing craft, from this secluded spot, would at first strike a stranger with surprize, but at low water the mystery would be cleared up : the scene would then be entirely changed : a great extent of flat mud would be left by the receding waters, in the WILD SWANS. 6S middle of which the shallow and devious channel might be perceived winding like a silver thread on its way to the sea. At this moment, however, the tide was at the highest, and a glance into the distance was suffi- cient to show me the object which had attracted the man's observation. Several flocks of \vild fowl, apparently brent geese, wigeon, scaup ducks, pochards, and tufted ducks, were swim- ming near the further side of the estuary, while in the midst of these, like a naval squadron among a fleet of fishing boats, sailed a noble herd of wild swans. I soon perceived that they were too far from the shore to admit of my getting a shot at them, and had therefore no choice but either to wait patiently in expectation of some of the party separating from the main body and wandering up one of the narrow creeks on the opposite side of the harbour, when by tak- ing a circuitous route, and availing myself of any intervening object that might project above the flat banks of the swamp, I might perhaps succeed in stalking them, or else to proceed in search of a less noble quarry. I at once chose the former alternative. As I swept the shores of the estuary with the spy-glass, I had the satisfaction of observing that my sport was not likely to be anticipated by any 64 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. wandering gunner, who might have perceived the birds ah'eady and perhaps venture on a random shot before I coukl commence operations, or even de- cide on the best mode of carrying them into effect. There was not a human being within sight, nor coukl I discover a single boat on the surface of the water. I had hardly congratulated myself on this fortunate circumstance, when a distant object arrested my attention. It looked at first like a plank of wood, or the trunk of a dead tree, as it floated slowly down a narrow creek, and seemed to be carried here and there at the mercy of the current; still there was something suspicious about it which prevented me from looking at anything else, and I continued to watch its move- ments with increasing anxiety. On reaching the open water it turned round, apparently in an eddy of the tide, and gave me an opportunity of examining its outline as the broadside was turned towards me for an instant. There was nothing, however, in this hasty glimpse calculated to increase my alarm ; on the contrary, I now felt more than ever convinced that I was looking at an inanimate log, and my only fear at this moment was that it miglit be drifted by the tide — which would soon begin to ebb — or by the irregular course of the channel, to that part of the harbour where the hoopers were still sailing UNWELCOME DISCOVERY. 65 ill apparent security, and alarm tliem prema- turely. On a sudden, however, it seemed to alter its course and to move slowly under the shadow of the bank, or, as the sailors term it, to ' hug the shore : ' it was apparently propelled by some hidden power, for it now no longer wheeled about, but advanced steadily with one end fore- most, and as I watched its movements while it crept cautiously along, I fancied every now and then that I could distinguish the slight splash of a paddle, and my heart sank within me. It was evidently the gun-boat of a wild-fowl shooter, and of one who was no novice in the craft; but when the first feeling of disappoint- ment had passed away, I easily succeeded in persuading myself that I should derive more pleasure from witnessing his operations than in spoiling his sport — which would have been the result of a premature movement on my part, for he was yet at least half a mile from the objects of his pursuit — but it occurred to me at the same moment that I might even manage to convert him into an unconscious but important ally in contributing to my — the jackal's — share of it. Taking, therefore, a hasty survey of the harbour and its shores, I saw that if I could contrive to conceal myself at a certain point on a lonj? and narrow belt of shingle at some 66 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. distance, over which the swans would probably fly when returning to the sea, I might perhaps have the good luck to intercept them. I lost no time in carrying out this plan : the coastguard-man ferried me across the mouth of the estuary, after which, by taking a wide circuit and availing myself of the nature of the ground where it was possible to mask my advance, I succeeded at last in reaching the desired point, and having scraped a hole in the loose shingle sufficiently large to conceal myself and my dog in a croviching atti- tude, I placed my guns on either side of me, and now directed all my attention to the exciting scene in the harbour. The hoopers were still there, surrounded by several flocks of wild-ducks, some five hundred yards from the position which I occupied, and about half that distance beyond them was the gun-boat, as harmless a looking object as could well be imagined, lying low in the water, and never for a moment attracting the attention of any of the devoted birds, who appeared to be perfectly at their ease and in the full enjoyment of repose and plenty after their long and stormy voyage. The brent geese and the wigeons were preening their feathers, while the scaup and tufted ducks were continually diving, or flapping their wings on their raturn to the surface before SUSPENSE. 67 they again plunged to the bottom. The swans were also feeding, but in a different manner: with their long necks they explored the surface of the mud beneath, where, to judge from their perseverance and the number of tails that ap- peared at the same moment directed upwards, they must have discovered something well suited to their palates. I could also distinguish some of the less common species of anatidcB, among which the males of the smew and the golden-eye were conspicuous in their pied plumage. The sooty scoter too was there, but foraging by him- self apart from the main body. All this time their concealed enemy was gradually lessening the distance between them and himself. Slowly and stealthily did he advance, nearer and nearer, until at last I expected every instant to hear the roar of the stanchion-gun, and fancied that he must be excessively dilatory or over-cautious, as minute after minute elapsed without the report reaching my ears. At last a bird rose from the crowd and flew directly towards me. I saw that it would pass tolerably near, and when in a few seconds afterwards I perceived that it was a male golden-eye within thirty yards of me, I almost forgot the important — though as yet passive — part I was enacting in the scene, and as I in- stinctively grasped my double-gun and raised the 68 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL, hammer, I felt tempted to pull the trigger. Pru- dence, however, prevailed, and I followed the example of my sagacious dog, who lay crouched at my side without moving a muscle of his limbs. He had seen the bird as well as myself, and his quick eye had detected my hasty movement, but his attention was again directed to the main body of water-fowl, several of which had at length taken alarm and were rising, one by one, from the water. It was an anxious moment. The swans were still there, but they had ceased to feed ; their heads were turned towards me, and I soon perceived that the entire flotilla had gra- dually approached nearer to me. Now or never, thought I. I glanced rapidly at the advancing gun-boat — almost at the same instant a small puff of smoke issued from its further extremity, succeeded by a pigmy report, and up rose the entire host of water-fowl — swans and all — the snow-white plumage of the hoopers standing out in bold relief against the murky sky. Then a huge volume of smoke and a bright flame burst from the prow, followed by the thunder of the great gun itself — off at last! — and as it cleared a passage through the winged mass between us, several of the motley crowd fell to rise no more : almost at the same instant the head and shoulders of a man were protruded from a covering of sea- RETRIEVER AND WOUNDED SWAN. 69 weed, under which he had hitherto been con- cealed, and the next moment he was vigorously plying his paddles in all the excitement of a regular cripple chase. My turn had at length arrived : restraining the ardour of my dog, who only waited for a word to take an active share in the ^iursuit, I turned my attention to a detach- ment of swans, about five in number, which had apparently escaped unhurt, and after wheeling once or twice over the bodies of their dead companions, uttering cill the time their trumpet- like notes, were now gradually ascending and Hearing my place of concealment. On they came, but suddenly their leader seemed to have disco- vered my position and veered round in an oppo- site direction, followed by all except one, who, as he was passing overhead, fell a victim to my long gun. A brent goose almost at the same instant passed on the other side, and afforded an easy mark for the first barrel of my heavy double, while the second was discharged at a venture, but ineffectually, at a party of pochards — the last detachment of the fugitives, as they hurried back once more to the tempestuous but less treacherous waters of the channel. On proceeding to the spot where my hooper had fallen, I found that it had been only winged, and that it had made its way down the further 70 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. side of a sloping bank of shingle, which bounded this part of the harbour as far as the breakers : a few minutes more and it would have been far out to sea. Here my dog proved invaluable : plunging into the surf, he seized the swan by the disabled pinion, and after a long struggle, during which I frequently lost sight of both dog and bird, he landed it safely on the beach. It proved to be a male hooper, or wild-swan- — cygniis ferns of authors. I soon afterwards fell in with the hero of the gun-boat, and lie gladly availed himself of my water-spaniel's assistance in retrieving many of his wounded ducks, which had struggled to the shore and had found concealment among the rushes on the borders of the muddy coves, with which this side of the harbour was indented. 1 then examined his spoil. He had killed six hoopers, several brent geese, and nearly twenty ducks of diiferent species, but none of any espe- cial ornithological interest. He told me that he had but lately launched his punt on these waters, having been tempted by the severity of the season and the secluded situation of the harbour to migrate hither from the mud-flats of Poole and Lymington, which swarmed witli rival gunners. On my way home I skirted the opposite side of the estuary, and, as the tide had by this time RETURN. 71 ebbed considerably, the creeks were occupied by flocks of curlews and sandpipers. By cautiously approaching- these inlets, sometimes making a wide detour where the nature of the ground ren- dered it advisable, sometimes crawling on my hands and feet as I neared the margin, I was enabled to stalk several of the former birds suc- cessfully, and to get two or three ' family shots ' at the latter. Before I reached the mouth of the haven, I found my baggage and artillery rather heavier than I could conveniently carry in the teeth of a north-eastern gale ; so leaving my duck-gun and the greater part of my booty in charge of my friend, the coastguard-man, until the following day, I retraced my steps along the beach, not forgetting to pick up my fairy-fishes on the way, and slinging the hooper over one shoulder as a trophy of my sport. 72 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. CHAPTER V. " Officium autem quod ab eo ducitur banc primum habet nam, quse deducit ad convenientiam conserrationemque naturae, quam si seque- mur ducem nunquam aberrabimus." — Ciceeo. The Pheasant — Care and Attention necessary for his Increase and Welfare — Tame Pheasants — Outlying Nests — Eggs — Foster Mothers — Barn-door and Bantam Hens — Food of the Chicks — Ants' Eggs — Best Mode of Collecting them — Out-of-door Management of the Young Pheasants — ' The Gapes' — Prevention better than Cure — Singular Instance of its Malignity — Origin of the Disease, and consequent Inefficacy of ordinary Recipes — Colonel Mon- tagu's Cure — Pheasants' Eggs — The Practice of Pur- chasing them reprehended — Importance of obtaining them in a Fresh State — Experiment to effect that Object — Accident — Open Phcasantry — The Rivals — The Victor vanquished — Nature the best Guide — Unex- pected Result. Although there is something repulsive to the true sportsman in the idea of encouraging by artificial means the objects of his pursuit, yet there are so many and such peculiar circum- stances connected with the nature of the phea- sant that it may justly be considered an excep- tion to the rule, and unless in certain highly THE PHEASANT. id favoured districts, remote from the busy haunts of men, and where considerable territorial authority still obtains, much care, experience, and atten- tion are necessary at all stages of its existence for its welfare and preservation. We must recollect that the pheasant is, strictly speaking, an exotic — as much so as the turkey or the guinea-fowl — and, although many cen- turies have elapsed since his first introduction to these islands, yet his absence from our farm yards and homesteads is not to be attributed to want of attention or spirit on the part of our breeders or farmers, but to an innate shy- ness and timidity which have hitherto foiled every effort to reclaim him thoroughly from a state of nature. He therefore seems to occupy a position mid- way between the domesticated inhabitants of the fowl-yard and those wild denizens of the fields and the mountains, the partridge and the grouse ; but while it should be the sportsman's object to elevate him as much as possible above the ignoble character of a poultry-bird, and to render him, as far as may be, fera naturd, he must remember that in these days there are many serious obstacles to the w^elfare, nay even to the existence of the pheasant, in this thickly inhabited island, which can be counterbalanced E 74 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. only by having recourse to those artificial aids which long experience has taught us are abso- lutely necessary for the increase and maintenance of the species. I have no intention here of inflicting on the reader a long essay on the best mode of hatch- ing, rearing, and breeding pheasants, but as my own experience in these matters has been con- siderable, and, on a few points of importance, is somewhat at variance with established usage ; and as during the course of my experiments I have been led, from accidental circumstances, to adopt a plan for obtaining the eggs in a fresh state, more in accordance with nature than had hitherto been tried, and one moreover which has been attended with perfect success, I may be excused for devoting a few pages to the subject. On the safe principle of leaving everything to nature where it is possible to do so, I am clearly of opinion that the eggs of pheasants, even when found in an outlying nest, should not be taken for the purpose of placing thera under barn-door hens to be hatched. No foster- mother or nurse can compare with the natural parent ; and it is surprising, indeed almost in- credible— except to those who have witnessed it — how frequently a hen ])heasant will succeed in bringing up her brood in safety, although the TAME PHEASANTS. 75 nest may be placed in the most exposed and dan- gerous situation, within a few inches of a footpath traversed by hundreds of idle, bird-nesting boys, and in the immediate vicinity of a common or waste ground, where the authority of the landlord is a dead letter, and where, except for the safe- guard which the quiet and unobtrusive colours of her plumage afford, the speedy detection of the bird would inevitably take place. Still there are circumstances under which it may be de- sirable to remove the eggs, and in these the prudent keeper must act according to his judg- ment. Should he, for instance, have reason to believe that the nest has been previously dis- covered by another party, who are only waiting until the full complement of eggs are laid, that they may pounce upon the prize with greater advantage, he will do well to place them quietly in the crown of his hat, and covering them with several handfuls of soft, dry grass, and lastly with his handkerchief, lodge them as soon as possible in a cool cellar, unless there is a sufficient number for a sitting, and a domestic hen ready for immediate incubation. As the laying season approaches, it is advis- able for the keeper to look out in all the neigh- bouring farm-yards and cottages for clean-legged barn-door hens. Some persons recommend ban- E 2 76 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. tarns, but although they make excellent mothers, yet these diminutive birds are incapable of cover- ing more than eight pheasants' eggs efficiently, while sixteen or eighteen may safely be confided to the common dunghill fowl. The large Dork- ing, from its great size, is often a favourite with keepers ; but I have seen so many cases of un- intentional infanticide committed by these huge, clumsy-legged, five-toed matrons, that I cannot conscientiously recommend them. The game- hen, too, has her advocates, and as a careful mother and watchful protector, none can sur- pass her ; but woe to the unfortunate little mem- bers of any neighbouring clutch of young pheasants that may venture unwittingly within the rails of her hutch : her hostility to them is equalled only by her attachment to her own brood. Now, as the lawn or piece of mowed grass on which the birds are reared is generally capable of accommodating several families, and as the young poults will occasionally wander beyond the precincts of their own domicile into an ad- joining stronghold, it is doubtful whether the truculent propensities of these feathered Ama- zons are atoned for by their other good qualities. I have generally found a cross between the common dunghill hen and the game fowl, the very best for the purpose ; but where breeding is car- INCUBATION. 77 ried on on a large scale there is no use in being fastidious. The grand object is to find hens of any sort that are ready, or show indications of being soon ready, to sit. Those which have * stolen nests ' are to be preferred — that is to say, those which have of their own accord selected a spot for their nest in some out-of-the-way corner of a barn, stable, loft, or empty pig-stye. If the bird is already sitting on her eggs she should continue to do so until those of the pheasant are ready to be placed under her. The former may then be removed. Pheasants' eggs require about five or six days longer incubation than those of the com- mon fowl, viz., about twenty-six days, and the appearance of the chick should be expected about the twenty-fourth day. Occasionally, as with domestic fowls, the internal coat of the shell will adhere to the young bird, and all its efforts to release itself will prove ineffectual. This is caused by a portion of the white of the egg having become dry from the admission of air through the open- ing which the little prisoner had previously made with his beak, and being thus suddenly changed into a gluey substance, the rudimentary feathers are apt to stick to the sides of the orifice. Under tlicse circumstances it is advisable to assist nature. The aperture may be increased by the application of several gentle blows of any blunt 78 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. substance, and the fracture may be extended until it comprises the whole circumference of the egg ; after which, slowly and cautiously, the libe- ration of the captive may be gradually completed. I am not now alluding to the system of bring- ing up young pheasants in aviaries, fowl-yards, or enclosures, but to the mode which 1 consider the best adapted for rearing, out of doors, and turn- ing down at once in game preserves, a number of healthy poults during the summer, so that in the ensuing autumn they shall be in as full an enjoy- ment of liberty as is consistent with the nature of the country or the local system of preservation. As soon as the young birds are hatched they should be left with the mother for a day and a night, during which time they require no food, nature having provided nutriment for their im- mediate sustenance in the yolk of the egg, the residue of which has been recently drawn into the body of the chicken and absorbed, but the genial warmth of her body, under which they all nestle, is of the greatest importance to them. The first food that should be given them is ants' eggs. These arc, strictly speaking, the cocoons of the large rufous ant (formica rufa) which arc tolerably plentiful in most great woods during the summer. The nests are of consider- able elevation, concshapcd, and constructed gene- FOOD OF YOUNG PHEASANTS. ilj rally of very small twigs and leaves of the Scotch fir. Some persons find it difficult to separate the eggs from the materials of the nest. The simplest mode is to place as much as may be required — ants, eggs, and all — in a bag or light sack, the mouth of which should be tied up. On reaching home a large white sheet should be spread on the grass, and a few green boughs placed round it on the inside, over which the outer edge of the sheet should be lightly turned ; this should be done during sunshine. The contents of the bag should then be emptied into the middle, and shaken out so as to expose the eggs to the light. In a moment, forgetting all consider- ations of personal safety, these interesting little insects set about removing their precious charge — the cocoons — from the injurious rays of the sun, and rapidly convey them under the shady cover afforded by the foliage of the boughs near the margin of the sheet. In less than ten minutes the work will be completed. It is only necessary then to remove the branches, and the eggs, or cocoons, may be collected by handfuls, unencumbered with sticks, leaves, or any sort of rubbish. Many kinds of farinaceous and vegetable food have been recommended for young pheasants when they are a little older, such as the green 80 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. tops of barley, leeks, boiled rice, Emden groats, oatmeal, &:c. They are all excellent, but I am satisfied that they are almost always given at too early a period. In a state of nature their food for a long time would be wholly insectile. Now as it is not in our power to procure the quantity and va- riety of small insects and larva which the mother- bird so perseveringly and patiently finds for them, we are obliged to have recourse to ants' eggs, as easily accessible and furnishing a considerable supply of the necessary sort of aliment within a small compass. Ants' eggs, indeed, are the right hand of the keeper when bringing up young pheasants; without them he may almost despair of success, and with a good stock of them his birds will thrive apace and escape many diseases to which they would otherwise be continually liable. A large sward of smooth green turf, planted here and there with shrubs and evergreens ; or a small meadow, newly mown on purpose, near the keeper's house, and bounded by a coppice or plantation, afford good sites for the nursery. On this the coops should be placed at intervals of several yards from each other. These should be shaped like the roof of a cottage, open be- neath, boarded at the back and at each gable end, but with rails in front sufficiently wide to PHEASANT NURSERY. 81 admit of the ingress and egress of the chicks, yet so close as to prevent the hen from quitting it. A lid to fit this part of the coop, or ' rip,' should be laid over it at sunset every evening. This will prevent the unwelcome intrusion of stoats and weasels, and though last, not least in iniquity, of rats. It should be placed in its proper position as gently as possible so as not to alarm the young pheasants, who, as they ad- vance towards maturity, become exceeding shy and wary, start from underneath the wings of the hen at the slightest alarm and betake themselves to the nearest cover, from w'hich it is frequently a long time before they again issue, and if the shades of evening have fallen in the mean time, they have no little difficulty in retracing their steps to their own habitation. The coops should be moved morning and even- ing, as the hen ought to have a fresh piece of greensward undemieath her twice every day. At- tention to this point is of the greatest importance. She may be fed with barley, rye, or oats — the first is the best — which should be thrown inside the coop, but the ants' eggs, and whatever is in- tended exclusively as food for the chicks, ought to be placed just on the outside, or she would have no compunction in appropriating the greater portion of it to herself. Wlien about a week E 5 82 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. or ten days old, Eraden groats and coarse Scotch oatmeal may be mixed with the ants' eggs, and curds made from fresh milk with alum, are an excellent addition. If ants' eggs cannot be pro- cured in sufficient quantities, gentles should oc- casionally be given, which may be obtained in the following manner. An ox-liver, a sheep's head and pluck, or the leg of a horse, should be suspended from the bough of a tree in a warm sheltered situation. Beneath this a wide shallow tub, half filled with bran, should be placed. In a short time the meat will be thoroughly fly- blown, and in a few more days it will be covered with maggots, or gentles, which will continue to drop into the tub, where they soon become cleaned and purged in the bran. A large spoon or saucer may be used for removing them. Next to ants' eggs, these perhaps constitute the best ' standing dish ' for young pheasants, and have besides the advantage of being within the reach of every breeder. Wasps' nests, containing the larvae and pupae, may be procured Avithout dif- ficulty at a later period of the season, and afibrd a most acceptable treat. If the supply of these should be too great for immediate use, or if it should be thought advisable to economize the stock, it will be necessary to bake them for a short time in an oven. This will prevent the DISEASES OF YOUNG PHEASANTS. So larvae and nymphs from coming to maturity — in fact, kill them — and the contents of the combs will keep for some weeks afterwards. Hemp- seed, crushed and mingled with oatmeal, should be given when about to wean them from an in- sect diet. Hard-boiled eggs also form a useful addition, and may be mixed for a long time with their ordinary farinaceous food. A supply of fresh water is of importance. It may be placed in wide shallow saucers, which should be partly inside and partly outside the coop, so as to be within reach of both the hens and the chicks. The best sort are made of common tile clay, in a series of concentric ridges, each about half an inch wide. These hold a sufficient quantity of water, and by en- abling the chicks to walk through them without wetting their feathers, are superior to a common plate or pan. They may be had at most country grocers' or earthenware shops. Young pheasants are subject to a kind of diar- rhoea, which often proves fatal. If the disease be taken in time, boiled rice and milk, in lieu of any other diet, will generally effect a cure. To these chalk may be added, to counteract the acidity which attends this complaint, and should the symptoms be very violent, a small quantity of alum, as an astringent. 84 GAME BIRDS AND AVILD FOWL. But the most formidable disease from which the young pheasant suffers, is that known by the name of ' the gapes ' — so termed from the fre- quent gasping efforts of the bird to inhale a mouthful of air. Chickens and turkeys are equally liable to be affected by it, and it may be remarked that a situation which has been used for many successive seasons as a nursery ground is more apt to be visited with this plague than one which has only recently been so employed. Indeed, I have observed that it seldom makes its appearance on a lawn or meadow during the first season of its occupation, and, therefore, where practicable, it is most strongly to be recommended that fresh ground should be applied to the purpose every year, and when this cannot be done, that a quan- tity of common salt should be thrown broadcast over the surface of the earth, after the birds have left it in the autumn. This scourge is not con- fined to poultry-yards and aviaries. About the latter end of June, 1848, I visited the pheasant nursery of a friend, whose head-keeper is perhaps one of the most intelligent of his calling, and has had more than half a century of experience in rearing tame pheasants. Nothing could ex- ceed the beauty and the natural advantages of the spot. It was in a large orchard, with a southern aspect, near a garden well fenced and secure ' THE GAPES.' 85 from the attacks of vermin. The green turf was kept carefully mowed, and the old apple-trees were sufficiently far tipart to admit the sun- shine, while their spreading boughs afforded a cool shelter to the young broods during the mid- day heats. About fifteen or twenty coops were scattered here and there, each containing a steady business-looking barn-door hen. Here, was one whose sole thoughts seemed to be engrossed with the care of her newly hatched family, who were snugly nestled under her capacious wings, while she seemed to puff herself out to the greatest possible dimensions, that the prying stranger might not catch even a glimpse of her precious little ones. There, was another, apparently in all the agonies of despair at the sudden flight of her truant charge, which, having just begun to learn the use of their wings, had fluttered into a clump of raspberry bushes in alarm at my sudden approach. There again, was another in the full enjoyment of maternal pride, as her ' happy family ' ran in and out under the bars of the coop and jumped nimbly upon her back or sat basking between her shoulders. Ants' eggs were in abundance, and a goodly shower of gentles were constantly dropping from the corpses of two grim-looking cats, suspended from the branch of a pear-tree, who seemed thus, as 86 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. it were, condemned to make some atonement for their manifold sins against the game-laws. Every- thing, in short, appeared to be prosperous, and about two hundred young pheasants were in perfect enjoyment of health and happiness in that favoured spot. A month elapsed before I visited the place again. The old hens indeed were there, but looking shabby and disconsolate, while a few sickly, gawky poults sat near them, with half-closed eyes and ruflSed plumage, start- ing every now and then from an apparent state of stupor, and with open beaks and necks ex- tended to the utmost, making a long spasmodic effort to breathe ; while others, among whom the disease had as yet fallen less heavily, or who were perhaps recovering from its effects, were lazily passing between the rails of their coops or loung- ing outside in the sunshine, like the convalescents of a fever hospital. Three -fourths of their num- ber had been swept away during the last fort- night by that dreadful scourge, the gapes, which, like certain diseases that affect the human sub- ject, seemed to have been engendered and fos- tered by excessive population within a limited district. The place had been devoted to the same purpose year after year, and the germs of the disorder, although occasionally dormant for a season, were always ready to break out at CAUSE OF THE MALADY. 87 an unexpected moment with increased viru- lence. Dissection has proved that the latent cause of this malady is a minute worm of the genus fasciola, which is found adhering to the internal part of the windpipe or trachea. Occasionally it may be discovered just within the aperture of the glottis, but generally it is more than half-way down, and not unfrequently near the bifurcation of the trachea. It adheres closely to the internal membrane by means of two suckers, is almost devoid of the power of motion, and altogether has rather the appearance of a small artery or red muscle than of a worm. Nevertheless, it is obviously the immediate cause of this distemper and of death itself, which is the result of suiFoca- tion from the highly inflamed state of the respi- ratory apparatus. To any one aware of this fact, it is evident that all attempted modes of cure which have reference to the digestive organs must be utterly hopeless, and yet there is hardly a gamekeeper or henwife who does not boast of some original nostrum, which, being administered as food or drink, must of course pass through the oesophagus, or gullet, into the stomach. I have seen such remedies tried in hundreds of cases, but, of course, without success. Tracheotomy, and the removal of the worm — if such a delicate 88 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. operation could be performed on so tender a subject as a young pheasant without of itself causing death — might be attended with happy results. I have witnessed its failure even when attempted by a master-hand, and that of many other ingenious mechanical contrivances to effect the same object. Hitherto, I am convinced that no specific has been discovered, and that the method recommended by Colonel Montagu is the only one that promises a chance of success. This is fumigation by tobacco-smoke, under the in- fluence of which the poults should remain long enough to ensure the death of the tracheal worm, while its efiects on themselves should not exceed the limits of stupefaction. Here, in fact, is the difficulty. The experiment should, if possible, be tried at an early stage of the disease. I have myself frequently performed it with success under such circumstances, and have as often failed after it had become firml}^ established, and when the constitution of the birds had been weakened by its ravages. Having said thus much on this pheasant plague, I shall not allude to any of their minor diseases, which, indeed, if taken collec- tively, are not of a hundredth part of the im- portance of 'tlic gapes;' but as I firmly believe the tobacco-smoke cure to be the only one that holds out a probability of success, and as much COLONEL Montagu's cuke. 89 care and attention to all the details of the ope- ration are absolutely necessary, to enable the practitioner to steer the middle course between stupefaction and suffocation, I shall here tran- scribe it in the words of Colonel Montagu him- self, to whose intelligence and ingenuity we are indebted for the valuable discovery : — " In order to administer this fumigation in sufficient quantity, there is some care required that the chickens, which must be confined in a close vessel, are not suftbcated. We have re- peated this operation with the utmost success by confining the diseased chickens in a box, with a door on one side about half the height of the box, with its hinges so placed as to open down- wards. By this means the interior can be exa- mined from time to time, in order to observe the density of the smoke and the state of the chickens. To a person in the habit of smoking tobacco there is no difficulty in lighting a pipe, and by intro- ducing the bowl through an aperture, the smoke may be blown in till it appears considerably dense, which must be examined every two or three minutes. " When any of the chickens become stupefied by the narcotic quality of the fumes of the tobacco, the operation of blowing the pipe should cease ; and as fresh air will rush in when the 90 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. door is opened, there will be uo danger of suffo- cation. If, however, any should appear to be more exhausted than the rest, or than is requi- site, they should be taken out, and they will soon recover when removed from the smoke. We have found that the longer the chickens are confined in the smoke the better, but that a certain degree of density is required to destroy the worms by its caustic quality. As dense a smoke, therefore, as the chickens can continue to exist in is best, and the criterion is stupefaction and the loss of the use of their legs ; when that effect appears, no more smoke should be intro- duced. *' As soon, however, as the chickens recover the use of their legs, they may be suffered to remain in the fumigating box for two or three hours ; but remembering that the inhaling of a lai'ge quantity of smoke in half an hour will be more effectual than a whole day confined in a small quantity." * An object of the first importance wdth all who are anxious to increase their stock of pheasants, is to procure a good supply of fresh eggs. I have already expressed an opinion that even the out- lying nests, if not exposed to the most imminent * Supplement to tlie ' Oniitlinloijical Dictionary' — Article ' Pheasant.' pheasants' eggs. 91 risk of discovery, should be allowed to take their chance, trusting to the natural instincts of the female bird to enable her to escape detection, while at the same time no pains should be spared in thwarting the illegal depredations of those idle vagabonds who haunt the outskirts of every manor. An adequate number of eggs, therefore, from his own beat is not to be expected by any proprietor, and as to purchasing them from per- sons in his neighbourhood, or even at a distance, the practice is so reprehensible in every point of view that it may almost appear unnecessary to stigmatize it as it deserves. It is alike unworthy of a gentleman or a sportsman, nay, even of an honest man ; and yet it cannot be denied that there are many who have a fair claim to all of these characters, in their general conduct, their bearing in the field, and the ordinary tenor of their dealings, who do not scruple to purchase pheasants' eggs every year, thus blindly shutting their eyes to the nature of the transaction, and indirectly encouraging a system of poaching far more destructive and degrading than the practices of the night-shooter whom they themselves, a few months afterwards, have but little compunc- tion in consigning to the tender mercies of the treadmill. But apart from these considerations, it must 92 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. be observed that the eggs obtained tlu'ough these ambiguous and uncertain channels are frequently good for nothing. Half the number are either addled or contain dead chicks, in different stages of development, having been abstracted, probably many days before, from various nests, and kept perhaps in a cupboard or underneath a bed in the stuffy cabin of the robber until a sufficient number had been collected to ensure a profitable day's sale. An efficient plan for procuring the eggs in a fresh state may be adopted by any person residing in the country who can afford to devote to the purpose a well fenced piece of ground, in a quiet situation, with a dry soil and a southern aspect. The wall or wooden fence ought to be high, and the top entirely covered with a net, which may be supported in the centre by one or more tall poles. A few heaps of dead bushes or dry fag- gots should be placed in each corner and in dif- ferent parts of the enclosure, and a supply of fresh water must not be forgotten. Here may be lodged from twenty to thirty pheasants, accord- ing to the dimensions of the place. It is abso- lutely necessary that they should be what are called * tame bred birds,' that is, birds which have been hatched and reared under domestic hens, as those which are netted or caught in a PLAN OF PROCURING FRESH EGGS. 93 wild state will always prove inefTicient layers. The hen pheasant is in her prime at two years' old. About the fourth season her oviparous powers begin to decline, although her maternal qualifications in other respects do not deteriorate until a much later period. It is, therefore, of consequence to enlist occasionally a few recruits to supply the place of those females who have com- pleted their third year, and who may then be set at large in the preserves. There are various opi- nions as to the number of hens that should be allotted to one cock. Some persons allow as many as five or six. My own conviction, the result of long experience, is that three are sufiicient and that the admission of a greater number will entail the frequent occurrence of unproductive eggs, although in a state of nature the relative proportion of the sexes might vary considerably. Let us suppose then that twenty- one hens and seven cocks are turned into this enclosure. They may be fed with barley, beans, peas, rice, or oats ; boiled potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, and Swedish turnips. A large heap of dry sand, protected by a shed from the rain, must also be provided, in which they are fond of dusting themselves — indeed, no pheasantry should be without one — as they are by this means ena- bled to rid themselves of vast c^uantities of para- 94 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. si tic animalculee, which prove so detrimental to the health of all gallinaceous birds. The phea- sants may be allowed to remain together until March, when the cocks will begin to evince fre- quent signs of pugnacity — the first indication of the approaching breeding season. The large en- closure is then to be divided into seven lesser compartments, by means of tall hurdles or wattles, to all of which the keeper should have ready access. Three hens and one cock may be placed in each of these, water and food should be regu- larly supplied once, and but once, a day : at the same time the attendant will have the opportu- nity of removing any eggs that may have been laid during the previous twenty-four hours, and these he ought at once to deposit in a cool cellar until a sufficient number have been collected for ' a sitting,' which should be placed under a do- mestic hen. The quantity which hen-phea- sants will lay during a season in this qualified state of captivity is very great. The larger the compartments in which they are kept at that time the better, so as to admit of suflicicnt room, fresh air, a heap of bushes, and a mound of sand in each. I had been for some years in the habit of keeping pheasants in a moderately sized establishment, such as I have described, when an accident to the netted roof, which indeed was OPEN PHEASANTRY. 95 almost destroyed by a severe storm, induced me in the following spring to try an experiment which was attended with unexpected results. All my pheasants having escaped on the night of the accident, I was obliged to commence ope- rations de novo, and, to avoid the expense of netting, I pinioned fifteen tame-bred poults, — eleven hens and four cocks, — with which the kindness of a neighbouring friend supplied me, and turned them all into the enclosure. The operation of pinioning consists in amputating the forehand or pinion of one wing at the carpal joint. The bird is never able afterw'ards to ascend in flight more than two or three feet from the ground, and therefore escape from an enclo- sure such as I have described would be impos- sible.* The wounds soon healed, the birds en- joyed excellent health through the winter, and in the following March, when the males began to exhibit the usual symptoms of pugnacity, I was preparing to locate them in their respective com- partments for the season, when I was unexpec- tedly obliged to leave home, and directed that the pheasantry should remain in statu quo during my absence. On my return, how changed was the state of affairs ! Love and war had been running ♦ Birds tlius pinioned arc of course unfit for subsequent liberation in the covers. 96 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. riot within its once peaceful precincts. Three of the four cock-birds were completely hors de combat. One of them, indeed, was dying, two were severely lacerated, but the fourth, who, like the surviving Horatius in the combat with the Curiatii, had probably vanquished all his rivals in detail, appeared, like his classical prototype, per- fectly uninjured, and strutted in all the pomp and pride of a conqueror among a crowd of hens, who seemed to regard matters with perfect equanimity, passing with contemptuous indiffe- rence their unfortunate knights-errant, as they sat moping on the ground with their heads buried in the friendly shelter of the bushes, but following obediently in the wake of the victor, and evidently disposed to admit to the full ex- tent that ' none but the brave deserve the fair.' I should have mentioned that the grounds in the neighbourhood of the enclosure were stocked with wild pheasants, most of which had once been ' tame-bred birds,' and — although always exhi- biting the innate timidity of the species on any sudden alarm — evinced an attachment to the place in which they had been reared, and conti- nued to haunt tlie garden and evergreens dm'ing the greater part of the year. As I had now no opportunity of procuring any pinioned male phea- sants to supply the place of the three discomfited THE VICTOR VANQUISHED. 97 heroes, I allowed matters to take their chance, fully prepared to find that most of my eggs would prove unproductive and almost inclined to break up the pheasantry altogether, but my half- formed intention was suddenly arrested by a new turn in the aspect of affiiirs. On entering the enclosure one morning, I was surprised to see a fine old cock-pheasant, with a tail of portentous length, take wing from among the midst of the hens and, with a protracted crow of triumph, fly over the fence into the evergreens beyond. But where was Horatius ? Alas ! his days were num- bered. He had found his match at last. After a long search, I discovered him squatted in a corner, his once brilliant plumage torn and co- vered with blood. One eye was closed ; the other was completely extinguished. His neck was entirely plucked, and as bare as a vulture's. His crimson cheeks were sadly lacerated. His head was absolutely scalped, and where a pair of purple egrets had lately been so proudly erected, a bare skull was now alone visible. Poor fellow ! he died the same evening. The rest may be briefly told. Day after day did the conqueror visit his newly acquired territory, and many a youthful rival, too prudent to come into close quarters with the long-spurred tyrant, would pay a stolen visit to his seraglio during his absence r 98 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. and win the favours of his fickle fair ones. I obtained an immense number of eggs during that season, which proved unusually productive. No further care was necessary than to provide the birds with a sufficiency of food and to remove the eggs every day — which, by the way, were never deposited in a nest, but dropped here and there in difierent parts of the enclosure. Thus, from what I regarded at the time as a succession of untoward accidents, I became acquainted with the most efiectual, because the most natural way of keeping hen-pheasants with a view to obtain- ing a constant and ample supply of prolific eggs during the breeding-season. Every gamekeeper's cottage in the heart of a preserve must possess in its neighbourhood much greater facilities for the undertaking than were within my own reach. My expectations, I confess, were far exceeded; and if what I have now written should be the means of inducing others to follow my example on a larger scale, I shall rejoice, not only in having been fortunate enough to confer a real benefit on the preservers of game, but still more in having been enabled — though indirectly — to inflict ' a heavy blow and great discouragement ' on the nefarious traflic of the egg-stealer — the most destructive and un])ardonable of all the numerous devices of modern poaching. WILD GEESE. 99 CHAPTER VI. " Nay, I am for all waters." — Shakspeare. Various Species of Wild Geese — Grey-lag and White-fronted — Distinguishing Characters — Origin of the Domestic Stock — Bean Goose — Pink-footed Goose — Bernicle — Brent Goose — Shieldrake — Foreign Ducks and Geese unadvisedly admitted into the British Fauna — Probable Cause of the Error — Ducks on the British Coasts — Diversity of Haunts, Habits, Food and Structure — Decoys — Wild Fowl Shooting — Young Water Fowl devoured by Pike — The ' Bird-fly' — Observation. There are about five or six species of wild geese usually met with by the coast shooter in the British islands ; one of the most uncommon of which, if not the very rarest, is the grey lag or grey legged goose {anser ferns), once called the common wild goose, and supposed to be the origin of our reclaimed biixl. Yet there is good reason for believing that a nearly allied species of far more frequent occurrence, although bearing a general resemblance in size, form and plumage — the white-fronted goose {anser alhifrons) — has had nearly an equal share in founding the F 2 100 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. domestic stock. The distiiiguisliiiig characters of the first named are frequently met with among our tame birds, whose colours approximate to those of the wild type ; such as the wings being of a lighter tint than the upper parts of the body, as well as in the pale flesh colour of the legs, while others again have the orange coloured legs and white forehead of anser albi- frons. The strongest presumptive evidence, how- ever, in favour of anser ferus being the founder of the family is furnished by a fact mentioned by Mr. Yarrell. A pinioned wild gander of this kind, which had never associated with either bean goose or white fronted goose — although both were kept in the same piece of water with him at the gardens of the Zoological Society of London — was in 1841 introduced to a female of the domestic goose, which was selected for the experiment from the circumstance of her plumage exhibiting the distinctive marks of the true grey lag. The two birds were kept together for a few days, and the result was a matrimonial alliance and a nest of eight eggs. The bean goose {anser segetum), again, is very similar in general aspect to the grey lag and to the white fronted ; but may be at once distinguished from the former by the nail at the end of the beak being black instead of white, by the darker hue of the wings and PIN'K FOOTED GOOSE. 101 the orange colour of the legs ; while the absence of the white feathers at the base of the upper mandible and on the forehead, are alone sufficient to point out the difference between it and the latter species. There is another wild goose which has only of late years been added to the British fauna, viz. the pink footed {anser plioenicopus). It closely resembles the bean goose in form and plumage, but may be easily recognised by its smaller size, and the pink or rose colour of the legs. Mr. Bartlett first pointed out these distinctions from an example which came into his possession in 1839. Mr. Yarrell records the occurrence of one at Holkham in 1841, which was shot by Lord Coke — the present Earl of Leicester — out of a flock of about twenty ; and it would appear, from the following extract of a letter which I received from a friend who was staying on a visit at Holkham in 1 847, that there is something pecu- liarly attractive to this bird in the well preserved fens of that celebrated estate. "Lord Leicester tells me that some time aw he shot a wild ffoose with pink legs, which Mr. Yarrell considered a new species. It is singular that since that time he has met with more of them than of any other sort. He showed me five which he had just killed." 102 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. The bernicle {anser leucopsis) and the brent goose {anser hrenta) are both smaller than any of those before named, and although differmg con- siderably from each other in plumage, form and proportions, they yet present so many points of resemblance as to entitle them, in the opinion of some authors, to be included in the same genus {hernicla). They are both met with during severe weather in large flocks on the shores of the British islands, but the brent goose is more widely distributed, being at once the most com- mon, and the best flavoured bird of the whole family. In the winter of 1838 — 39 great num- bers were killed on the coasts of the southern maritime counties. I saw many flocks, and shot several birds myself at Pagham Harbour, in Sussex, as well as many rarer anatida; ; but I did not meet with a single bernicle during the whole of that severe season. This last indeed is of more frequent occurrence on the western than on the eastern or southern shores of Great Britain ; and is still more numerous in Ireland, where I have seen larger flocks of them than of any other kind of wild goose. Although a heavier bird, it is in my opinion far inferior to the brent goose in a culinary point of view. The shieldrake, or shcUdrake {tadorna vul- panser), one of the most beautiful of our anatidce, THE SHIELDRAKE. 103 is seldom met with in the interior of the country, even on the largest lakes and rivers, except in a half domesticated state. It breeds in the rabbit warrens on the sandy shores of the coast, and is generally considered a wary bird and very difficult of approach — so much so that in Orkney and Shetland it has acquired the provincial name of * Sly goose.' When young, however, it would appear to be susceptible of domestication. A friend of mine told me that when at Sandringham in Norfolk — the property of the late J. Motteux, Esq. — he saw an entire family of young shiel- drakes emerge from a rabbit hole in which they had been bred, when summoned by the whistle of the gamekeeper, partake greedily of the food that was thrown to them, and retire into the same retreat when their repast was finished. Although the strong and fishy taste of the flesh of this bird renders it almost unfit for the table, yet the striking arrangement of the black, white and chestnut colours of its plumage, with its bright red beak and legs, render it a great favourite on ornamental lakes and ponds in many parks and pleasure grounds. In such situations, even when pinioned, it has occasionally been known to breed ; but the young birds, however carefully protected from the poacher and their feathered and fourfooted enemies, too frequently fall vie- 104 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. tims to that fresh-water tyrant, the pike. A party of shieldrakes were kept for many years on a trout stream in Sussex, until in process of time the pike worked their way up from the deeper parts of the river, and soon afterwards the ducklings began gradually to disappear from the surface, until at last not a single young bird was left. The old ones then wandered down the stream, and their subsequent fate was unkno\\'n. Although generally classed with the ducks, the shieldrake would appear in some respects to connect that portion of the anatidce with the geese. Like the latter it is of considerable size, and there is little or no difference in the plumage of the male and female. Many kinds of wild ducks and geese, which have of late years been admitted into the cata- logue of British birds, can only be regarded as very rare or accidental visitors. Others, again, whose usual habitat is in the remote regions of Asia, Africa, or America, having been occasion- ally shot or captured in different j^arts of Eng- land, the circumstance is frequently noised abroad — a paragraph recording the occurrence appears in the local papers : the possessor of the fancied prize pens a highly coloured and plausible notice to the editor of some metropolitan journal : all at- tendant circumstances that might militate against FOREIGN DUCKS AND GEESE. 105 the preconceived notion of its being a genuine visitor are too often studiously concealed or slurred over. The probable and frequently un- mistakeable signs of semi -domestication, afforded by the state of the plumage, are not observed, or if observed are not alluded to ; and in this way it cannot be doubted that many foreign birds may ultimately creep into the British fauna, unless a watchful but pardonable jealousy be exercised by the naturalist. It is well known that on several lakes, ponds, &c., great numbers of Oriental and other water- fowl, which have been imported from abroad, now exist. Most of these have been pinioned and are unable to fly. Others, on whom the operation has been inefficiently performed, occa- sionally make their escape. But as many of these dttenus breed freely on the islands, and among the sedgy banks of these ponds, there is nothing to restrain the second generation from leaving the spot, and migrating to some other part of Great Britain; where, if captured or killed, the poor foundling is announced as a visitor of distinction, to be henceforth included in our catalogues. The following advertisement, copied verbatim from * The Times,' refers to a well known establishment in London, where hundreds of foreign, as well as really British geese and F 5 106 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. ducks are annually procured for the waters of our English parks. " Ornamental water fowl, con- sisting of black and white swans ; Egyptian, Canada, China, bernicle, brent, and laughing geese, shieldrakes, pintail, wigeon, summer and winter teal ; gadwall, Labrador, shovellers, golden eyed and dun divers ; Carolina ducks, &c. &c., domesticated and pinioned." Some of our private museums, too, are loaded with continental speci- mens of anaiidcB, which are fondly imagined by their possessors to be ' British killed birds,' because they were purchased in London ' in the flesh : ' but their right to that title is frequently apocryphal. It is well known that the metro- politan markets are regularly supplied with water fowl from France and Holland ; and the evil is likely to increase every day, under the in- fluence of railways and accelerated steam com- munication. There can be little doubt that ere long the London gourmand may receive the can- vas-backed duck from America, and probably in better condition than many of the capei'caillie and ptarmigan that now find their way to the poulterers from the distant forests of Norway and Sweden. The ducks best known to the sportsman and the shooter on the coast are. The common wild duck {anas boschas), the teal [anas crccca), the FRESH WATER AND OCEANIC DUCKS. 107 wigeon (anas penelope), the pintail duck {anas acuta), the pochard or dun bird {fuUgula ferina), the scaup duck {fuligula marila), the tufted duck {fuligula cristata), and the golden eye {clangula vulgaris). The four first of these belong to the more typical division of the ducks : their habits are to a certain degree terrestrial ; they are more partial to fresh than to salt water; their food, besides aquatic insects and worms, is frequently of a vegetable nature, and usually obtained near the surface — beneath which they seldom dive, except when wounded or pursued — while their powers of flight are very great. In conformity with these habits is their general structure ; the legs are smaller, more rounded — or less compressed laterally — than among the marine ducks, and placed nearer the centre of the body ; their necks and wings are longer ; the keel of the breast bone is deeper; while the stomach approaches more nearly to the nature of a gizzard, as in granivorous birds. The other four species belong to the oceanic division. They are more decidedly aquatic, and prefer the sea to either lakes or rivers, except when driven in by severity of weather. Their food consists almost entirely of fish and marine insects, and the stomach accord- ingly is softer and thinner than with their her- bivorous congeners. Their legs are short, com- 108 GAME BIRDS AND MILD FOWL. pressed, and placed far behind ; the feet and webs large ; and the hind toe furnished with a lobe. The neck is comparatively short, as are the wings also ; and the keel of the sternum is shallow. They are exceedingly expert divers, and obtain their food at a great depth below the surface of the water. Of these, the pochard, or dun bird, is perhaps the best known and the most in esteem as an article of luxury for the table ; indeed it is nearly allied to the celebrated American species, the canvas backed duck, which has long been in such repute with Transatlantic epicures. Pochards are more frequently found in decoys with mallard, teal and wigeon, than any other of the marine ducks ; but from their greater shyness, and propensity to dive back through the mouth of the pipe at the slightest alarm, they not only eiFect their own escape, but frequently distui'b the other birds already congregated there, and are consequently regarded as unwelcome visitors by the fowler. The decoys of Lincolnshire have for ages been celebrated, and several establishments still exist in that county ; although from the recent drainage of the fens, they have been in a great measure shorn of their honours ; and in process of time — like so much that is still highly prized by the DECOYS — SHOOTING ON THE COAST. 109 sportsman and the lover of the picturesque — must yield to the irresistible pressure of agricultural improvement. The common wild duck, the wigeon, and the teal furnish the main supply of the wildfowl captured in this way. Some notion of the extraordinary productiveness of the Lin- colnshire decoys may be formed from a fact recorded by Pennant, that in one season 31,200 ducks were sent by ten of them to the London market. Such of my readers as desire to understand the exact nature of a decoy, and the complicated details of its structure and management, will find an interestins: and elaborate account in the Rev. R. Lubbock's ' Fauna of Norfolk,' elucidated by several explanatory sketches and illustrations ; without which, indeed, the subject cannot be thoroughly comprehended. To those who are anxious to be initiated into all the mysteries of wild fowl shooting on the coast, Colonel Hawker's * Instructions ' afford a mine of information. For my own part, although I have in former days occasionally shivered behind a stanchion gun for the best part of a long frosty night, in the shallow waters of a creek, and passed many an hour on the borders of a lake near the mouth of a river, awaiting the return, at early dawn, of wild ducks and wigeon from their feed- 110 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. ing places among the bogs ; and have, on such occasions, met with as fair a share of success and disappointment as usually falls to the lot of any but a professional ^^i.]^. fowl shooter ; yet I must confess that my predilections are rather with the fowling-piece or the rifle than with the heavy artillery of the craft ; and that I have felt more real pleasure in a day's snipe shooting, which was varied by an occasional right and left at a duck or mallard, or an unexpected shot at a teal or wigeon as they sprang from the sedgy borders of some sequestered pool ; or in stalking a flock of wild geese in the middle of a great Irish bog — though perhaps bagging but one of the party after an hour's patient manoeuvring — than in the greatest success I ever experienced after waiting for the arrival or passage of water fowl, or in the best family shot I ever made from a gun-boat. The principal destruction of wild fowl in the British islands takes place on the coast during severe winters, and although when they have returned to their summer quarters among the innumerable lakes of the Arctic regions, far from the busy haunts of men, it might be supposed that they and their young would be secure from the attacks of any very formidable enemies, yet it is not improbable that a great portion of the broods VORACITY OF THE PIKE. Ill are there destroyed by predatory fish, soon after they have left the egg. We know that the Scandinavian waters abound with pike of immense size, and if we may judge of the propensities and powers of these monsters from what we see in our o\Mi country, the destruction of aquatic birds during the breeding season must be very great. Vast numbers of the young of the com- mon wild duck are annually devoured on the ponds or artificial lakes in parks or pleasure grounds where this voracious fish abounds ; or even where a few of the species have attained a considerable size, and the quantity of ' feed,' in the shape of roach and dace, has been much reduced. In this way about two hundred duck- lings disappeared from the large pond in Petworth Park this summer, 1850. Here there was no lack of small fish ; but to the truculent propen- sities of certain fresh water leviathans who are known to dwell beneath, and who are proof against the seductive stratagems of the most experienced troller; or perhaps to the circum- stance of their being already glutted with an entree of fish, and willing to vary their dietary with a second course of wild fowl, may be at- tributed the murder of the little innocents. Lord G* * *, an observer of nature and an accomplished angler, was, I believe, the first 112 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. person to avail himself of this epicurean taste in the pike, by constructing artificial hirds — rather than flies — varying from the size of a wren to that of a young duck, and composed of all manner of gaudy feathers, silk, and tinsel, to attract the attention of the monster and lure him to the deadly hook, when his appetite might be capri- cious or the water muddier than usual. When this bait is worked a little under the surface — ^just as they play a salmon fly on the Shan- non — its movements appear exceedingly like those of a young water-fowl when diving. This struck me particularly one day, when endea- vouring to rescue a half-grown moor-hen from my retriever, who had pursued it through a thick bed of flags and sedges into a narrow and deep but transparent brook. The dog was close behind, and had already caught a glimpse of the poor bird, who, finding it impossible to escape down-stream without passing under the legs of its enemy, had no alternative but to dive against the current, although it made little or no pro- gress ; and the mana?uvre would doubtless have failed, if I had not succeeded at that moment in withdrawing the dog''s attention and calling him to heel ; but I could not heljJ observing that the struggles of the little moor-hen to con- tinue under water, and its ineflectual attempts THE ' BIRD-FLY.' 113 at progression — in which the wings were chiefly employed and the legs played a comparatively unimportant part — were admirably imitated by the movements imparted to Lord G* * * 's fly by the hand of a practised performer. I have since had several opportunities of testing its efficacy, and although I am satisfied that a greater number of jack may be killed with the ordinary bait — gudgeon, roach, dace, &c. — yet I have invariably found that the ' bird-fly ' took the largest pike ; to say nothing of the superior style of the sport, and of its tendency to elevate the comparatively tame pastime of trolling a few de- grees nearer to the noble art of salmon flshing. 114 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. CHAPTER VII. " And mony a weary cast I made To cuittle the muirfowl's tail." Waltek Scott. Red Grouse — Limits of its Range — Natural Enemies, winged and four-footed — The Badger vmjustly proscribed — Unsuccessful Attempts to re-establish the Red Grouse in the South of England — Ptarmigan — Its Haunts and Habits — British Game Birds — Order in which they arrive at JMaturity — Annual Importation of Ptarmigan — Highland Moors — j\Iayo Mountains — Shooting Expedi- tion— Lodge — Backward Season — Operations deferred — Wild Scenery — Youthful Ardour and Veteran Coolness — Variety of Sport. The geographical distribution of the red grouse being strictly limited to these islands, it is more exclusively a British bird than any kind of feathered game of which we can boast, all the others being dispersed over diiferent parts of the continent of Europe. But as this exists in Ireland, Wales, and in the North of England, as well as in Scotland, its specific appellation Scoticus is hardly correct; and it has been sug- gested, with reason, that Britannicus would be a more appropriate epithet. Being essentially a THE RED GROUSE. 115 denizen of the wild heathery mountain and moor, it recedes invariably before the face of civiliza- tion, and may be said, at the present day, to be extinct in the South of England, very scarce in the central portion — Staffordshire and Derby- shire being probably its southern limit — and although still found in tolerable numbers on the moors of Yorkshire, yet it is of less frequent occurrence there than it was a few years ago, when Lord Strathmore's keeper shot forty-three brace before two o'clock in the afternoon, on the 12th of August. The great stronghold of the species is of course the Highlands of Scotland, where its preservation is carried to such an extent, and the rights of shooting let at such high rents, that in spite of the annual slaughter during the first three weeks of the season — far surpassing in this respect even the battue of the southron — there appears to be no immediate prospect of its extermination or even material reduction, although, speaking as a naturalist rather than a sportsman, it cannot but be a matter of regret that the excessive protection of the grouse involves the indiscriminate slaughter of so many interesting birds and quadrupeds now becoming exceedingly rare amongst us.* • Subjoined is a list of ' vermin ' (!) destroyed on tlie cele- brated Highland property of Glengary, between Whitsunday ] 16 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. After the month of August grouse are better able to take care of themselves, and, although comparatively safe from the legalized shooter dming the winter, great quantities then fall victims to the Highland poacher, especially when snow is on the ground, as they pack together in considerable numbers, and expose themselves on any turf-stack, wall, or bank that happens to rise above the surface of the moor. They are also snared, and occasionally netted ; although, from a habit in these birds of scattering 1837 and Whitsunday 1840, previous to the purchase of the estate by Lord Ward, The slaughter was carried into e£Fect by numerous keepers, who received not only liberal wages but extra rewards, varying from 3/. to 5/., according to their suc- cess in the work of extermination. The ornithologist will be a little puzzled by the titles given to some of the Raptores, but the names and epithets applied to the greater number of them are nevertheless unusually clear and appropriate, and will leave no doubt on liis mind as to the identity of many of the rarer victims. I will only add, that I have received this ' black list' from the hands of the gentleman himself, wlio was the lessee of the shooting at the time, and by whose orders the execution took place. Although a good sportsman and an excellent shot, it must be admitted that his zeal as a preserver of game far outstripped his sympathies with other animals. 11 Foxes. 301 Stoats and weasels. 198 Wild-cats. 67 Badgers. 246 Martin-cats. 48 Otters. 106 Pole-cats. 78 House-cats, going wild. THE RED GROUSE. 117 at the approach of the fowler, this last mode of capture is less profitable than might be imagined, and it is certain that various stratagems are then in vogue — when, by the way, the keepers and watchers are generally dismissed, instead of being doubled as they ought to be — for the London market is regularly supplied, up to the middle of March, with birds which exhibit no signs of having perished from a gunshot wound, but have evidently been procured by some of the numerous contrivances of modern poaching. 27 White-tailed sea eagles. 15 Golden eagles. 18 Osprey, or fishing eagles. 98 Blue hawks, or peregrine falcons. 275 Kites, commonly called salmon-tailed gledes. 5 Marsh harriers, or yellow- legged hawks. 63 Goshawks. 7 Orange-legged falcons. 11 Hohby hawks. 285 Common buzzards. 371 Rough-legged buzzards. 3 Honey buzzards. 462 Kestrels, or red hawks. 78 Merlin hawks. 9 Ash-coloured hawks, or long blue-tailed ditto. 83 Hen-harriers, or ring- tailed hawks. 6 Jer-falcon, toe-feathered hawks (?) 1431 Hooded, or carrion crows. 475 Ravens. 35 Horned owls. 71 Common fern owls.* 3 Golden owls.f 8 Magpies. * This, I imagine, was the sliort-eared owl {ot^ls hrachyotos.) Surely not tlie insectivorous nightjar ! a.e.k. f Probably the white, or barn owl {strix flammea). 118 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. Among the natural enemies of the red grouse, the hooded crow {corvus comix) holds a prominent place. His depredations are committed during the breeding season, and are of so wholesale and destructive a character as to demand the especial attention of the intelligent keeper. The pere- grine falcon, it must be admitted, is an occasional offender, but the number of full-grown birds, on whom alone he condescends to prey, is as nothing compared with the amount of silent mischief perpetrated by the hooded crow. The ash- coloured harrier, or moor buzzard {circus cerugi- nosus) in former days, before the species had been almost swept from the face of the land, might now and then have been convicted of pouncing upon a half-Hedged poult, as he traversed the heath in quest of food during his evening flight. The golden eagle {aquila chrysaetos), when larger prey is unattainable, will occasionally, but rarely, stoop to truss so small a quarry as a grouse ; and the sea, or white-tailed eagle {haHcectus alhicilla) is even less frequently an offender, while the destruction of these noble birds has caused an unnatural increase in the number of mountain hares * {lepus variahHis), a result, in the opinion * I am informed on good anthcirity that, during a single day in September, 1849, four guns killed, on a mountain near Loch Ranocli, 574 hares. NATURAL ENEMIES OF THE GROUSE. 119 of Mr. St. John, to be deprecated by every sportsman ; as from the extraordinary fecundity of these animals they become so numerous as to be "a perfect plague to grouse dogs." The kestrel, the hobby and the merlin — to say nothing of the harmless habits of the first-named — are of themselves too diminutive to deserve the hostility of the Highland keeper. The white owl {strix flammed) and the wood or tawny owl {syrnium aluco) are comparatively rare in Scotland, and fortunately for themselves, play an inferior part in the di'ama ; vrhile those autumnal visitors, the short-eared owl {otus hrachyotos) and the rough-legged buzzard {huteo lagopus), who leave this island in the spring, and are therefore ab- sentees during the breeding season, are shot and trapped, during their brief sojourn, without mercy; although the latter alone deserves to be classed, and even then with reservation, among the natural enemies of the grouse. With a greater show of justice, the fox, the cat, and the various members of the weasel family, are proscribed as outlaws ; yet the lover of the British fauna cannot fail to regret the rapid decrease which the excessive preservation of the grouse is entailing among several of our native quadrupeds. The pine marten and the wild cat have already disappeared from the south, 120 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. and the same persecution that has banished them from thence, must eventually extirpate them from their northern fastnesses. These animals, how- ever, are notoriously hostile to game of all kinds, and even the partial toleration of a limited num- ber is more than can be expected : but what can be said in defence of the ' war to the knife ' waged even at the present moment against the poor badger ? The agriculturist, whose corn-fields have been damaged by its inroads — and there are few places at the present day where they exist in sufiicient numbers to occasion serious mischief of this kind — or the fox-hunter, whose temper has been repeatedly tried by the in- effectual efiforts of his huntsman to dislodge an exhausted reynard from the deepest recesses of the badger's hibernaculum, can show at least a plausible ' casus belli ; ' but the game-preserver has no such excuse. This interesting animal, the last representative of the ursidce (bears) in the British islands, rarely — so rarely, indeed, that an offence would prove an exception to the rule — interferes with his concerns. A casual observer, it is true, on examining his teeth, would suppose that he was eminently carnivorous, but such is not the case. The long fangs, which in most predatory quadrupeds are used to tear the muscles of their recently killed prey, are HARMLESSNESS OF THE BADGER. 121 employed by the badger in wrenching out the tough, interwoven and deeply-imbedded roots of the trees which impede the excavation of his den ; a process which is further facilitated by the immense muscular power of his jaws, and their peculiar structure and articulation ; and, although he occasionally devours some of the smaller quadrupeds, yet his food is principally derived from the vegetable and insect worlds. Chestnuts, roots of all kinds, blackberries, beech- mast, and all manner of beetles, with the larvae of wasps and wild bees, furnish his ordinary supplies ; while even frogs and snakes contribute to vary his dietary during the summer and autumn. It is therefore difficult to palliate the senseless persecution which, in these islands, has already doomed the species to a gradual but certain destruction. While black-game seem to require a combi- nation of wood and swamp, a considerable extent of open mountain or heathery moor is necessary for the red grouse ; for, like the Indian of kindred hue, he recedes before the plough of the white man ; nor have the many laudable attempts to re-establish the species in districts from which it had once disappeared been at- tended witli success. The experiment has been tried in Devonshire, in Dorset, in Sussex and G 122 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. in Surrey, with a similar result. The late Duke of Gloucester, in 1829, turned out eight brace and a-half on Bagshot Heath, These birds had been previously kept in confinement for three years, and it was therefore hoped that the inducement to wander beyond the precincts of their new quarters would not be so strong as if they had been but recently imported from their native moors. From the day, however, on which they were turned down, the keepers never met with one ; but about two years afterwards, in the month of July, four — two old and two young — were seen on Cobham Heath, a larger and wilder tract several miles distant. These were subsequently shot as grey hens, of which a few are still occasionally seen in that district. The ptarmigan {lagopus mutus) is now to be found only on the loftiest summits of the higher ranges of mountains in the central and northern parts of Scotland, and on some of the western islands. It was said to have existed in Wales, but half a century at least must have elapsed since its occurrence in that Principality. Its haunts are among the snow-covered peaks and bare rocks, far above the heathery regions inhabited by its congener, the red grouse ; and, from the in- accessible nature of these retreats, the species is not likely, at least for many years, to be exter- THE rXARMIGAN. 123 niinated by the hand of the sportsman. Nature has, moreover, provided a safeguard in the tints of its plumage ; presenting in summer a mix- ture of black, yellow, white, and grey, exactly resembling the colours of the mossy lichen- covered rocks and stones where it lies concealed ; and which, becoming gradually whiter as the season advances, at last nearly assimilates itself to the snows of winter ; although our Highland birds seldom or never exhibit the unadulterated purity that distinguishes those Lapland and Nor- wegian specimens with which the London markets are so plentifully supplied every year. The young ptarmigans, too, evince a wonderful in- stinct, during the summer, even after they have attained the power of flight, in concealing them- selves rapidly between the stones, and remaining perfectly motionless, close to the very feet of the adventurous tourist, who in vain endeavours to discover them, so exactly does their colour resemble that of every surrounding object; and the task is rendered still more puzzling by the ready wiles of the mother-bird, who, fluttering and struggling in well simulated distress, has distracted his attention for a moment from her little ones. There are not many sportsmen who devote much time to the exclusive pursuit of the ptar- u 2 124 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. migan ; for, though naturally unsuspicious and easy of approach, yet the toil to be endured and difficulties to be overcome before these Alpine heights can be reached, are much in- creased by the impossibility of following the birds from one rocky corry to another, separated perhaps by a giddy precipice, over the edge of which they have suddenly disappeared from the view of the wearied shooter. A circuit of con- siderable extent must frequently be taken, and many a steep acclivity or dangerous descent encountered, before they can be found again ; while there is small chance of relieving this tedious interval by a stray shot at any other bird or quadruped, except the grey hare, who seems to share with the ptarmigan the occu- pation of these inhospitable regions, while the}^ both undergo a nearly analogous change in their seasonal variations of fur and feather. It is certainly a remarkable circumstance in the natural history of our game birds, and a striking instance of the merciful dispensations of Providence, that those which inhabit the most northern and inclement quarters are the earliest in season ; or, in other words, arrive first at full growth, and are therefore soonest enabled to brave the rigours of the coming winter. Thus, the young ptarmigan is able to lly before the red THE PTARMIGAN. 125 grouse poult can flutter above the heather. The latter, again, when strong on the wing, has fallen in thousands before the gun of the sports- man, ere its report can be legally heard among the birchen glens and the lower valleys where the black-cock loves to dwell ; while he, in his turn, now come to maturity, may be bagged nearly a fortnight before the partridge ; who has been peppered throughout the length and breadth of the land for a whole month, before the gorgeous pheasant — who as an exotic might have been suspected of precocity — is considered ripe for slaughter. Most persons have noticed the vast numbers of ptarmigan which appear in the shops of the London dealers, and in the stalls of the principal metropolitan markets, during the latter part of winter and the early months of spring, even as late occasionally as the beginning of May ; but comparatively few are aware that scarcely one of these birds has been killed on the Scottish mountains. They are imported from Lapland and Norway : the greater number from the western ports of the latter country. Mr. Yarrell says, that in the year 1839 one dealer alone shipped six thousand for London, two thousand for Hull, and two thousand for Liverpool ; and early in March 1840, a salesman in Lcadcnhall 126 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. Market received fifteen thousand ptarmigan that had been consigned to him. Sir A. de Capell Brooke calculated that sixty thousand had been killed during one winter in a single parish in Lapland ; and Mr. Lloyd says that a dealer in Norway will dispose of fifty thousand in a season. The profit to the importer must be great, as a single ptarmigan, which is seldom disposed of in London for less than two shillings or two and sixpence, is sold in the market at Drammen for the trifling sum of fourpence. Strange as it may appear, all these birds are taken in separate horse-hair nooses during the winter ; and so brisk a traffic is carried on by the peasantry at that season, that one of them, we are told, will set from five hundred to a thou- sand of these snares. There is a second species of ptarmigan in Norway {lagopus saliceti, or suhalpina of Nilsson). It is larger, and found in lower and less moun- tainous districts, than lagopus alpina of the latter author, which is identical with the Scottish bird {lagopus mutus). But to return to the red grouse. Thanks to railways and the rapidity of steam communica- tion between London and Inverness, the acqui- sition of a first-rate moor is now only a question of money ; and the opulent citizen who but HIGHLAND MOORS. 127 yesterday was buried in the pages of his ledger, amid the smoke of Threadneedle Street, may find himself to-morrow regularly located in his Highland lodge, bracing his relaxed nerves with the mountain breeze, or despatching baskets full of grouse for the hospitable tables of his less fortunate friends in ' the city.' It may be observed, however, that bitter disappointment not unfrequently follows in the track even of the wealthy Saxon. The right of sporting may comprise many thousand acres, yet not contain as many score of grouse, which perhaps have been shot down to the very verge of extinction by the former tenant, who has probably availed himself of his right to reap the reward of a long period of care and protection during the last season of his occupation. Such a result however may generally be avoided by a previous inquiry on the spot, while to obtain a ' well stocked moor ' in the modern acceptation of the term, it is advisable to secure the tenancy for several successive seasons. But with the nature of High- land shooting almost every young sportsman is familiar, if not by actual experience, still by general report. In the sister island, however, the case is somewhat different. The system of letting the manors has not yet been introduced. The admixture of woodcocks, snipe, plover, and 128 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. wild-ducks frequently adds a peculiar charm to the pursuit; and as in my humble opinion the character of a day's shooting depends rather upon the variety of the spoil than upon the numbers of the slain, I will ask my reader to accompany me for half an hour to the scenes of my boyhood in the West of Ireland, where, in bygone and better days, I made my first acquaintance with the ' hen of the heath.'* Many years have elapsed since, with a middle- aged relative, a cool and experienced yet an ardent sportsman, I undertook an expedition to ' the mountains ;' a wild tract of consider- able extent in the north-western portion of the island, which had been carefully preserved under the management of an intelligent Scotch keeper, who, by the establishment of local watchers and a judicious reduction of predatory animals — among which the hooded or * scaul crow ' occupied his chief attention — had succeed- ed in getting up a fair head of grouse and hares, and at the same time ensuring to the different species of wading and swimming birds, which haunted the streams and lakes of this remote dis- trict, that quietude and repose which are so im- portant to the success of the wild fowl shooter. * ' Caik na frc,' or ' lien of the licatli,' tlie name by which the red grouse is known in the remote parts of Coiinaught. GROUSE SIIOOTIXG IN IRELAND. 129 We had visited the confines of these mountains about two months before, at the beginning of the grouse-shooting season, but the weather was sadly against us. Taking up our quarters on that occa- sion at the house of an intelligent and enterpris- ing tenant — one of the better class of farmers, who, as the first pioneer of agriculture in this spot, had boldly undertaken to reclaim an entire valley from its primaeval state — ^we sallied forth on the morning of the 20th of August, with the in- tention of beating our way across the heart of the mountains in the direction of the lodge ; which, although apparently a rude and unpre- tending cottage, had been lately erected with con- siderable difficulty, in consequence of its almost inaccessible situation in a remote gorge of the mountains and at a great distance from a road of any kind : most of the materials indeed had been procured on the spot ; stones from the neighbouring ravine, heather from the surround- ing hills, and fir-wood disinterred from the bog, and conveyed to its destination on the backs of native ponies, contributed in their turn towards its construction. The weather was most unpropitious. A close drizzling rain had set in the evening before, and even the nearest mountains were enve- loped in an Irish mist, which, for persevering 130 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. and penetrating qualities, may at least claim to be put on a par with its Scottish namesake. However we took the field in good time, and after ranging the moors for some hours, rather for the purpose of exercising two brace of promising young setters than with any expec- tation of sport, and after being thoroughly drenched to the skin, we returned to the farm- house with five brace of grouse, whose half- developed plumage and small proportions con- vinced us of the backwardness of the season. This consideration, indeed, coupled with the continuance of bad weather on the following day, induced us to postpone our grouse-shooting until a later period, when the first flight of woodcocks should have arrived. These make their appearance about the beginning of No- vember, and scatter themselves over the moun- tains, where they may be found in considerable numbers during that month ; but as the wanter advances they gradually retire from the hills, and take up their quarters in the natural woods that clothe the lower slopes of the ridges near the great lakes ; or become concentrated in the covers of the interior of the island, especially during hard weather, when additional reinforce- ments continually drop in from England, Wales and Scotland. The grand point therefore is to EXPEDITION TO THE MOUNTAINS. l.'Jl take them as soon as possible after their first arrival among the mountains. The best shooting I ever enjoyed was of this description, especially in the neighbourhood of some small loughs fed by dark boggy streams from the higher grounds, where, when the dogs pointed, I could not tell whether I was about to flush a grouse, a hare, a woodcock, or a wild-duck from the heather. Our forbearance seemed likely to be rewarded on the present occasion. The latter part of October had been particularly fine, and for the past week the clear nights, obscured but occa- sionally by a few light clouds as they sailed slowly across the moon from the north-east, promised a grand immigration of cocks. Relays of dogs, a goodly store of ammunition, and a supply of creature comforts for a week, had been despatched on the previous day ; and it was our intention to put up for the first night at the farm-house before mentioned, so as on the following day to carry out our original plan — though under better auspices — of shooting our way across the hills to our head-quarters at the lodge. For nearly eight miles our route was practi- cable for an Irish car. We passed at first through a partially cultivated country, gradually ascending higher and higfher as we ncared the 132 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. dark mountains, and every now and tlien obtain- ing a view of the open sea on our right, or catching a glimpse of a tremendous precipice in the distance ; until, on surmounting an ascent of more than usual tediousness and lengfth, a magnificent scene was suddenly spread before us. Beneath lay a valley, through the centre of which dashed a wild stream, from whose well known waters, when a boy, I have many a time filled my basket with the small pink- fleshed mountain trout. Further on to the right the hills on either side gradually ap- proached each other, forming a dark ravine, through which the little river hurried in many a foaming cascade on its way to the sea, which stretched away as far as the eye could reach, from the Stags of Broadhaven to Killala Bay. A lofty isolated rock, the abode of myriads of sea birds during the breeding season, stood at a short distance from the precipitous coast, whence it seemed to have been detached by some con- vulsion of nature, or by the continuous action of the eternal waves of the Atlantic. Far in the north-east the blue outline of the Donegal cliffs was visible on the horizon, while over this vast expanse of ocean not a sail was to be descried ; but at least a mile from the shore, although apparently much nearer, a little group WILD SCENERY. 133 of black fishing yawls, manned by a few rowers, paddled about like a cluster of water beetles, all engaged in setting their ' spillets,' or drawing in their well loaded lines; as, prompted by the impulse of immediate want, they were lazily dabbling in those prolific waters, the finny treasures of which, like another California, are doubtless reserved for a future period and a more energetic people. Before us, and on our left, rose mountain over mountain ; no longer grey and indistinct, but of a rich brown colour, still varied here and there, even at this late period of the season, with the purple blossoms of the heather. On the sides of some of the nearer hills a long winding strip of the brightest verdure might be seen, marking the course of some little stream, which drained the ground near its banks on either side, and pursued its tortuous and broken way to become a tributary to the river in the valley; and here a few stunted rough-coated cattle were dotted along its margin. All else, as far as the sight could penetrate into the interior, seemed to be mountain and bog, without the trace of a human habitation, and where apparently nothing but grouse and snipes could manage to procure a subsistence. Another hour brought us to our former quar- lo4 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. ters at the farm-house. Here the road termi- nated, and all communication with the lodge was carried on by means of natives from the nearest village, whose limbs, unshackled by shoe or stocking, displayed an enviable acti\aty in traversing the rough broken grounds ; and whose light-hearted merriment and good temper con- tributed not a little to the pleasures of the expedition. A few of these only were selected as markers, and ordered to be in their respective positions among the hills before day-break on the following morning ; while the rest were despatched the same evening with sundry articles of heavy baggage to the lodge, and instructed to meet us on the morrow, with a relay of dogs, near the borders of a little lough, which we expected to reach early in the afternoon. We started with a good omen. Our breakfast was hardly despatched and our guns in our hands before one of the watchers, who had been in position since the earliest dawn, came running down with the welcome intelligence that he had marked two fine packs of grouse in a neigh- bouring valley, and that, while hurrying with the news at his best speed, he had flushed several woodcocks along the brow of the mountain. We were soon at work. We had four good setters with us, but two of them were led in reserve YOUTHFUL ARDOUR AND VETERAN COOLNESS. 135 tor the present, and the remaining brace now scoured the moor in all directions. For nearly half" a mile our beat lay across a boggy plain. Here we sprung several snipes, which in my youthful ardour I would gladly have shot, and even felt strongly inclined to rate the well broken dogs, as they put them up one after another with as little compunction as if they had been larks : but I was restrained by the conduct of my more phlegmatic relative, who assured me that a snipe- pointing dog was the worst companion that a grouse shooter could be cursed with. Further discussion on this subject was abruptly closed by a signal from the keeper. Bob and Ranger were down. The latter had found game, but being of a deep red colour it was some time before I could distinguish his head above the heather, while his black and white coadjutor was distinctly visible, although, like the former, he always lay down to his birds. Presently a fine pack of grouse rose within a fair distance for our four barrels. How different from the puny poults of August ! These were really grouse. Young birds, it is true, and unable to bear the weight of their well conditioned bodies when suspended by the lower mandible without that portion of the beak giving way ; but in perfect plumage and full growth. We had now arrived at the foot of the mountain. 136 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. one side of which flanked the valley where the two packs had been marked down in the morning; but we took a wide range over the higher brow, and presently Bob was down again among the the heather at some distance above us. This time it was a woodcock. Several more did we kill before we descended to the hollow, where we found the two packs at home, and passed the best part of an hour in marking down, and bagging in detail, the stragglers which had been scattered at the first discharge. For the next two hours our sport was of a varied character. Half a dozen more woodcocks, about the same number of grouse, and two or three brace of hares, were stuiFed into the panniers which our attendants carried with marvellous ease, like turf baskets, on their shoulders. x\t last we came to the summit of a hill commanding a view over a bare plain of most unpromising aspect. This, however, must be crossed, for just beyond it we could descry the little lake, set as it were in a framework of green sedgy banks, where we expected luncheon and fresh dogs. Before tra- versing this marsh we took up the setters, and had no hesitation then about shooting two or three couple of snipes that sprang at our feet, and in pouring a volley into a small flock of golden plover, as they dashed heedlessly by VARIETY OF SPORT. 137 within an imprudent distance. But the best sport was after luncheon. With the assistance of a water-spaniel, we flushed and killed several ducks and teal from the swampy borders of the lough, and recovered most of what we killed. Then, with fresh dogs, we again scoured the brows and mountains in quest of grouse and woodcocks, of both of which we found a sufficient sprinkling to satisfy our most sanguine expec- tations ; and, although once or twice, when nearly knocked up, I was decoyed by the plausible point of a young dog far into the rear, and found nothing for my pains but a diminutive jack snipe, yet I never more fully enjoyed a day's shooting, or experienced in a higher degree the associated charms of wild sport and romantic scenery. 138 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. CHAPTER VIII. "Aye, springes to catch woodcocks." — Shakspeake. The Woodcock — Modes of Capture — Net and Gin — Wood- cock trapped — Attempts to Rear it in Confinement — Insatiable Appetite of tbe ' Bird of Suction ' — Rapid Digestion — Crepuscular Habits — High-road Gunners — Netting— Snares, Ancient and Modern— The Old Poacher and his Springe. Although it is principally to tlie inefficiency of the game laws, to the increasing taste for shooting which pervades all classes of society, and to the facilities afforded now-a-days for the acqui- sition of a good fowKng-piece, that the scarcity of partridges and pheasants in many counties may be attributed ; yet the woodcock not being strictly included in the same category, and a certificate not being necessary for its legal de- struction, it is still more persecuted by the gunner and less sought after by the wirer and trapper than birds of the gallinaceous order. Being fortunately a migrant — with some exceptions — from the boundless forests of the North, a fair THE WOODCOCK MODES OF CAPTURE. 139 supply arrives annually on the coasts of the British islands, and thus the slaughter which would otherwise tend to the rapid diminution of the species is in a great measure compensated. In olden time, when a ponderous matchlock or a tardy single-barrelled flint gun were the most efficient instruments the shooter could command, it was no easy matter for the legitimate sports- man to bag a couple of these birds when fairly flushed by his cockers from the coppice or brush- wood, and to kill a woodcock flying was justly considered a triumph of the art. Various modes of capturing it were then in vogue, some of which are still practised in certain districts even at the present time, although with the exception perhaps of the net, they are gradually falling into disuse, or have been succeeded by the more elaborate improvements of modern poaching ; while the fatal double, like the schoolmaster, is abroad, in whose presence the primaeval weapons of our ancestors have long since ' paled their in- effectual fire,' and after the lapse of another generation will probably be regarded as the clumsy contrivances of a semibarbarous aera. The gin, or iron spring trap, was much used formerly to take woodcocks. We find the cir- cumstance frequently alluded to in Shakspeare. The haunts of the bii'ds having been ascertained, 140 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. the trap was set in ' the run,' partially sunk in the soft mud and concealed with a few leaves. The simplicity and portability of the gin still render it a favourite with all neophyte poachers ; and, except in a more delicate and refined style of workmanship, there seems to have been but little improvement of late years in its manufac- ture. I have seen a very ancient one, the con- struction of which was nearly similar to, and the principle identical with, the modern rat trap, which, under various trifling modifications, has, even in our own days, been contrived to capture every animal of moderate size, from a man to a mouse. The partiality of the woodcock to certain feeding places which would appear not to possess any unusual attractions for him, and the perti- nacity with which he regularly pursues the same path, are very remarkable. When quite a boy, I once availed myself of this habit to catch a woodcock, which I fondly imagined I could suc- cessfully rear in confinement. The scene was in a small dell of bircli and alder. A common box trap, such as is used for taking rats and stoats or weasels alive, was the instrument that 1 thought most likely to suit my purpose. This I placed exactly in the middle of the run, where the tracks and perforations were most numerous, DIGESTION OF THE WOODCOCK. 141 but without taking the precaution of screening it from observation. On visiting the spot next morning I found that my first essay had been unsuccessful : and a short examination sufficed to show the cause. There were traces of at least one or two woodcocks close to the trap ; but instead of attempting to pass through it, they had inclined a little out of the direct line, and, apparently without evincing any other symp- tom of alarm, had, after passing the obstacle, resumed their course through the swamp. I now placed a few" boughs on both sides so as to prevent a recurrence of this mishap, but not without sundry misgivings that my rude fence might cause the birds to take flight, and perhaps scare them from their feeding places. My appre- hensions, however, were groundless, for on the following morning I found a woodcock safely incarcerated, which, as a faithful chronicler of facts, I am bound to confess soon died under my fostering care ; partly, perhaps, because it was an old bird, and obstinately refused to insert its bill into the most tempting dishes of soft mud with which I liberally supplied it — taken more- over from the very spot on which it had seemed to luxuriate in a state of nature — but princi- pally, I believe, from my ignorance of its proper food and the insatiableness of its appetite ; for 142 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. I was at that time impressed with the erroneous belief, shared by many even at the present day, that as ' a bird of suction ' it required no sub- stantial food for its maintenance : but ' experientia docetJ' I afterwards succeeded in rearing a young woodcock by feeding him plentifully with earth- worms — • the species called brandlings, which abound in old heaps of compost, were the best — these, when mixed with wet mould, he devoured gi'eedily ; and I found no small difficulty in furnishing him with a sufficient quantity, while I varied his diet occasionally with gentles, tad- poles, and the larvae of aquatic insects. He became quite tame and reconciled to his place of captivity, which was an outhouse, the door of which had been removed and replaced by a fragment of an old fishing net. Like all pets, however, he met with an untimely fate. An inquisitive spaniel managed to creep under the net one afternoon, and although a speedy rescue was attempted, it was too late ; his career was ended. Being in excellent condition he was handed over to the cook, and a better bird never appeared upon a table. So rapid was his diges- tion, that the stomach was perfectly empty, and the other viscera, or * trail,' contained only the peculiar cream-like matter usually found in the woodcock, while its flavour was positively irre- CREPUSCULAR IIACITS. 143 proachable, although he had breakfasted that very morning on nearly half a flower-pot full of worms. The woodcock being a crepuscular and noc- turnal bird, that is to say, his active life com- mencing in the evening and continuing throughout the night, the regular sportsman meets with him only when flushed reluctantly from those spots to which he retires for concealment during the open day. His organs of vision, like those of the owls, the nightjar, the great plover, and other birds that feed principally after sunset, are large and prominent, and admirably adapted for concentrating the partial and confused rays of twilight. At that hour he quits his shady retreats among the fir and holly plantations or the great woods, and flying along the open roads and alleys that lead to the adjoining meadows, swamps, moors, or lowlands, he passes the whole night in search of food. It is a remarkable fact that the impulse to take wing seems to pervade these birds at nearly the same moment, and during the protracted twilight of spring, great numbers fall victims to these pot-hunting gunners whom the unrestrained use of fire-arms is too apt to encourage among an idle and unemployed popu- lation. The facilities for this sport (!) are great. No trespass is committed ; no game certificate 144 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. is necessary. A high road flanked by a large wood is usually the scene of operations; the birds fly within a few yards of the shooters, sailing down the alleys of the cover and crossing the road with a noiseless owl-like motion of the wings, as different as possible from the rapid dashing flight that characterizes them when flushed during the winter. They are, moreover, generally feeble and emaciated, and altogether unworthy of the attention of the sportsman or the epicure.* At this season, and even during moonlight winter nights a very destructive mode of fowling is still practised in certain parts of England, but more frequently in some of the Western counties and in Wales than elsewhere. Light nets with wide meshes are slung across the rides in the great covers, the ends being either supported on poles, or slightly attached to the upper branches of trees on both sides of the ride, or near a gateway over which woodcocks have been observed to pass. * I am aware that, by a clause introduced a few years ago into the game laws, this offence is supposed to be legally liable to punishment ; but practically the measure is generally found to be inefficient. A case occurred lately within my own know- ledge, where a party of these turnpike poachers, although captured ' in Jlagrtmie delicto,^ were acquitted by the Solons of a country bench. Yet the case was pal])ably within the meaning of the act. SNARES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 145 The long projecting bill passing easily through the interstices of the yielding net, the head follows of course, and every succeeding struggle tends only to entangle them the more; and so unsuspicious of danger are they, or unobservant of the fate of their fellows, that they will often blindly fly against a net from which several of their comrades are ah-eady vainly endeavouring to extricate themselves. This kind of poaching is very successful wdien conducted by experienced hands, who contrive to arrange their nets so as to answer a double purpose, at the gateways on the borders of large woods, where many hares — which, like woodcocks, wander in search of food during the night — are captured in the lower meshes. But the most ancient mode of taking the woodcock was by means of the springe, although the use of this invention in its original simplicity may now be said to be ahnost obsolete. Nooses of platted horse-hair have superseded the single slip-knot of cord, and instead of the prize being suspended aloft from the extremity of a tall rod, its strangulation is effected by a more secret and quiet process. When its breast has touched the horizontal stick, which may be termed the trigger of the springe, the latter is released from its curved position, and the bird H 146 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. — generally noosed round the neck — is dragged down to a peg half concealed in the ground — through a hole in which the horse hair passes — and forcibly strained against it until life is extinct. But there was something far more simple and picturesque in the old springe of our forefathers : the materials for constructing it were chiefly to be found on the spot, and, indeed, consisted of little else than a few sticks and a string. Perhaps the common contrivance for taking moles, still used in most of the southern counties of England, approaches more nearly than any other to the ancient springe, of which indeed it may he said to be a subterranean variety : but this, too, is gradually making way for a successor in the shape of an elongated toothless gin, which is much admired by the enemies of this really useful little quadruped — far blinder in their generation than the animal that they persecute — as no practical dexterity is necessary in its management ; its principle is within the compre- hension of a ploughboy, and every tiller of the soil may now be his own mole-catcher. I had once, and but once, an opportunity of seeing a woodcock taken in a real old English springe. I was staying several years ago with a friend who resided in one of the most pictu- resque tracts of the forest range of Sussex, THE OLD POACHER. 147 where the soil in an agricultural point of view is poor and barren, and the few arable fields that meet the eye can hardly repay the labour of the husbandman. The surface of the country, how- ever, presents great variety of scenery. Hills and glens of heather, studded with hollies and yew trees, are seen in all directions, and contrast with the russet foliage of the great oak woods which form the principal feature in the land- scape; while extensive commons, covered with gorse and planted with Scotch fir, are perhaps succeeded by moors of alders and willows with dark deep-looking ponds, the margins of which are hemmed in by reeds and sedges ; and over this varied and thinly peopled district the black grouse, the pheasant, the partridge, the wood- cock, the hare, and the rabbit still roam, almost in a state of nature, and, with the exception of the first, in sufficient numbers to reward any true and unspoiled sportsman. One morning, just as we were preparing to take the field, a live woodcock was brought into the yard by a rough-looking native, whose appearance strongly reminded me of Leatherstocking in ' The Prairie.' Pie was a tall and sine^vy old man, with a weather-beaten countenance. His grey head was covered with a hare-skin cap. He wore a threadbare velveteen shooting coat, while H 2 148 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. his lower garments were almost concealed by long leather gaiters, which reached high above the knees and bore unmistakeable evidence of having protected the bony legs of their owner from many a bush and bramble. He was a sort of cross between a woodman and a poacher, with a touch of the keeper ; being occasionally em- ployed as a beater and uightwatcher, and as a trapper of all kinds of four-footed vermin, in which department he was still udthout a rival in the neighbourhood. After a few questions, I found that he had caught the bird in an adjoin- ing moor, and that his apparatus was evidently nothing else than the simple springe which had been in use for centuries, and which in this remote district had not yet been superseded by any more elaborate contrivance. As I had long wished to witness this ancient mode of taking the woodcock, I gladly availed myself of his proposal that we should make the trial that very evening ; so having arranged to meet at the corner of a certain wood a little before twilight, I parted from my new acquaintance for a few hours. At the appointed time I ibund him wait- insf for me. He conducted me along a small stream which ran between high wooded banks, until, at last, on clearing the cover, it opened THF. SPRINCr. 149 upon a long narrow moor, which formed the bottom of a glen, bounded on one side by a steep declivity covered with heather, and crowned with a few firs and hollies, and on the other by a hanger of stunted oaks ; while a thick bed of osiers, mingled with sedges and tussocks of coarse grass, bordered the edge of the narrow stream as it crept slowly through the middle of the little valley. We soon found many tracks of the woodcock on the black mud ; and on one spot these, as well as the borings of his beak, were very nume- rous. Here my companion halted, and pulling out his knife, cut down a tall willow rod, which he stuck firmly into the ground in nearly an upright position, or perhaps rather inclining backwards. On the opposite side of the run he fixed a peg, so as to project only a few inches above the surface : to this he fastened a slight stick about a foot long, attached loosely with a tough string, much as the swingel of a flail is to its hand-stafi": another branch of willow was bent into an arch, and both ends driven into the sofi ground to a considerable depth on the opposit side of the track, and nearer to the tall uprigh. wand. To the tip of the latter a string was no%\ fastened, the end of which was formed into r. large running noose ; while, about half-way down, 150 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. another piece of stick, about six inches long, was tied by its middle. The flexible wand was then bent forcibly downwards, one end of the little stick overhead was passed under the arch, while it was retained in this position, and at the same time the bow prevented from springing upwards, by its other extremity being placed against a notch at the end of the stick which had been fastened to the peg on the other side of the run, across which it now lay, two or three inches from the ground, and supported the noose. This, in fact, constituted the trigger, which was to be released when struck by the breast of the wood- cock. The old man constructed the trap in much less time than I have taken — and how imperfectly — to describe it. Indeed, I feel that it is a subject better suited to the pencil than to the pen. His last care was to weave the sedges on either side of the run into a kind of screen so as to weir the woodcock into the snare, and this he accomplished with much skill and expedition. It was now nearly dark, and we separated, after arranging to meet again on the same spot early on the following morning. I arrived there, how- ever, some time before him, and found myself threading my way through the willows just as the grey dawn was beginning to appear on the THE OLD POACHEP.'S SPRIN&E. WOODCOCK CAUGHT. 151 eastern horizon. Nor was I long kept in uncer- tainty, for on emerging from the sedges, there hung dangling before my eyes, suspended like a gibbeted felon in mid-air — a woodcock. He was noosed round the neck, and although still warm was quite dead ; and as I smoothed down his ruffled, though bloodless feathers, and admired the exquisite arrangement of his plumage, I thought he was worthy of a place in my collec- tion. There he now occupies a conspicuous niche, and I never look at him without thinking of bygone days, the swamp in the glen, and the old poacher and his springe. 152 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. CHAPTER IX. " Therefore I think my eagle is so justly styled Jove's servant in ordinary : and that very falcon that I am now going to see deserves no meaner a title." — Izaak Walton. Falconry — Youthful Attempts in the 'Noble Art' — Heron Hawking — The Look-out — The Chace — An Irish Bog — Fabulous Errors — Magpie Hawking — Colonel Bonham's Hawking Experiences — Scardroy — Peregrine Falcons — Grouse Hawking — Russian Setters — The Goshawk com- pared with the Peregrine — Their respective Merits — How does the Falcon strike her Quarry ? — Woodcock Hawk- ing— Conv-incing Fact — Anecdote — The Falcon's last Flight — 'Falcon' and ' Tiercel' —Wild Duck, Black- cock, and Ptarmigan Hawking — ' Playing' the Hawks — The Falcon at Sea — Recognition and Recovery. My experience with trained falcons has been comparatively slight, although when quite a lad I succeeded in reclaiming the peregrine and the merlin. The field of my operations was in a remote part of the West of Ireland, where a great extent of preserved mountain and moor- land afforded abundance of quarry, and plenty of elbow-room for the experiment; but the result never equalled my hopes. Just, perhaps, as one FALCONRY — YOUTHFUL ATTEMPTS. loo of my most promising hawks would liave nearly completed its course of instruction, an absence of some months would break the tender tie, and on my return I had generally the mortification of finding either that she had perished from neglect or improper food, or that her feathers were in such a state as to render her useless in the field until another moult had taken place. Yet in justice to these juvenile attempts I must add that my proceedings were conducted on the most orthodox system. There was no lack of black- letter authority. Sundry rare and valuable trea- tises on ' the noble art of falconrie ' had fallen into my hands, preeminent among which was a copy of ' The Book of St. Alban's,' a treasure which was reluctantly lent to me by a relative who was curious in mediaeval literature, and who never lost an opportunity of assuring me that the quaint old volume was really a diamond beyond all price. Thus I soon became thoroughly initiated in all the mysteries of the hood and the leash, and even learned in a short time to fabricate my own rude tackle. Uninterrupted leisure from other pursuits, the aid of an experienced assistant, and dogs I'egularly trained to the sport, were never- theless wanting ; and I soon became satisfied that without these— however great certain local advan- tages may be — any attempt to indulge in the H 5 154 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. glorious pastime of our forefathers must be little else than ' vanity and vexation of spirit.' I have since seen a few partridges killed by a cast of well trained falcons, and was once present at the capture of a heron by the same birds. The falconer and his party — of which I was one — stationed themselves in a deep ditch or drain which traversed the edge of a large bog, over which the herons had been observed to fly very low, when returning from fishing in the neigh- bouring swamps and morasses. Some of us would crawl occasionally to the top of the bank, and straining our eyes to the utmost, endeavour to catch a glimpse of the quarry in the distance, as, with heavy flight, it might be seen flapping slowly along the surface of the moor, gradually nearing our position, and apparently certain of passing di- rectly over our heads ; but we were frequently dis- appointed. One after another did several of these magnificent birds come within what we supposed to be a moderate distance, and many and loud were our remonstrances as the inexorable falconer still obstinately refused to liberate his hawks, and persisted in waiting for a more favourable oppor- tunity. This at last occurred. A devoted heron, whose approach we had all regarded in breathless silence, now advanced in a direction which seemed to satisfy the scruples of even the fastidious HERON HAWKING. 155 * auceps.' In a second the hawks were unhooded and turned off, and the next moment were in full flight after the heron, who, taking advantage of the wind, was rapidly increasing the distance between us, and at the same time ascending to a great height in a wide curve or circular gyration ; a manoeuvre in which he was anticipated by his more active pursuers, who were now seen to rise above him, but postponed coming to closer quar- ters for so long, that we were soon running at our best speed in the vain hope of obtaining a nearer view of the sport ; while several of the party, with their eyes directed upwards, appeared to forget, or to despise the obstacles that were con- tinually presented to their progress by an Irish bog, and were soon sprawling in a turf-pit or floundering, waist-deep, in a quagmire; so that but very few of us were fortunate enough to be looking in the right direction when the falcons, who had already 'bound to their quarry,' were now seen slowly descending together, like a fea- thered parachute, to the ground. For my own part, I was so lucky as to reach the spot a few moments after the falconer, and found him be- striding the prostrate heron, whose head he had secured between his knees, while he appeared to be anxiously examining his hawks to ascertain whether they had received any wound from the 15G GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL, sharp beak of their adversary. As to the heron, with the exception of a slight laceration of the dorsal plumage, he seemed to have suffered no injury. He was therefore reserved as a trophy, and doomed, poor fellow, to be turned out soon afterwards for the amusement of a larger party of spectators. By the way, there are two fables connected with the habits of the heron, yet both of them pass current with the greater part of the world as established facts in its natural history. One is, that he presents his beak to his enemy so as to transfix him when the latter is about to ' stoop.' Indeed the awkward and lumbering movements of the heron at this critical moment show that even if he were disposed to try the experiment, he has no power to bring this formidable weapon into play against his swift and vigorous antagonist, whose mode of attack indeed, as well as the rapidity of its execution, would render such a result exceedingly improbable ; for the swoop is made obliquely, not perpendicularly, and the falcon strikes her quarry from behind. When the falcons and the heron have reached the ground, then matters assume a different aspect. The moment he finds himself on terra firma he shows a bold front, and struggles to be revenged on his persecutors by well-directed and quickly FABULOUS ERRORS. 157 repeated plunges of his sharp and dagger-like beak. Then indeed must the falconer hurry to the spot, or he may find that his hawks have ' caught a Tartar.' A mortal wound, serious laceration, or the loss of sight, might be the price of victory. The heron always aims at the eye. I am acquainted with a gentleman who was de- prived of one of the organs of vision by a bird of this species which he had incautiously seized after it had been wounded. I have elsewhere recorded a narrow escape of my own from a similar misfor- tune,* and I shot for two seasons in Ireland over an old pointer — and a capital dog he was — whose loss of one eye was attributable to an imprudent attack during his younger days on a winged heron. Another popular error in connexion with this bird is that during incubation it is in the habit of protruding its legs through two holes in the bottom of its nest. Now there is no reason in the world why the heron should assume an atti- tude so painful and unnatural. Its legs are certainly long, but the bones of which they are composed — the femur, the tibia, and the tarsus — bear the same relative proportion to each other as in the generality of waders, and can be as easily folded up underneath the body as the legs of any other bird. Perhaps the story may have origi- * ' Ornitholonrical Rambles in Sussex.' 158 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FO\VL. nated in the brain of some compiler who was ignorant of its anatomy, and who had never seen its nest ; but having noticed the unusual length of its limbs, took for granted that it would be impossible for the heron to gather them up in the usual manner, and therefore as there ought to be two apertures in the bottom of the nest for their reception, that he might take the liberty of boring them forthwith. One of the numerous in- stances in which preconceived theories are found to be at fault when tested by the actual opera- tions of nature. But besides the noble heron, which formerly occupied a prominent position on the game list, and many other birds which are now included in that category, various species of water-fowl and wading-birds were favourite objects of pursuit with the falconer. Nay, even crows and magpies had their admirers, and in the opinion of the late Sir John Sebright — one of the highest authorities on that subject — the last-named birds afford so animating a sport that he considered it far supe- rior to every other kind of hawking. The magpie always endeavours to make for a thick hedge or cover. The object of the falconer, and indeed of all the spectators — whose assistance is of import- ance, and who are thus enabled to take a share in the amusement — is to drive him from these MAGPIE HAWKING. 159 strongholds into detached bushes, and in passing hurriedly from one to the other the falcon makes her stoop, while her quarry exhibits great dex- terity in avoiding the fatal blow. Excellent sjiort of this kind has been afforded by the falcons of Y. O'Keefe, Esq., at the Curragh of Kildare. On one occasion the magpie, after having been successively expelled from various places of re- treat, made for a distant whinbush, and when about half way across the intervening space, seemed to elude the stroke of the falcon by sud- denly dropping to the earth and disappearing from all his foes ; for when the party arrived on the spot the magpie was nowhere to be found. The ground was carefully examined where he had so mysteriously vanished, and whips were loudly cracked by the mounted spectators ; but all in vain. Here was a puzzle ! The falcon still con- tinued to ' wait on ' overhead, a sure sign that her quarry was underneath her. At last, after a long search, he was found snugly concealed in the bottom of a cart-rut, where, but for his treacher- ous plumage, he would probably have succeeded in escaping the observation of his enemies. On another occasion one of the falcons belong- ing to this gentleman afforded a remarkable ex- ample of the extraordinary height to which it will occasionally compel its quarry to ascend, and of 160 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. the determination and perseverance with which il will pursue it to such an altitude, before it suc- ceeds in dealing the fatal blow. This time a crow was the object of the chace, and 'took the air' immediately, hotly pursued by the falcon, and soon rose to such an elevation in spiral sweeps directly above the head of the spectator, that both birds were gradually lost to his view. Another minute elapsed, during which he con- tinued to strain his eyes in vain in the hope of catching a glimpse of them in the direction where they had lately vanished from his sight. At last a single dark speck appeared, which quickly be- came larger and larger as it descended, and the next moment the dead body of the crow fell with extraordinary force a few yards from the spot on which he was standing. Perhaps few men in these degenerate days have had such opportunities of enjoying the glorious sport of falconiy, with every advantage which art and nature could combine, as my friend Colonel Bonham, of the 10th Hussars. Those who know him are aware that a gi'eat portion of the early period of his life was devoted to 'the noble craft,' and the same energy and spirit which enabled him to ovei'come the numerous obstacles to a full enjoyment of this animating pastime in the British islands, has at a later period, since serving SCARDROY. 161 with his regiment in the East, carried him into the swamps and jungles of Indostan, in spite of Thugs, tigers, and fever, and rewarded him with the acquisition of many a sporting trophy. Some years ago he rented Scardroy, an im- mense mountain district in Rosshire, near Strath- connan, comprising an area of thirty-five thousand acres. This vast tract of wild ground adjoined, or 'marched with,' — as the Highlanders have it — another beat of similar extent, over which he had free permission to pursue his sport. The whole was well stocked with grouse, black-game, and ptarmigan, while even red-deer were found within its limits ; but although a good shot and a practised stalker, the gun and the rifle were gene- rally laid aside for the far more exciting sport of falconry. Would that others could be tempted to follow his example ! But this is more than can be expected. I cannot however persuade myself that a short sketch of his hawking experi- ences will prove wholly uninteresting, even to those who prefer to take the field with the weapons of modern warfare. I therefore avail myself of his permission to embody from recollec- tion a few of his notes and observations, sincerely regretting that I cannot add " quseque ipse — vidi Et quorum pars magna f::2==^' / mw ■~^< $s^ A HISTORY OF BRITISH BIRDS. BY WILLIAM YARRELL, F.L S., V.P.Z.S., &c. This Work contains a History and an Engraving of each species of Bird found in Britain. The three volumes contain 535 Illustrations. Second Edition. .3 vols, demy 8 vo. 4/. 14s. M. A Supplement to the First Edition, demy 8vo. 2s. ^d. ; royal 8vo. 5s. ; imperial 8vo. 7s. M. JOHN VAN VOORST, 1. PATERNOSTER ROW. A HISTORY OF BRITISH FISHES. BY WILLIAM YARRELL, F.L.S., V.P.Z.S., &c. Second Edition, containing a History and an Engraving of every British Fish, and many accessary Ilhistrations ; in all nearly Five Hundred. Two Vols. 8vo., price 3/. A Supplement to the First Edition, 8vo. 7s. 6d. ; royal 8vo. 15s. ; imperial 8vo. 22s. C)d. JOHN VAN VOORST, 1, PATERNOSTER ROW. London, March 1850. A CATALOGUE OF THE BOOKS PUBLISHED By Mr. VAN VOORST. By artftur aiiftin, F.L.S., F.G.S., 4-c. late Sec. to the Institution. ILLUSTRATIONS OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES ; being a Series of Papers on Pottery, Limestone and Calcareous Cements, Gypsum and its uses. Furs and the Fur Trade, Felting and Hat- making, Bone and its uses, Tortoiseshell and Whalebone, Antiquarian and Metallurgical History of Iron, Engraving and Etching, and on Paper. Read before the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, &c. In foolscap 8vo., Illustrated. 8s. cloth. By 13. ST. ^nstelr, M.A., F.R.S., Professor of Geology in King\ College, London, S^c. THE ANCIENT WORLD ; or, Picturesque Sketches of Creation. With 149 Illustrations. A New Edition, Post 8vo., 10s. M. THE GEOLOGIST'S TEXT BOOK. Foolscap 8vo. .3s. Gd. THE GOLD SEEKER'S MANUAL. Foolscap 8vo. 3s. Gd. By (ffftarlcfi €. ISabtngton, M.A., F.L.S., F.Z.S., ix. A MANUAL OF BRITISH BOTANY; containing the Flowering Plants and Ferns, arranged according to the Natural Orders. Second Edition, 12mo. 10s. By Ci&omas ISeale. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SPERM WHALE, and a Sketch of a South Sea Whaling Voyage. Post 8vo. I •2s. By Professor ISell, Sec. R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S. A HISTORY OF BRITISH REPTILES. Second Edition, with 50 Wood Engravings. 8vo. 12s. A HISTORY OF BRITISH QUADRUPEDS, including the Cetacea. Nearly 200 Illustrations, 8vo. 28s. A few copies also in royal 8vo. 2/. 16s., imperial 8vo. 4/. 4s. A HISTORY OF BRITISH CRUSTACEA. Now in Course of Publication, in Parts at 2s. 6d., or large paper 5s. By (IFtrtoartr 13cban, M.D. THE HONEY BEE ; its Natural History, Physiology, and Man- agement. A New Edition, 12mo., with many Illustrations, 10s. 6d. By (Sottlieb laorrius. A TREATISE ON THE MANAGEMENT OF FRESH- WATER FISH, with a view to making them a Source of Profit to Landed Proprietors. 8vo. 5s. A TREATISE ON THE PRODUCTION AND MANAGEMENT OF FISH IN FRESH WATERS, by Artificial Spawning, Br^pding, and Rearing : showing also the Cause of the Depletion of all Rivers and Streams. 8vo. 5s. WORKS PUBLISHED BY MR. VAN VOORST. By CCJaflES iLuCtCn HomTj^arU, Prince of Canino. A GEOGRAPHICAL AND COMPARATIVE LIST OF THE BIRDS OF EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA. 8vo. 5s. By C^e Irvjb. ^3dpr ISfllcngcr ^rolrie, M.A., f.g.S. A HISTORY OF THE FOSSIL INSECTS IN THE SECOND- ARY ROCKS OF ENGLAND. Accompanied by a Particular Account of the Strata in which they occur, and of the circumstances connected with their preservation. With 11 Plates. 8vo. ds. Bv JfoSCpID ISulIar, M.D., and ?^enrg 13ullar, of Lincoln's Inn. A WINTER IN THE AZORES, and a Summer at the Baths of the Furnas. Two vols. 8vo., with Illustrations, 285. Edited by Efft J^oil. Uoliprt p^. €Iibc. DOCUMENTS CONNECTED WITH THE HISTORY OF LUD- LOW AND THE LORDS MARCHERS. Imperial 8vo. 31s. 6d. Bv Jonathan (ffOUClft, F.L.S., Member of the Royal Geological Society and of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, ^c. ILLUSTRATIONS OF INSTINCT, deduced from the Habits of British Animals. Post 8vo. 8s. 6d. By HLfit Hcb. |(. ©. Cumming, M.A., F.G.S., Vice- Principal of King William\s Collepe, Castlefovn. THE ISLE OF MAN; its History, Physical, Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Legendary. Post 8vo., Illustrated with Views and Sections, 12s. 6<^. By Sir iJoJn ©raj^am Dalgell, Bart. RARE AND REMARKABLE ANIMALS OF SCOTLAND, Represented from Living Subjects : with Practical Observations on their Nature. 2 vols. 4to. containing 109 Coloured Plates, 61. 6s. Bv l^ctirg Doublflras. A NOMENCLATURE OF BRITISH BIRDS, for Labelling Col- lections of British Birds and their Eggs. Third Edition, Is. 6d. sewed. Bv UameS tL. Srummontl. ^f.D., Professor of Anatomy and Physio- logy in the Belfast Royal Institution. FIRST STEPS TO ANATOMY. With 12 Illustrative Plates. r2mo. 5s. By Uotert Dunn. THE ORNITHOLOGIST'S GUIDE TO THE ISLANDS OF ORKNEY AND SHETLAND. Post 8vo. 5s. Bv ^Proffssor drti. jForbcs, F.R.s.^ F.L.S., F.a.s. A HISTORY OF BRITISH STARFISHES, and other Animals of the Class Echinodermata, 8vo., with more than 120 Illustrations, L^.'-'., or Royal 8vo. 30s. Bv |)roffS6or df ortrfi and *plbanu6 ?t)anlrg, n.A.,F.L.s. A HISTORY OF BRITISH MOLLUSCA AND THEIR SHELLS. Vol. 1. 8vo., \l. l\s. 6arrcll (,-o,iiinui-d). A HISTORY OF BRITISH FISHES. Second Edition, in two vols, demy 8vo., Illustrated bj' nearly .500 Engravings, Zl. A Sup- plement to the First Edition, demj' 8vo. 7s. b'rf. ; royal 8vo. 1 5s. ; imporiul 8vo. 1/. 2s. (Ji/. A PAPER ON THE GROWTH OF THE SALMON IN FRESH WATER. With Six Illustrations of the Fish of the Natural Size, exhibiting its structure and exact appearance at various stages during the first two yeiirs. 1 '2s. sewed. BAPTISMAL FONTS. A Series of 125 Engravings, Examples of the different Periods, accompanied with Descriptions ; and with an In- troductorj- Essay by Mr. Paley. 8vo. 1/. L«. A CATALOGUE OF BRITISH VERTEBRATED ANIMALS, derived from Bell's Br. Quadrupeds and Reptiles, and Yarrell's Br. Birds and Fishes; so printed as to be applicable for labels. 8vo. 2s. 6f/. A CABINET EDITION OF THE HOLY BIBLE; the Authorized Version. With 24 highly-finished steel Engravings. The Historical subjects from the most esteemed paintings of the Old Masters, and the Landscapes from drawings by W. Westall, A.R.A. In em- bossed binding, 10s. 6d. A CABINET EDITION OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER; the Authorized Version. With 10 Engravings, executed in the best manner, on steel. In embossed binding, 4s., uniform with the Cabinet Bible. DOMESTIC SCENES IN GREENLAND AND ICELAND. 16mo., Illustrated, 2s. 6d. ELEMENTS OF PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE ; or, the Young Inquirer answered. Explaining, in question and answer, and in femiliar language, what most things daily used, seen, or talked of, are ; what they are made of, where found, and to what uses applied. Second Edition, l8mo., with Illustrations, 3s. EVENING THOUGHTS. By a Physician. Post 8vo. 4s. 6d. THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF RELIGION, and the Existence of a Deity, explained in a Series of Dialogues adapted to the capacity of the Infant mind. 18mo. 2s. INSTRU:MENTA ECCLESIASTICA : a Series of 72 designs for the Funuturo, Fittings, and Decorations of Churclies and their Precincts. Edited by the Ecclesiological, late Cambridge Camden. Society. 4to. Ih lis. 6d. — A second series is now in course of publication. LETTERS FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS, illustrating Life and Manners in the West Indies. Post 8vo. 9s. 6d. THE LETTERS OF RUSTICUS OF GODALMING. Bvo., with Illustrations, 8s. 6d. LITTLE FABLES FOR LITTLE FOLKS. Selected for their moral tendency, and re-written in familiar words, not one of which exceeds two syllables. 18mo. Is. 6d. THE POOR ARTIST ; or, Seven Eye-Sights and One Object. Fcap. Bvo. 5s. JOHN VAN VOORST, 1, PATERNOSTER ROW. WORKS PUBLISHED BY MR. VAN VOORST. lUustratelr ISeprintfi. AIKIN'S CALENDAR OF NATURE ; or, Natural History of each Month of the Year. With additions, by a Fellow of the LinnsEan and Zoological Societies, and 18 designs by Cattermole. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. In ordering this volume " Cattennole's Edition " should be particularly expressed. BLOOMFIELD'S FARMER'S BOY, and other Rural TALES and POEMS. With 13 Illustrations by Sidney Cooper, R.A., HoRSLEY, Frederick Tayler, and Thomas Webster, R.A. Foolscap 8vo. 7s. 6d., large paper, 1 5s. DODSLEY'S ECONOMY OF HUMAN LIFE. In 12 Books, with 12 Plates, engraved on steel, from original designs, by Frank Howard, Harvey, Williams, &c. IBmo., gilt edges, 5s. GOLDSMITH'S YICAR OF WAKEFIELD. With 32 Illustrations by William Mulready, R.A. ; engraved by John Thompson. II. Is. square 8vo., or 3Gs. in morocco. GRAY'S ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. Each Stanza illustrated with an Engraving on Wood, from 33 original Drawings expressly made for the volume, by the most eminent Artists. Post 8vo. 9s. — A Polyglot Edition of this volume, with inter-paged Translations in the Greek, Latin, German, Italian, and French languages. 1 2s, GRAY'S BARD. With Illustrations from Drawings by the Hon. Mrs. John Talbot. Uniform with^he Elegy of Gray, to which it forms an appropriate companion volume. 7s. SHAKSPEARE'S SEVEN AGES OF MAN. Illustrated by Wm. Mulready, R.A. ; J. Constable, R.A. ; Sir David Wilkie, R.A. ; W.Collins, R.A. ; A. E. Chalon, R.A-; A.Cooper. R.A. ; Sir A. W. Callcott, R.A. ; Edwin Landseer, R.A.; W. Hilton, R.A. 6s. — A few copies of the First Edition in 4to. remain for sale. WATTS' DIVINE AND MORAL SONGS. With 30 Illustrations by C. W. Cope, R.A.; engraved by John Thompson. Square 8vo. 7s. 6rf., or 21s. in morocco. WHITE'S NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. A New Edi- tion, with Notes by the Rev. Leonard Jenyns, MA., F.L.S., &c. With 26 Illustrations. Foolscap 8vo. 7s. 6d. Shortly ivill be Puhlishcd. GOODSIR'S (R. a.) arctic VOYAGE. ANSTED'S (PROFESSOR) ELEMENTARY COURSE OF GEO- LOGY, MINERALOGY, AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. JOHNSTON'S (DR.) INTRODUCTION TO CONCHOLOGY. LATHAM'S (DR. R. G.) NATURAL HISTORY OF MAN. KNOX'S (A. E.) GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. The Illustrations to the Works enumerated in this Catalogue have been de- signed or drawn and engraved expressly for the Works they respectively emMlish, and they are never used for other Works. JOHN VAN VOORST, 1, PATERNOSTER ROW Q|AJniversity of British Columbia Library S««k> DUE DATE FORM 3tO AGRICULTURE FORESTRY LIBRARY O ui