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MEKEEPER AT HOME |

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THE KEEPER.

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AND RURAL LIFE
‘i by
3 PRithora TeBecies

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When shaws beene sheene, and shradds full fayre,
And leaves both large and longe,

It is merrye walking in the fayre forrest,

__ To hear the small birdes songe.

Ballad of Guy of Gisborne.

I ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES WHYMPER

London
; , ELDER, & CO, 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1880 0

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a i [All rights reserved.| | ¢

PREFACE.

——_~+0e¢ ——

sE who delight in roaming about amongst the

;and lanes, or have spent any time in a country

something of a ‘character.’ The Gamekeeper
indeed, so prominent a figure in rural life as
st to demand some biographical record of his
-and ways. From the man to the territories
which he bears sway—the meadows, woods, -
“streams—and to his subjects, their furred
feathered inhabitants, is a natural transition.

se, be included in such a survey.

re iat ieee igs Wy ‘ yaa : ol
used as a nucleus about which to a

a that would otherwise have lacked a cor
the facts here collected are really ent
_ from original observation. —

CONTENTS.

ee,

NIONS: THE Woops, MEADOWS, AND WATER

OF HIS SUBJECTS: Docs, RABBITS, ‘ MICE,
Meee, Derr’ 2. . wk

ENEMIES: BIRDS AND BEASTS OF PREY—

ONAL POACHERS: THE ART OF WIRING

THE FIELD DETECTIVE: FISH POACHING.
d aan, _ y

ILLA WARFARE; GUN ACCIDENTS; BLACK

7

oe . . se . . . .

144

N THE STAIRCASE.

AND GREAT HORSES :

’s SON SHOOTING LEFT-HANDED
RY BARN.

ANNUATED KEEPER

THE YOUNG BIRDS

I

’

. AT HIS FRONT Door
CKAND MOORHEN ..

TO SHOW DAMAGE DONE BY IRON-WIRE FENCING

xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Doc AT STREAM

POINTER AND FISH

TRAPS

SHOOTING WOOD-PIGEONS BY MOONLIGHT .
A WEASEL HUNTING

A HAWK PURSUED BY FINCHES AND SWALLOWS
THE POACHER .

AN ENGLISH PRAIRIE-FIRE
PARTRIDGES AT EVENING

RUBENS’ SPORTSMAN

SETTING A HARE SNARE

POACHING IN THE WINTER

PLOVER’s NEST

A RABBIT-HOLE NETTED

A WICKED LURCHER AND HIS MASTER
THE GENTLEMAN IN VELVETEEN
TICKLING TROUT |
SETTING. A NIGHT LINE

GOING FOR THE POACHERS

MAN-TRAP

A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING KEEPER

TAILPIECE

PAGE
95
99

Ito

115
121
125
133
I4I
148
150
153
159
164
173
175
178
Igl
194.
197

200

217

.219

THE KEEPER’S COTTAGE.

CHAPTER I.
The Man himselihis Bouse, and Tools.

THE keeper’s cottage stands in a sheltered ‘coombe,’ or

“narrow hollow of the woodlands, overshadowed by a

Summer a noble tree. The ash wood covers the slope at
the rear ; on one side is a garden, and on the other a long
Strip of meadow with elms. In front, and somewhat

Tower, a streamlet winds, fringing the sward, and across it
5 A B

2 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

the fir plantations begin, their dark sombre foliage hang-
ing over the water. A dead willow trunk thrown from bank
to bank forms a rude bridge; the tree, not even squared,
gives little surface for the foot, and in frosty weather a
slip is easy. From this primitive contrivance a path, out
of which others fork, leads into the intricacies of the
covers, and from the garden a wicket-gate opens on the
ash wood. The elms in the meadow are full of rooks’

nests, and in the spring the coombe will resound with

their cawing; these black bandits, who do not touch it
at other times, will then ravage the garden to feed their
hungry young, despite ingenious scarecrows. A row of
kennels, tenanted by a dozen dogs, extends behind the
cottage: lean retrievers yet unbroken, yelping spaniels,
pointers, and perhaps a few greyhounds or fancy breeds,
if ‘young master’ has a taste that way.

Beside the kennels is a shed ornamented with rows

upon rows of dead and dried vermin, furred and feathered,

impaled for their misdeeds; and over the door a couple |

of horseshoes. nailed for luck—a superstition yet linger-
ing in the by-ways of the woods and hills. Within are
the ferret hutches, warm and dry; for the ferret is a
shivery creature, and likes nothing so well as to nozzle
down in a coat-pocket with a little hay. Here are spades
and bill-hooks, twine and rabbit nets, traps, and other
odds and ends scattered about with the wires and

poacher’s implements impounded from time to time.

=

m, a relic of the olden times, which, when dragged
light, turns out to be a man-trap. These terrible
s have long since been disused—being illegal, like

THE ROW OF KENNELS.

-guns—and the rust has gathered thickly on the
But, old though it be, it still acts perfectly, and can
» as well now as when in bygone days poachers and
used to prod the ground and the long grass, before
stepped among it, with a stick, for fear of mutilation.
The trap is almost precisely similar to the common

4 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

rat-trap or gin still employed to destroy vermin, but greatly
exaggerated in size, so that if stood on end it reaches to
the waist, or above, The jaws of this iron wolf are horrible
to contemplate—rows of serrated projections, which fit into
each other when closed, alternating with spikes a couple of
inches long, like tusks. To set the trap you have to stand
on the spring—the weight of a man is about sufficient to
press it down; and, to avoid danger to the person prepar-
ing this little surprise, a band of iron can be pushed
forward to hold the spring while the catch is put into
position, and the machine itself is hidden among the bushes
or covered with dead leaves. Now touch the pan with a
stout walking-stick—the jaws cut it in two in the twinkling
of an eye. They seem to snap together with a vicious
energy, powerful enough to break the bone of the leg;
and assuredly no man ever got free whose foot was once
caught by these terrible teeth.
The keeper will tell you that it used to be set up in
the corner of the gardens and orchard belonging to the
great house, and which, in the pre-policemen days, were
almost nightly robbed. He thinks there were quite as
many such traps set in the gardens just outside the towns
as ever there were in the woods and preserves of the
country proper. He recollects but one old man (a mole-
catcher) who actually had experienced in his youth the
sensation of being caught; he went lame on one foot, the

sinews having been cut or divided. The trap could be

~ ay al ro lie

> exudes and boils in the fierce heat.

hs and divided among the upper employés. From
d oak and ash, and the crude turpentine of the fir,
matic odour, the scent of the earth in which they
; exhaled as they burn.

its place if desired ; but, as a matter of fact, a.

When the

6 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

THE KEEPER’S KITCHEN.

The ceiling is low and crossed by one huge square
beam of oak, darkened by smoke and age. The keeper’s
double-barrelled gun is suspended from this beam: there
are several other guns in the house, but this, the favourite,
alone hangs where it did before he had children—so strong
is habit; the rest are yet more out of danger. It has
been a noble weapon, though now showing signs of age—
the interior of the breech worn larger than the rest of the
barrel from constant use; so much so that, before it was

converted to a breech-loader, the wad, when the ramrod

‘

HIS FAVOURITE GUN. 7

down, would slip the last six inches, so loosely
to barely answer its purpose of retaining the
that when cleaned out, before the smoke fouled
in, he had to load with paper. This in a measure
i ‘the ‘choke-bore’ and his gun was always
its killing power. The varnish is worn from
: by incessant friction against his coat, showing
grain of the walnut-wood, and the trigger-guard
polish of the sleeve shines like silver. It has
companion for so many years that it is not
e should feel an affection for it; no other ever
. shoulder so well, or came with such delicate
to the ‘present’ position. So accustomed is he
: ance and ‘hang’ in the hand that he never thinks
ig ; he simply looks at the object, still or moving,
the gun up from the hollow of his arm, and
ly “pulls the trigger, staying not a second to glance
the barrel. It has become almost a portion of his
answering like a limb to the volition of will without —
tervention of reflection. The hammers are chased
elegantly shaped—perfectly matching: when once

= the dead leaves apparently beyond hope of recovery,
ver rested night or day till by continuous search and
ig the artistic piece of metal was found. Nothing
s the symmetry of a gun so much as hammers
are not pairs; and well he knew that he should

8 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

never get a smith to replace that delicate piece of work-

manship, for this gun came originally from the hands of ft
a famous maker, who got fifty, or perhaps even seventy .
guineas for it years ago. It did not shoot to please the
purchaser—eguns of the very best character sometimes take ,
use to get into thorough order—and was thrown aside, q
and so the gun became the keeper’s.

These fine old guns often have a romance clinging to
them, and sometimes the history is a sad one. Upstairs
he still keeps the old copper powder-flask curiously chased ;
and engraved, yet strong enough to bear the weight of the
bearer if by chance he sat down upon it while in his
pocket, together with the shot-belt and punch for cutting
out the wads from card-board or an old felt hat. These
the modern system of loading at the breech has cast aside.
- Here, also, is the apparatus for filling empty cartridge-
cases—a work which in the season occupies him many
hours.

Being an artist in his way, he takes a pride in the
shine and polish of his master’s guns, which are not always
here, but come down at intervals to be cleaned and c
attended to, And woe be to the first kid gloves that a
touch them afterwards; for a gun, like a sardine, should q
be kept in fine oil, not thickly encrusting it, but, as it |
were, rubbed into and oozing from the pores of the metal
and wood. Paraffin is an abomination in his eyes (for

preserving from rust), and no modern patent oil, he thinks,

-. TOOLS AND IMPLEMENTS. 9

2 with a drop of gin for the locks—the spirit

rivers and gunsmith’s implements to take the locks
ces ; for gentlemen are sometimes careless and throw
guns down on the wet grass, and if a single drop of
vate should by chance penetrate under the plate it will
; lay mischief with the works if the first speck of rust be
not forthwith removed.

His dog-whistle hangs at his buttonhole. _ His pocket-
fe is a basket of tools in itself, most probably a present
n some youthful sportsman who was placed under his
= to learn how to handle a gun. The corkscrew it
tains has seen much service at luncheon-time, when
a sturdy oak, or in a sheltered nook of the lane,
ere the hawthorn hedge and the fern broke the force of
wind, a merry shooting-party sat down to a weéll-
ced hamper and wanted some one to draw the corks.
- but what the back of the larger blade has not artistic-
tapped off the neck of many a bottle, hitting it gently
ards against the rim. Nor must his keys be forgotten.
> paths through the preserves, where they debouch on

densest darkness of the woods. On pressing a

Io THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

spring and holding it near the ear, it strikes the hour last ©

passed, then the quarters which have since elapsed; so
that even when he cannot see an inch before his face he
knows the time within fifteen minutes at the outside, which
is near enough for practical purposes.

In personal appearance he would be a tall man were
it not that he has contracted a slight stoop in the passage
of the years, not from weakness or decay of nature, but
because men who walk much lean forward somewhat,
which has a tendency to round the shoulders. The
weight of the gun, and often of a heavy game-bag drag-
ging downwards, has increased this defect of his figure,
and, as is usual after a certain age, even with those who
lead a temperate life, he begins to show signs of corpulency.
But these shortcomings only slightly detract from the
-manliness of his appearance, and in youth it is easy to see
that he must have been an athlete. There is still plenty
of power in the long sinewy arms, brown hands, and bull-
neck, and intense vital energy in the bright blue eye.
He is an ash-tree man, as a certain famous writer would
say ; hard, tough, unconquerable by wind or weather,
fearless of his fellows, yielding but by slow and imper-
ceptible degrees to the work of time. His neck has
become the colour of mahogany; sun and tempest have
left their indelible marks upon his face; and he speaks
from the depths of his broad chest, as men do who
talk much in the open air, shouting across the fields

/

HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE. II

and through the copses. There is a solidity in his very
footstep, and he stands like an oak. He meets your eye

THE KEEPER,

~~ full and unshirkingly, yet without insolence ; not as the
_ labourers do, who either stare with sullen ill-will or look
on the earth. In brief, freedom and constant contact with

12 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

nature have made him every inch a man; and here in this
nineteenth century of civilised effeminacy may be seen
some relic of what men were in the old feudal days when
they dwelt practically in the woods. The shoulder of his
coat is worn a little where the gun rubs, and so is his
sleeve ; otherwise he is fairly well dressed.

Perfectly civil to every one, and with a willing
manner towards his master and his master’s guests, he
has a wonderful knack of getting his own way. Whatever
the great house may propose in the shooting line, the
keeper is pretty certain to dispose of in the end as he

pleases ; for he has a voluble ‘silver’ tongue, and is full

of objections, reasons, excuses, suggestions, all delivered
with a deprecatory air of superior knowledge which he
hardly likes to intrude upon his betters, much as he would
_ regret to see them go wrong. So he really takes the lead,
and in nine cases in ten the result proves he is right, as
minute local knowledge naturally must be when intelli-
gently applied.

Not only in such matters as the best course for the
shooting-party to follow, or in advice bearing upon the
presetves, but in concerns of a wider scope, his influence
is felt. A keen, shrewd judge of horseflesh—(how is it
that if a man understands one animal he seems to
instinctively see through all ?)—his master in a careless
way often asks his opinion before concluding a bargain.

-Of course the question is not put direct, but ‘ By-the-bye, -

sie Si y= sl ata

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ee ee ee oe eae

ee eee eh tt ees

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HIS INFLUENCE AND ADVICE. 13

when the hounds were here you saw so-and-so’s mare ;
what do you think of her?’ The keeper blurts out his
answer, not always flattering or very delicately expressed ;

and his view is not forgotten. For when a trusted servant
like this accompanies his master often in solitary rambles
for hours together, dignity must unbend now and then,
however great the social difference between them ; and
thus a man of strong individuality and a really valuable
gift of observation insensibly guides his master,

Passing across the turnips, the landlord, who perhaps
never sees his farms save when thus crossing them with
a gun, remarks that they look clean and free from weeds ;
whereupon the keeper, walking respectfully a little in the
rear, replies that so-and-so, the tenant, is a capital farmer,
a preserver of foxes and game, but has suffered from the
floods—a reply that leads to inquiries, and perhaps a
welcome reduction of rent. On the other hand, the

- owner’s attention is thus often called to abuses. In this

way an evilly-disposed keeper may, it is true, do great
wrongs, having access to the owner and, in familiar phrase,

‘his ear.” Iam at present delineating the upright keeper,

such as are in existence still, notwithstanding the abuse

lavished upon them as a class—often, it is to be feared,
too well deserved. It is not difficult to see how in this
Way a man whose position is lowly may in an indirect
Way exercise a powerful influence upon a large estate.

He is very ‘great’ on dogs (and, indeed, on all other

14 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,

animals) ; his opinion is listened to and taken by every-
body round about who has a dog, and. sometimes he has
three or four under treatment for divers ills. By this
knowledge many ‘tips’ are gained, and occasionally he
makes a good thing by selling a pup at a high price. He
may even be seen, with his velveteen jacket carefully
brushed, his ground-ash stick under his arm, and hat in
hand, treading daintily for fear of soiling the carpet with
his shoes, in the ante-room, gravely prescribing for the
ailing pug in which the ladies are interested.

At the farmhouses he is invited to sit down and take
a glass, being welcome for his gossip of the great house,
and because, having in the course of years been thrown
into the society of all classes, he has gradually acquired a

certain tact and power of accommodating himself to his

- listener. For. the keeper, when he fulfils his duty in a

quiet way, as a man of experience does, is by no means
an unpopular character. It is the too officious. man who
creates a feeling among the tenants against himself and
the whole question of game. But. the quiet experienced
hand, with a shrewd knowledge of men.as well as the
technicalities of his profession, grows to be liked by the
tenantry, and becomes a local authority on animal life.
Proud, and not without reason, of his vigour and
strength, he will tell you that though between fifty and
sixty he can still step briskly through a heavy field-day,

despite the weight of reserve ammunition he carries. He

_ THEORY OF HEALTH. 15

p on his feet without fatigue from morn till eve,
goes his rounds without abating one inch of the
ce. In one thing alone he feels his years—ze. in
and when ‘young master,’ who is a disciple of the
athletic school, comes out, it is about as much as
he can do to keep up with him over the stubble.
once for the last thirty years has he tossed on a bed
ickness ; never once has he failed to rise from his
mber refreshed and ready for his labour. His secret
let him tell it in his own words:
‘It’s indoors, sir, as kills half the people; being in-
s three parts of the day, and next to that taking too
1 drink and vittals. Eating’s as bad as drinking ; and
. ain’t nothing like fresh air and the smell of the
woods. You should come out here in the spring, when the
ry 1 - timber is throwed (because, you see, the sap be rising,
and the bark strips then), and just sit down on a stick
peeled—I means a trunk, you know—and sniff up
scent of that there oak bark. It goes right down
throat, and preserves your lungs as the tan do
ther. And I’ve heard say as folk who work in the tan-
rds never have no illness. There’s always a smell from
es, dead or living—I could tell what wood a log was in
dark by my nose; and the air is better where the
ods be. The ladies up in the great house sometimes
ss out into the fir plantations—the turpentine scents
ig, you see—and they say it’s good for the chest ; but,

16 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

bless you, you must live in it. People go abroad, ’m
told, to live in the pine forests to cure ’em: I say these
here oaks have got every bit as much good in that way.
I never eat but two meals a day—breakfast and supper:
what you would call dinner—and maybe in the middle of
the day a hunch of dry bread and an apple. I take a ‘i
deal for breakfast, and I’m rather lear [hungry] at supper ;
but you may lay your oath that’s why ’'m what I am in |
the way of health. People stuffs theirselves, and by —
consequence it breaks out, you see. It’s the same with |
cattle ; they’re overfed, tied up in stalls and stuffed, and
never no exercise, and mostly oily food too. It stands to

ir he i w » ms
ch PG eka, cil +? aa St Nr a.

reason they must get bad; and that’s the real cause of
these here rinderpests and pleuro-pneumonia and what-
nots. At least that’s my notion. I’m in the woods all
day, and never comes home till supper—cept, of course,
in breeding-time, to fetch the meal and stuff for the
‘birds—so I gets the fresh air, you see; and the fresh air
is the life, sir. There’s the smell of the earth, too— q
specially just as the plough turns it up—which isa fine
thing ; and the hedges and the grass are as sweet as

sugar after a shower. Anything with a green leaf is the

thing, depend upon it, if you want to live healthy. I
never signed no pledge; and if a man asks me to take

_a glass of ale, I never says him no. But I ain’t got no

Pe ee ee ee

barrel at home; and all the time I’ve been in this here

place I’ve never been to a public. Gentlemen give me

A GOOD HATER. 17

course they does; and much obliged I be; but
it to my missus. Many’s the time they’ve axed
have a glass of champagne or brandy when we've
lunch under the hedge; but I says no, and would
a glass of beer best, which I gets, of course, No;
| drinks, I drinks ale: but most in general I drinks
ng liquor. Great coat !—cold weather! I never
10 great coat on this thirty year. These here woods
good as a topcoat in cold weather. Come off the
field with the east wind cutting into you, and get
e they firs and you'll feel warm in a minute. If you
into the ash wood you must go in farther, because
wind comes more between the poles.” Fresh air,
ise, frugal food and drink, the odour of the earth and
trees—these have given him, as he nears his sixtieth
the strength and vitality of early manhood.
He has his faults: notably, a hastiness of temper
ds his undermen, and towards labourers and wood- -
‘s who transgress his rules. He is apt to use his
ind-ash stick rather freely without thought of con-
ue ces, and has got into trouble more than once in
t way. When he takes a dislike or suspicion of a man,
ng will remove it; he is stubbornly inimical and
siving, totally incapable of comprehending the idea
loving anenemy. He hates cordially in the true pagan
hion of old. He is full of prejudices, and has some

leas which almost amount to superstitions ; and, though
¢

«]

18 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

he fears nothing, has a vague feeling that sometimes
there is ‘summat’ inexplicable in the dark and desolate
places. Such is this modern man of the woods.

The impressions of youth are always strongest with
us, and so it is that recollecting the scenes in which he
passed his earlier days he looks with some contempt upon
the style of agriculture followed in the locality; for he
was born in the north, where the farms are sometimes of
a great area, though perhaps not so rich in soil, and he
cannot forgive the tenants here because they have not got
herds of three or four hundred horned cattle. Before he
settled down in the south he had many changes of situa-
tion, and was thus brought in contact with a wonderful
number of gentlemen, titled or otherwise distinguished,
whose peculiarities of speech or appearance he loves to
dwell upon. If the valet sees the hero or the statesman
too closely, so sometimes does the gamekeeper. A great
man must have moments when it is a relief to fling off
the constant posturing necessary before the world; and
there is freshness in the gamekeeper’s unstudied conversa-
tion. The keeper thinks that nothing reveals a gentle-
man’s character so much as his ‘ tips.’

‘Gentlemen is very curious in tips, he says, ‘and
there ain’t nothing so difficult as to know what’s coming.
Most in general them as be the biggest guns, and what
you would think would come out handsome, chucks you a

crown and no more; and them as you knows ain’t much

THE REGULAR TIPS. 19

ie way of money slips a sovereign into your fist.
; a deal in the way of giving it too, as perhaps you
Yt think. Some gents does it as much as to say
much obliged to you for kindly taking it. Some
as if they were chucking a bone to a dog. One
where I was, the governor were the haughtiest man
- you see. When the shooting was done—after a
: party, you never knowed whether he were pleased
—he never took no more notice of you than if you
a tree. But I found him out arter a time or two.
d to walk close behind him, as if you were a spaniel ;
1 by-and-by he would slip his hand round behind his
: without a word, mind—and you had to take what
it, and never touch your hat or so much as “ Thank
sir.’ It were always a five-pound note if the shoot-
had been good ; but it never seemed to come so sweet
he'd done it to your face.’

The keeper gets a goodly number of tips in the course

When he goes round to deliver presents of game to the
. hief tenants on the estate or to the owner’s private friends.
( en emen who take an interest in such things come out
y spring to see the young broods of pheasants—which,
eed, are a pretty sight—and they always leave some-

20 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

thing behind them. In the summer a few picnic parties
come from the town or the country round about, having
permission to enter the grounds. In the winter half a

A BROOD OF YOUNG PHEASANTS,

dozen young gentlemen have a turn at the ferreting; a
great burrow is chosen, three or four ferrets put in at once
without any nets, so that the rabbits may bolt freely, and
then the shooting is like volleys of musketry fire. For
sport like this the young gentlemen tip freely. After the

i i
coaliieb'y wien ine Dian f Oe aa v7, d
Se a er i yD Rog Sa ah FI -

op Seine

—

21

‘the young birds, some few of the tenants are
» shoot the remainder——a task that spreads
two or even three days, and there is a good
uor and silver going about. Then gentlemen

Besides
swift of foot, and with a shrewd idea which
will run when the hunt is up, he is to the

Ise; and so he too gets his share.

lady or some timid gentleman wants a gate
a service not performed in vain. For breaking-

) the keeper is often paid well; and, in short,
of those fortunate individuals whom all the

23 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

CHAPIER «AI,
His Family and Caste,

THE interior of the cottage is exquisitely clean; it has
that bright pleasant appearance which is only possible
when the housewife feels a pride in her duties, and goes
about them with a cheerful heart. Not a speck of: dust
can be seen upon the furniture, amongst which is a large
old-fashioned sofa: the window panes are clear and trans-
parent—a certain sign of loving care expended on the
place, as on the other hand dirty windows are an indica-

tion of neglect, so much so that the character of the

cottager may almost be guessed from a glance at her

glass. The keeper's wife is a buxom vivacious dame,
whose manners, from occasional contact with the upper
ranks—the ladies from the great house sometimes look in
for a few minutes to chat with so old a servant of the
family——are above what are usually found in her station.
She receives her callers—and they are many—with a
quiet, respectful dignity: desirous of pleasing, yet quite at
her ease.

Across the back of the sofa there lies a rug of some

ae

—

wif Seana cvthad Taine bees gases

ENGLISH FURS. 23

wutiful fur which catches the eye, but which at first the
sitor cannot identify. Its stripes are familiar, and not
unlike the tiger’s, but the colour is not that of the forest
tyrant. She explains that this rug comes within her
special sphere. It is a carriage-rug of cat-skin ; the skins
carefully selected to match exactly, and cured and pre-
pared i in the same way as other more famous furs. They
have only just been sewn together, and the rug is now
spread on the sofa to dry. She has made rugs, she will
tell you, entirely of black cat skins, and very handsome
they looked ; but nct equal to this, which is wholly of the
tabby. Certainly the gloss and stripe, the soft warmth
a and feel to the hand, seem to rival many foreign and
costly importations. Besides carriage-rugs, the game-
_ keeper’s wife has made others for the feet—-some many-
E coloured, like Joseph’s coat.
All the cats to which these. skins belonged were shot
or caught in the traps set for vermin by her husband and
his assistants. The majority were wild—that is, had
~ taken up their residence in the woods, reverting to their
natural state, and causing great havoc among the game.
Feasting like this and in the joys of freedom, many had
grown to a truly enormous size, not in fat, as the domestic
F animal does, but in length of back and limb. These
4 afforded the best skins ; perhaps out of eight or nine
_ killed but two would be available or worth preserving.

This gives an idea of the extraordinary number of cats

24 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

which stray abroad and get their living by poaching. They
invariably gravitate towards the woods. The instance in
point is taken from an outlying district far from a town,
where the nuisance is comparatively small; but in the
preserves say from ten to twenty miles round London the
cats thus killed must be counted by thousands. Families
change their homes, the cat is driven away by the new
comer and takes to the field. In one little copse not more
than two acres in extent, and about twelve miles from
Hyde Park Corner, fifteen cats were shot in six weeks,
and nearly all in one spot—their favourite haunt. ‘When
two or three wild or homeless animals take up their abode
in a wood, they speedily attract half a dozen hitherto tame
ones ; and, if they were not destroyed, it would be impos-
sible to keep either game or rabbits.

She has her own receipts for preserving furs and
feathers, and long practice has rendered her an adept.
Here are squirrels’ skins also prepared; some with the
bushy tail attached, and some without. They vary in size
and the colour of the tail, which is often nearly white, in
others more deeply tinged with red. The fur is used to
line cloaks, and the tail is sometimes placed in ladies’ hats.
Now and then she gets a badger-skin, which old country
folk used to have made into waistcoats, said to form an
efficacious protection for weak chests. She has made rugs
of several sewn together, but not often.

In the store-room upstairs there are a few splendid fox-

hss satis

Sigil heiaid Beeteodiaeta coned

eS a eee

et

——

n

REYNARD UTILISED. 25

These are used for ladies’ 2h and look

e; the tail being occasionally curled round
_ This sounds a delicate matter, and dangerously
the deadly sin of vulpecide. But it is not so. In
- extensive woods, with their broad fringes of furze
a h, the foxes now and then become inconveniently
ous, and even cub-hunting will not kill them off
tly, especially if a great ‘head’ of game is kept up,
ttracts every species of beast of prey.
Besides the damage to game, the concentration of too
foxes in one district is opposed to the interest of the
—first, because the attendant destruction of neighbour-
poultry causes an unpleasant feeling; next, because
the meet takes place the plethora of foxes spoils the
t. The day is wasted in ‘chopping’ them at every
; the pack breaks up into several sections, despite
p, horn, and voice ; and a good run across country can-
‘ot be obtained. So that once now and then a judicious
hinni g-out is necessary ; and this is how the skins come
> the hands of the keeper’s wife. The heads go to
ment halls and staircases; so do the pads and
asionally the brush. The teeth make studs, set in
ol ; and no part of Reynard is thrown away, since the
$s eagerly snap up his body.
Once or twice she has made a moleskin waistcoat for
ntleman. This is a very tedious operation. Each

26 THE GAMEKEEPER AT. HOME.

little skin has to be separately prepared, and when finished
hardly covers two square inches of surface. Consequently
it requires several scores of skins, and the work is a year
or more about. There is then the sewing together, which
is not to be accomplished without much patience and skill.
The fur is beautifully soft and glossy, with more resem-
blance to velvet than is possessed by any other natural
substance, and very warm. Mittens for the wrists are also
made of it, and skull-caps. Moleskin waistcoats used to
be thought a good deal of, but are now only met with
occasionally as a curiosity.

The old wooden mole-trap is now almost extinct,
superseded by the modern iron one, which anybody can
set up. The ancient contrivance, a cylinder of wood, could
only be placed in position by a practised hand, and from
his experience in this the mole-catcher—locally called
‘oont-catcher ’—used to be an important personage in his
way. He is now fast becoming extinct also—that is, as a
distinct handicraftsman spending his whole time in such
trapping. He was not unfrequently a man who had once
occupied a subordinate place under a keeper, and when
grown too feeble for harder labour, supported ‘himself in
this manner: contracting with the farmers to clear their
fields by the season.

Neither stoats’ nor weasels’ skins are preserved, except
now and then for stuffing to put under a glass case, though
the stoat is closely allied to the genuine ermine. Polecats,

SKINS AND FEATHERS. 27

wHrni PER

THE OLD MOLE-CATCHER.

too, are sometimes saved for the same purpose ; in many
_ woods they seem now quite extinct. The otter skin is
_ valuable, but does not often come under the care of the
_ keeper's wife. The keeper now and then shoots a grebe
‘in the mere where the streamlet widens out into a small
lake, which again is bordered by water-meadows. This
bird is uncommon, but not altogether rare ; sometimes two
or three are killed in the year in this southern inland

haunt. He also shoots her some jays, whose wings—as

28 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

likewise the black-and-white magpie—are used for the
same decorative purposes. Certain feathers from the jay
are sought by the gentlemen who visit the great house, to
make artificial flies for salmon-fishing. Of kingfishers she
preserves a considerable number for ladies’ hats, and some
for glass cases. Once or twice she has been asked to pre-
pare the woodpecker, whose plumage and harsh cry entitle
him to the position of the parrot of our woods. Gentle-
men interested in natural history often commission her
husband to get them specimens of rare birds; and in the
end he generally succeeds, though a long time may elapse
before they cross his path. For them she has prepared
some of the rare owls and hawks. She has a store of pea-
cocks’ feathers—every now and then people, especially
ladies, call at the cottage and purchase these things.
Country housewives still use the hare’s ‘pad’ for several
domestic purposes—was not the hare’s foot once kept in
the printing-offices ? |

The keeper’s wife has nothing to do with rabbits, but
knows that their skins and fur are still bought in large
quantities. She has heard that geese were once kept in
large flocks almost entirely for their feathers, which were
plucked twice a year, she thinks ; but this is not practised
now, at least not in the south. She has had snakes’
skins, or more properly sloughs, for the curious. It is
very difficult to get one entire; they are fragile, and so

twisted in the grass where the snake leaves them as to be

ANTLERS FOUND IN THE WOOD. 29

erally broken. Some country folk put them in their
s to cure headache, which is a very old superstition ;
more in sport than earnest. There are no deer now
) the park. There used to be a hundred years ago, and
husband has found several cast antlers in the wood,

ue

mt
Eas 3 be
j iM Rr

ANTLERS ON THE STAIRCASE,

> best are up at the great house, but there is one on her
staircase. Will I take a few chestnuts? It is winter—
the proper time—and these are remarkably fine. No tree
3; apparently so capricious in its yield as the chestnut in
English woods: the fruit of many is so small as to be
worthless, or else it does not reach maturity. But these

50" THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

large ones are from a tree which bears a fine nut: her
husband has them saved every year. Here also are half
a dozen truffles if I will accept them: most that are found
go up to the great house; but of late years they have not
been sought for so carefully, because coming in quantities
from abroad. These truffles are found, she believes, in the
woods where the soil is chalky. She used to gather many
native herbs ; but tastes have changed, and new seasonings
and sauces have come into fashion.

Out of doors in his work the assistant upon whom the
gamekeeper places his chief reliance is his own son—a lad
hardly taller than the gun he carries, but much older than
would be supposed at first sight.

It is a curious physiological fact that although open-
air life is so favourable to health, yet it has the apparent
effect of -stunting growth in early youth. Let two
children be brought up together, one made to ‘rough’ it
out of doors, and the other carefully tended and kept
within ; other things being equal, the boy of the drawing-
room will be taller and to all appearance more developed
than his companion. The labourers’ children, for instance,
who play in the lonely country roads and fields all day,
whose parents lock their cottage doors when leaving for
work in the morning so that their offspring shall not gain
entrance and get into mischief, are almost invariably short
for their age. In their case something may be justly
attributed to coarse and scanty food; but the children of

'
:
Be
N
‘i

—_—

COUNTRY LADS. 31

working farmers exhibit the same peculiarity, and although
their food is not luxurious in quality, it is certainly not
stinted in quantity. Some of the ploughboys and carters’
lads seem scarcely fit to be put in charge of the huge cart-
horses who obey their shouted orders, their heads being

SMALL BOYS AND GREAT HORSES.

but a little way above the shafts—mere infants to look at.

Yet they are fourteen or fifteen years of age. With these,

and with the sons of farmers who in like manner work in
the field, the period of development comes later than with
town-bred boys. After sixteen or eighteen, after years of

32 ‘THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

hesitation as it were, they suddenly shoot up, and become
great, hulking, broad fellows, possessed of immense strength.

So the keeper’s boy is really much more a man than he

appears, both in years and knowledge—meaning thereby |

that local intelligence, technical ability, and unwritten
education which is the resultant of early practice and is
quite distinct from book learning.

From his father he has imbibed the spirit of the woods
and all the minutiz of his art. First he learned to shoot;
his highest ambition being satisfied in the beginning when
permitted to carry the double-barrel home across the
meadow, Then he was allowed occasionally to fire off the
charges left in after the day’s work, before the gun was
hung against the beam. Next, from behind the fallen
trunk of an oak he took aim at a sitting rabbit which had
raised himself on his hind-quarters to listen suspiciously—
resting the heavy barrels on the tree, and made nervous
by the whispered instructions from the keeper kneeling on
the grass out of sight behind, ‘ Aim at his shoulder, lad, if
he be sitting sidelong; if a’ be got his back to ’ee aim at
his poll. From this it was but a short step to be trusted
with the single-barrel, and finally with the double ;
ultimately having one of his own and walking his own
distinct rounds,

He is now a keen shot, even better than his father ;
for it is often observed that at a certain age young

beginners in most manual arts reach an excellence which

Oe a a eNO ey fe

SNAP-SHOOTING. 33

iter years fails them. Perhaps the muscles are more
3 and respond instantaneously to the eye. This
boy at snap-shooting in the ‘rough’ will beat crack
en hollow. At the trap with pigeons he would
ably fail; but in a narrow lane where the rabbits,
en out by the ferrets, just pop across barely a yard of
en ground, where even a good shot may miss repeatedly,
is ‘death’ itself to the ‘bunnies.’ So, too, with a wood-
re—z.e. those hares that always lie in the woods as
aers do in the open fields and on the uplands. They
difficult to kill, They slip quietly out from the form
the rough grass under the ashstole, and all you have for
idance is the rustling and, perhaps, the tips of the ears,
2 body hidden by the tangled dead ferns and ‘rowetty’
iff. When you try to aim, the barrel knocks against the
ipoles, which are inconveniently near together, or the
anches get in the way, and the hare dodges round a tree,
d your cartridge simply barks a bow and cuts a tall
ad thistle in twain. But the keeper’s lad, who had
ited for your fire, instantly follows, as it seems hardly
ting his gun to his shoulder, and the hare is stopped by
shot.

_Rabbit-shooting, also, in an ash wood like this is try-
to the temper; they double and dodge, and if you
it, thinking that the brown rascals must presently cross
: partially open space yonder, lo! just at the very edge

up go their white tails and they dive into the bowels of
ne D

34 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

the earth, having made for hidden burrows. There is, of
course, after all, nothing but a knack in these things.
Still it is something to have acquired the knack. The

RELL St bo hae

THE KEEPER’S SON SHOOTING LEFT-HANDED.

lad, if you ask him, will proudly show off several gun-
tricks, as shooting left-handed, placing the butt at the left
instead of the right shoulder and pulling the trigger with

TRICKS OF ASSISTANTS. 35

finger. He will knock over a running rabbit like

1 from under the arm without coming to the
ent, or even holding the gun out like a pistol with

By slow degrees he has obtained an intimate acquaint-
nce with every field on the place, and no little knowledge
natural history. He will decide at once, as if by a
of instinct, where any particular bird or animal will
‘found at that hour.

He is more bitter than his father against poachers, and
d like to see harder measures dealt out to them; but
chief use is in watching or checking the assistants,
act as beaters, ferreters, or keep up the banks and
; about the preserves, etc. Without a doubt these
are very untrustworthy, and practise many tricks.
instance, when they are set to ferret a bank, what is

prevent them, if the coast is clear, from hiding half a
nm dead rabbits in a burrow? Digging has frequently

_to be resorted to, and thus they can easily cast earth over

and conceal the entrance to a hole. Many a wounded

are and pheasant that falls into the hands of the beaters

never makes its appearance at the table of the sportsman ;

and doubtless they help themselves to the game captured

7 many a poacher’s wire before giving notice of the dis-

ver’ to the head man. |

Some. of these assistants wear waistcoats of calfskin

36 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

with the hair on it. The hair is outside, and the roan-
and-white colour has a curious appearance: the material
is said to be very warm and durable. Such waistcoats
were common years ago; but of late the looms and spin-
dles of the manufacturing districts have reduced the most
outlying of the provinces to a nearly dead uniformity of
shoddy.

One pair of eyes cannot be everywhere at once; con-
sequently the keeper, as his son grew up, found him a
great help in this way: while he goes one road the lad
goes the other, and the undermen never feel certain that
some one is not about. Perhaps partly for this reason
the lad is not a favourite in the village, and few if any of
the other boys make friends with him. He is too loyal
to permit of their playing trespass—he looks down on
them as a little lower in the scale. Do they ever speak,

even in the humblest way, to the proprietor of the place?

In their turn they ostracise him after their fashion ; so he

becomes a silent, solitary youth, self-reliant, and old for
his years.

He is a daring climber: as after the hawk’s nest,
generally made in the highest elms or pines—if that
species of tree is to be found—taking the young birds to
some farmhouse where the children delight in living
creatures. Some who are not children, or are children of
‘a larger growth, like to have a tame hawk in the garden,

clipping the wings so that it shall not get away. Hawks

ee mui,

AT ag Yom, ten

a a

ves =

Hoasi

. cen ee
ee ep eee ee

1 eet Heer a

HAWKS AND OWLS. 37

have most amusing tricks, and in time become compara-
tively tame, at least to the person who feeds them. The
beauty of the hawk’s eye can hardly be surpassed: full,
liquid, and piercing. In this way the keeper’s boy often

OWLS IN EVERY BARN.

gets a stray shilling; also for young owls, which are still
kept in some country houses, in the! sheds or barns, to
destroy the mice. When the-corn was threshed with the
flail, and was consequently exposed to the ravages of these
creatures (if undisturbed they multiply in such numbers as

would scarcely be credited), owls were almost domestic

38 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

birds, being domiciled in every barn. Now they are more
objects of curiosity, though still useful when large teams
of horses are kept and require grain.

The keeper's boy sells, too, young squirrels from time
to time, and the eggs of the rarer birds. In short, he has
imbibed all the ways of the woods, and is an adept at
everything, from ‘harling’ a rabbit upwards. By-the-bye,
what is the etymology of ‘harling, which seems to have
the sense of entangling? It is done by passing the blade
of the knife between the bone of the thigh and the great
sinew—where there is nothing but skin—and then thrust-
ing the other foot through the hole thus made. The
rabbit or hare can then be conveniently carried by the
loop thus formed, or slung on a stick or the gun-barrel
across the shoulder. Of course the ‘harling’ is not done
till the animal is dead.

The book-learning of the keeper’s boy is rather limited,
for he was taught by the parish clerk and schoolmaster
before the Education Acts were formulated. Still, he can
read, and pores over the weekly paper of rural sports, etc.,
taken for the guests at the great house and when out of
date sent down to the keeper’s cottage. In fact, he shows
a little too much interest in the turf columns to be quite
satisfactory to his father, who is somewhat anxious about
his acquaintance with the jockeys from the training-stables
on the downs hard by—an acquaintance he discourages
as tending to no good. Like his father, he is never

a

HIS OFFICE HEREDITARY. | 39

| abroad without a pair of leathern gaiters, and, if not
m, a stout gnarled ground-ash stick in his hand.
The gamekeeper’s calling naturally tends to perpetuate
elf and become hereditary in his family. The life is
ull of attraction to boys—the gun alone is hardly to be
ssisted ; and, in addition, there are the animals and birds
which the office is associated, and the comparative
from restraint. Therefore one at least of his lads
; sure to follow in his father’s steps, and after a youth
id early manhood spent out of doors in the woods it is
xt to impossible for him ever to quit the course he has |
His children, again, must come within reach of
nilar influences, and thus for a lengthened period there
ust be a predisposition towards this special occupation.
_ Long service in one particular situation is not so com-
now as it used to be. Men move about from place
place, but wherever they are they still engage in the
ne capacity ; and once a gamekeeper always a game-
is pretty nearly true. Even in the present day
tances of families holding the office for more than one
two generations on the same estate may be found ; and
ago such was often the case. Occasionally the
pers family has in this way, by the slow passage of
1e, become in a sense associated with that of his em-
oyer ; many years of faithful service sensibly abridging
e social gulf between master and servant. The contrary
holds equally true; and so at the present day short terms

40 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

of service and constant changes are accompanied by a sharp
distinction separating employer and employé.

In such cases of long service the keeper holds a posi-
tion more nearly resembling the retainer of the olden
time than perhaps any other ‘institution’ of modern life.
Pensioned off in his old age in the cottage where he was
born, or which, at any rate, he first entered as a child, he
potters about under his own vine and fig-tree—ze, the
pear and damson trees he planted forty years before—
and is privileged now and then to give advice on matters
arising out of the estate. He can watch the young broods
of pheasants still, and superintend the mixing of their
food: his trembling hand, upon the back of which the
corded sinews are so strongly marked now the tissue has
wasted, and over which the blue veins wander, can set a
trap when the vermin become too venturesome.

He is yet a terror to evil-doers, and in no jot abates
the dignity of more vigorous days; so .that the super-
annuated ancients whose task it is to sweep the fallen
leaves from the avenue and the walks near the great
house, or to weed the gravel drive in feeble acknowledg-
ment of the charitable dole they receive, fall to briskly
when they see him coming with besom and rusty knife
wherewith to ‘uck’ out the springing grass, He daily
gossips with the head gardener (nominal), as old or older
than himself; but his favourite haunt is a spot on the
edge of a fir plantation where lies a fallen ‘ stick’ of timber.

ii at:

HIS OLD AGE. 41

4 Here, sheltered by the thick foliage of the fir and the
4 hawthorn hedge at his back from the wind, he can sit

>
oO
el
(eo)
ga
ro)
=]
Q.
_
oO
oO
oO
=
Pt)
ct
a)
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)
-
rat)
Qu
oO
n
a
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pe |
ao.
=)
fe)
@:
(e)
Ze)
io)
e)
ey

AAR
4 ne 4)
ites Ma

v~

THE SUPERANNUATED KEEPER,

_ meadow bounding the preserves and crossed by footpaths,
4 along which loiterers may come. His sturdy son now
! sways the sceptre of ash over the old woods, and other
descendants are employed about the place.

Sometimes in the great house there may be seen the
counterfeit presentment of such a retainer limned fifty
years ago, with dog and gun, and characteristic background

42 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

of trees. His wife has perhaps survived till recently —
strong and hale almost to the last; the most voluble
gossip of the hamlet, full of traditions relating to the great
house and its owners; a virago if crossed. It is recorded
that upon one occasion in her prime she confronted a
couple of poachers, and, by dint of tongue and threats of
assistance close at hand, forced them to retire. It was at
night that, her husband being from home and hearing shots
in the wood, she sallied forth armed with a gun, faced the
poachers, and actually drove them away, doubtless as much
from fear of recognition as of bodily injury, though even
that she was capable of inflicting, being totally fearless.
Nothing can be more natural than that when a man
has shown an earnest desire to give satisfaction and proved
himself honest and industrious, his employer should exhibit
an interest in the welfare of his family. Now and then a
small farm may be found in the hands of a man descended
from or connected with a keeper. To successfully work a _
tenancy of such narrow limits it is necessary that the |
occupier should himself labour in the field from morn till
dewy eve—the capacity to work being even more essential
than capital ; and so it happens that the smaller farms are
occasionally held by men who have risen from the lower
classes. The sons of keepers also become gentlemen’s
servants, as grooms, etc., in or out of the house.
~ A proposal was not long since made that gentlemen
who had met with misfortune or were unable to obtain

GENTLEMEN GAMEKEEPERS, 43

: congenial employment, should take service as gamekeepers
_ —after the manner in which ladies were invited to become
| ‘helps.’ The idea does not appear to have received much
practical support, nor does it seem feasible, looking at the
altered relations of society in these days. A gentleman
- out of luck, and with a taste for outdoor life and no
_ objection to work, could surely do far better in the
_ colonies, where he could shoot for his ‘own hand,’ and in
course of time achieve an independence, which he could
never hope to attain as a gamekeeper.

In the olden times, no doubt, younger brothers did
become, in fact, gamekeepers, head grooms, huntsmen, etc.,
to the head of the family. There was less of the sense of
servitude and loss of dignity when the feeling of clanship
was prevalent, when the great house was regarded as the
natural and proper resource of every cadet of the family.
But all this is changed. And for a man of education to
descend to trapping vermin, filling cartridges, and feeding
pheasants all his life, would be a palpable absurdity with
Australia open to him and the virgin soil of Central Africa
eager for tillage. |

Neither is every man’s constitution capable of with-
standing the wear and tear of a keeper’s life. I have deline-
ated the more favourable side already; but it has its shadows.
: Robust health, power of bearing fatigue, and above all of

sustaining constant exposure in our most variable climate,
are essential. No labourer is so exposed as the keeper:

44 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

the labourer does not work in continued wet, and he is sure
of his night’s rest. The keeper is often about the best part
of the night, and he cannot stay indoors because it rains.

The woods are lovely in the sunshine of summer ; they
are full of charm when the leaves are bursting forth in
spring or turning brown with the early autumn frosts ; but
in wet weather in the winter they are the most wretched
places conceivable in which to stroll about. The dead
fern and the long grass are soaked with rain, and cling
round the ankles with depressing tenacity. Every now
and then the feet sink into soddened masses of decaying
leaves—a good deal, too, of the soil itself is soft and peaty,
being formed from the decomposed vegetation of years ;
while the boughs against which the passer-by must push
fly back and send a cold shower down the neck. In fog
as well as in rain the trees drip continuously ; the boughs
condense the mist and it falls in large drops—a puff of
wind brings down a tropical shower.

In warm moist weather the damp steam that floats in
the atmosphere is the reverse of pleasant. But a thaw is
the worst of all, when the snow congealed on the branches
and against the trunks on the windward side, slips and
comes down in slushy, icy fragments, and the south-west
or south-east wind, laden with chilling moisture, penetrates
to the very marrow. Even Robin Hood is recorded to~
have said that he could stand all kinds of weather with

impunity, except the wind which accompanies a_ thaw. a

GAME AS MERCHANDISE. 45

Wet grass has a special faculty for saturating leather.

up to your ankles in perfect comfort are powerless to keep
out the dew or raindrops on the grass-blades. The path of
: the keeper is by no means always strewn with flowers.

Probably the number of keepers has much increased of

recent years, since the floodtide of commercial prosperity

set in. Every successful merchant naturally purchases an
estate in the country, and as naturally desires to see some
_ game upon it. This necessitates a keeper and his staff.
Then game itself—meaning live game—has become a
marketable commodity, bought and sold very much as one
might buy a standing crop of wheat.
4 Owners of land, whose properties are hardly extensive
_ enough to enable them to live in the state which is under-
stood by the expression ‘country seat,’ frequently now
resort to certain expedients to increase their incomes,
_ They maintain a head of game large in comparison with
the acreage: of course this must be attended to by a
resident keeper; and they add to the original mansion
various attractive extra buildings—ze. a billiard-room, con-
Servatories, and a range of modern stabling. The object,
_ of course, is to let the house, the home farm, and the
} "shooting for the season ; including facilities for following
the hunt. The proprietor is consequently only at home in
the latter part of the spring and in the summer—some-
_ times not even then.

46 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

Again, there are large properties, copyhold, or held
under long leases from corporate bodies, the tenants having
the right to shoot. Instead of exercising the power them-
selves, they let the shooting. It consists mainly of part-
ridges, hares, and rabbits; and one of their men looks after
_the game, combining the keeping a general watch with
other duties. Professional men and gentlemen of inde-
pendent income residing in county towns frequently take
shooting of this kind. The farmers who farm their own
land often make money of their game in the same way.

Gentlemen, too, combine and lease the shooting over
wide areas, and of course find it necessary to employ
keepers to look after their interests. The upper class of
tradesmen in county and provincial towns where any
facilities exist now sometimes form a private club or party
and rent the shooting over several farms, having a joint-
stock imterest in one or more keepers. Poor land which
used to be of very little value has, by the planting of.
covers and copses, and the erection of a cottage for the
keeper and a small ‘box’ for temporary occupation, in
many cases been found to pay well if easily accessible from

towns. Game, in short, was never so much sought after

as at present ; and the profession of gamekeeping is in no
danger of falling into decay from lack of demand for the

skill in woodcraft it implies.

ete tee ee

PHEASANTS.

CHAPTER III.
In the Fields.

_ Mucu other work besides preventing poaching falls upon
the keeper, such as arranging for the battue, stopping fox
‘earths’ when the hounds are coming, feeding the young
birds and often the old stock in severe weather, and even
some labour of an agricultural character.

48 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,

A successful battue requires no little /imesse and
patience exercised beforehand ; weeks are spent in prepar-
ing for the amusement of a few hours. The pheasants are
sometimes accustomed to leave the wood in a certain
direction chosen as specially favourable for the sport—
some copses at a little distance are used as feeding-places,
so that the birds naturally work that way. Much care is
necessary to keep a good head of game together, not too
much scattered about on the day fixed upon. The diffi-
culty is to prevent them from wandering off in the early
morning ; and men are stationed like sentinels at the usual

points of egress to drive them back. The beaters are

usually men who have previously been employed in the ©

woods and possess local knowledge of the ground, and are in-
structed in their duties long before: nothing must be left
to the spur of the moment. Something of the skill of the
general is wanted to organise a great battue: an instinct-
ive insight into the best places to plant the guns, while the
whole body of sportsmen, beaters, keepers with ammuni-
tion, should move in concert.

The gamekeeper finds his work fall upon him harder
now than it used to do: first, sportsmen look for a heavier
return of killed and wounded; next, they are seldom
willing to take much personal trouble to find the game, but
like it in a manner brought to them ; and, lastly, he thinks
the shooting season has grown shorter. Gentlemen used
to reside at home the greater part of the winter, and spread

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THE SHOOTING SEASON. 49

their shooting over many months. Now, the seaside season
has moved on, and numbers are by the beach at the time
~ when formerly they were in the woods. Then others go
_ abroad ; the country houses now advertised as ‘to let’ are
almost innumerable. Time was when the local squire would
have thought it derogatory to his dignity to make a com-
modity of his ancient mansion; now there seems quite a com-
petition to let, and absenteeism is a reality of English as well
§ as Irish country life. At least, such is the gamekeeper’s
idea, and he finds a confirmation of it in the sudden rush,

Ss is

as it were, made upon his preserves. Gentlemen who once

i fas

spent weeks at the great house, and were out with him every

Patios

day till he grew to understand the special kind of sport
which pleased them most, and could consequently give
them satisfaction, are now hardly arrived before they are
gone again. With all his desire to find them game he is

Pre ae Pee ee

often puzzled, for game has its whims and fancies, and will

Sahai as
be

not accommodate itself to their convenience.

Then the keeper thinks that shooting does not begin
so early as it once did. Partridges may be found in the
_ market on the morning of the glorious First of Septem-
_ ber; but if you ask him how they get there, your reply is a

nod and a wink. Nobody gets up early enough in the
morning for that now: very often the first day passes by
without a single shot being fired. The eagerness for the
stubble and its joys is not so marked. This last season

the late harvest interfered very much with shooting ; you
E

50 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

cannot walk through wheat or barley, and while the crops
are standing the partridges have too much cover.

Many gentlemen, again, keep their pheasants till nearly
Christmas: October goes by frequently without a bird
being brought down in some preserves. Early in the new
year, if the weather be mild, as it has been so often latterly,
the birds begin to show signs of a disposition to pair off,
and in consequence the guns are laid aside before the cer-
tificates expire. So that the keeper thinks the actual
shooting season has grown shorter and the sport is more
concentrated, and taken in rushes, as it were. This causes
additional work and anxiety. If the family are away
they still require a regular and sometimes a large supply
of game for the table, which he has to keep up himself—
assistants could hardly be trusted: the opportunity is too
tempting.

Though a loyal and conscientious man, in his secret
heart he does not like the hounds: and though of course
he gets tipped for stopping the earths, yet it is a labour
not exactly to his taste. The essence of game-preserving
is quiet, repose; the characteristic of the hunt is noise,
horn, whoop, whip, the cry of the hounds, and the crash of
the bushes as the field takes a jump. Students and book-
worms like the quiet dust which settles in their favourite
haunts—the housemaid’s broom is fatal to retrospective
thought: so the gamekeeper views the squadrons charging
through his cherished copses, ‘poaching’ up the green-

NE = eS

ey eS eee

THE *‘RESIDUUM’ GOES FOX-HUNTING. 51

sward of the winding ‘drives, breaking down the fences,
much as the artist views the sacrilegious broom ‘ putting
his place to rights. Pheasant, and hare, and rabbit all
are sent helter-skelter anywhere, and take a day or two to

settle down again.

Yet it is not so much the real genuine hunt that he
dislikes: it is the loafers it brings together on foot.
Roughs from the towns, idle fellows from the villages,
cobblers, tinkers, gipsies, the nondescript ‘residuum,’ all
congregate in crowds, delighted at the chance of penetrat-
ing into the secret recesses of woods only thrown open
two or three times a year. It is impossible to stay the
inroad—the gates are wide open, the rails pulled down,
and trespass is but a fiction for the hour. To see these
gentry roaming at their ease in his woods is a bitter trial
to the keeper, who grinds his teeth in silence as they pass
him with a grin, perfectly aware of and enjoying his

_ spleen. Somehow or other these fellows always manage

to get in the way just where the fox was on the point of
breaking cover; if he makes a clear start and heads for
the meadows, before he has passed the first field a ragged
jacket appears over the hedge, and then the language of
the huntsman is not always good to listen to.

The work of rearing the young broods of pheasants is
a trying and tedious one. The keeper has his own
specific treatment, in which he has implicit faith, and
laughs to scorn the pheasant-meals and feeding-stuffs

52 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

advertised in the papers. He mixes it himself, and likes
no one prying about to espy his secret, though in reality
his success is due to watchful care and not to any

particular nostrum. The most favourable spot for rearing

TENDING THE YOUNG BIRDS.

is a small level meadow, if possible without furrows, which
has been fed off close to the ground and is situated high
and dry, and yet well sheltered with wood all round.
Damp is a great enemy of the brood, and long grass wet

with dew in the early morning sometimes proves fatal if

BREEDING-TIME. 53

’ the delicate young birds are allowed to drag themselves
- through it.
| Besides the coops, here and there bushes, cut for the
_ purpose, are piled in tolerably large heaps. The use of
" these is for the broods to run under if a hawk appears in
~ the sky ; and it is amusing to watch how soon the little
_ creatures learn to appreciate this shelter. In the spring
7 the greater part of the keeper’s time is occupied in this
_ way: he spends hours upon hours in the hundred and one
_ minutiz which ensure success. This breeding-time is she
4 great anxiety of the year: on it all the shooting depends.
_ He shakes his head if you hint that perhaps it would save
_ trouble to purchase the pheasants ready for shooting from
‘the dealers who now make a business of supplying them
_ for the battue. He looks upon such a practice as the ruin
_ of all true woodcraft, and a proof of the decay of the
_ present generation.
| In addition to the pheasants, the partridges, wild as
4 they are, require some attention—the eggs have to be
~ looked after, The mowers in the meadows frequently lay
q their nests bare beneath the sweep of the scythe: the old
: bird sometimes sits so close as to have her legs cut off by
the sharp steel. Occasionally a rabbit, in the same way,
is killed by the point of the blade as he lingers in his
form. The mowers receive a small sum for every egg
they bring, the eggs being placed under brood hens, kept
for the purpose. But as a partridge’s egg from one field

3
a =

54 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

is precisely like one from another field, the keeper may
find, if he does not look pretty sharp after the mowers on
the estate, that they have been bribed by a trifle extra to
carry the eggs to another man at a distance. A very un-
pleasant feeling often arises from suspicions of this kind.
His agricultural labour consists in superintending the
cultivation of the small squares left for the growth of
grain in the centre of the copses, to feed and attract the
pheasants, and to keep them from wandering. These
have to be dug up with the spade—there would be no

room for using a plough—and spade-husbandry is rather .

slow work. An eye has therefore to be kept on the
labourers thus employed lest they get into mischief. The
grain (on the straw) is sometimes given to the birds laid
across skeleton trestles, roughly made of stout ash sticks,
so as to raise it above the ground and enable them to get
at it better.

_ Ash woods are cut every year, or rather they are
mapped out into so many squares, the poles in which
come to maturity in succession—while one is down
another is growing up, and thus in a fixed course of years
_ the entire wood is thrown and renovated. A certain time
has, of course, to be allowed for purchasers to remove
their property, and, as the roads through the woods are
often axle-deep in mud, in a wet spring it has frequently
to be extended. So many men being about, the keeper has

to be about also: and then, when at last the gates are

ee

DAMAGE DONE BY CATTLE. 55

CATTLE IN THE COPSE.

nailed up, the cattle turned out to grass in the adjacent
fields often break in and gnaw the young ash-shoots. In
this way a trespassing herd will throw back acres of wood
for a whole year, and destroy valuable produce. Properly
speaking, this should come under the attention of the
bailiff or steward of the demesne ; but as the keeper and
his men are so much more likely to discover the cattle
first, they are expected to be on the watch.

After spending so many years of his life among trees,
it is natural that the keeper should feel a special interest,

56 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

almost an affection for them. A branch ruthlessly torn
down, a piece of bark stripped from the trunk with fo
possible object save destruction, a nail driven in—perhaps
to break the teeth of the saw when at last the tree comes
to be cut up into planks—these things annoy him almost
as much as if the living wood were human and could feel.
For this reason, he too, like the members of the hunt,
cordially detests the use of wire for fencing, now becoming
so frequent. It cuts into the trees, and checks their growth
and spoils their symmetry, if it does not actually kill them.

Sometimes the wire, which is stout and strong, is
twisted right round the stem of a young
oak, say a foot or more in diameter,
which is thus made to play the part of
a post. A firmer support could not be
found ; but as the tree swells with the
rising sap, and expands year by year,
the iron girdle circling about it does
not ‘give’ or yield to this slow motion.
It bites into the bark, which in time

DIAGRAM TO SHOW DAM- 2
AGE pone sy iron Urls over, and so actually buries the

WIRE-FENCING.

metal in the growing wood. Now this
cannot but be injurious to the tree itself, and it is
certainly unsightly.

One wire is seldom thought enough. Two or three
are stretched along, and each of these causes an ugly scar.

If allowed to remain long enough, the young wood will

DETESTABLE WIRE-FENCING. 57

y and harden about the wire, which then cannot be
% wn ; and in consequence, when taken finally to the
pit, some three or four feet of the very ‘butt’ and best
of the trunk will be found useless. No sawyer will
his implement—which requires some hours’ work to
en—in wood which he suspects to contain concealed
_ So that, besides the injury to the appearance of
tree, there is a pecuniary loss. Even when the wires
not twisted round, but merely rub against one side of
bark, the same scars are caused there, though not to
_an extent. Rough and strong as the bark seems
9 the touch, it speedily abrades under the constant pres-
sure of the metal.
The keeper thinks that all those owners of property
) take a pleasure in their trees should see to this and
went it. There is nothing so detestable as this wire-
ing in his idea. You cannot even sit upon it for rest,
you can on the old-fashioned post and rails. The
snient gaps which used to be found in every hedge
the corner are blocked now with an ugly rusty iron
x stretched across, awkward to get over or under ;
jile as for a horseman getting by, you cannot pull it
m as you could ‘draw’ a wooden rail, and if you try
-uncoil it from the blackthorn stem to which it is
tached, the jagged end is tolerably certain to scrape the
from your fingers.
The keeper looks upon this simply as another sign of

58 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

the idleness and dislike of taking trouble characteristic of
the times. To set up a line of posts and rails requires
some little skill; a man must know his business to stop
a gap with a single rail or pole, fixing the ends firmly
in among the underwood; even to fit thorn bushes in
properly, so as to effectually bar the way, needs some
judgment: but anybody can stretch a wire along and
twist it round a tree. Hedge-carpentering was, in fact, a
distinct business, followed by one or two men in every
locality; but iron now supplants everything, and the
hedges themselves are disappearing.

When the hedgers and ditchers were put to work to
cut a hedge—the turn of every hedge comes round once
in so many years—they used to be instructed, if they
came across a sapling oak, ash, or elm, to spare it, and
cut away the bushes to give it full play. But now they
chop and slash away without remorse, and the young
forest-tree rising up with a promise of future beauty falls
before the billhook. In time the full-grown oaks and
elms of the hedgerow decay, or are felled; and in con-
sequence of this careless destruction of the saplings there
is nothing to fill their place. The charm of English
meadows consisted in no small degree in the stately trees,
whose shadows lengthened with the declining sun and
gave such pleasant shelter from the heat. Soon, however,
if the rising generation of trees is thus cut down, they

must become bare, open, and unlovely.

A ROTTEN ELM. 59

There is another mistake, often committed by owners
mber, who go to the other extreme, and in their in-
= admiration of trees refuse to permit the felling of a
one. Now in the forest or the woodlands, away
the. park or pleasure-grounds, the old hollow trees
e things of beauty, and to cut them down for firewood
eems an act of vandalism. But it is quite another thing
' h an avenue or those groups which dot the surface of a
par <. Here, if a tree falls and there is no other to take
ts place, a gap is the result, which cannot be filled up,
pe aps, under fifty or sixty years.

Let any one stroll along beneath a stately avenue of
aim or beech, such as are not difficult to find in rural
districts, and are the pride and boast—and justly so—
of this country, and, examining the trees with critical eye,
at will he see? Three or four elms, I will say, are
sd, and are evidently sound ; but the fifth—a careless
bs might go by it without remarking anything un-
usu — is really rotten to the centre. At the foot of the
quge trunk, and growing out of it, is a bunch of sickly-
: ng fungi. Thrust your walking-stick sharply against
: black wood there and it penetrates easily, and with
little pushing goes in a surprising distance; the tree
undermined with rottenness. This decay really
; up the trunk perpendicularly: look, there are signs
it above at the knot-hole, thirty feet high, where more
ngus is flourishing, as it always does in dead damp

60 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

wood. The rain soaks in there, and filtrates slowly down
the trunk, whose very heart as it were is eaten away,
while outside all is fair enough.

Presently there arises a mighty wind, the tree snaps clean
off twenty feet above the ground, and the upper part falls,
a ponderous ruin, carrying with it one of the finest boughs
of its nearest companion, and destroying its symmetry also.
When examined, it appears that the trunk is totally useless
as timber: this noble-seeming elm is fit for nothing but
fuel. Or, perhaps, if there be water meadows on the
estate, the farmers may be glad of it to act as a huge pipe
to convey the fertilising stream across a ditch, or over a
brook lying at a lower level. For this purpose, of course,
the rotten part is scooped out: often the trunk is sawn
down the middle, so as to make a double length.

But what a gap it has left in the great avenue! Ina
minute the growth of a century gone, the delight of
generations swept away, and no living man, hardly the

heir in his cradle, can hope to see that unsightly gap
filled up.

The keeper does not hesitate to say that of the great

trees in the avenues numbers stand in constant danger of
such overthrow ; and so it is that by slow degrees so many
of the kings of the forest have disappeared without leaving
successors. No care is taken to plant fresh saplings, no
care is taken to select and remove the trees which have

passed the meridian of their existence, and the final result

a er ene selena aa

MUSHROOMS. 61

extinction of the avenue or group. Perhaps the
of the times is to blame for this neglect : men look
the day and live fast. There is a sense of un-
ity in the atmosphere of the age: no one can be sure
the acorns he plants will be permitted to reach their
| the hoofs of the ‘iron horse’ may trample them
1 as fresh populations grow. So the avenues die out,
the keeper mourns to think that in the days to come
place will be vacant.
Suddenly he pauses in his walk, stoops, and points out
> in the grass the white, smooth, round knob-like tops
f several young mushrooms which are pushing their way
ip. He carefully covers these with some pieces of dead
and desiccated dung, so that none of ‘them lurching
$ as comes round shan’t see ’em’—with a wink at
lis Own cunning—so as to preserve them till they have
OV larger. He advises me never to partake of mush-
rooms unless certain that they have not grown under oak
re es: he will have it that even the true edible mushroom
; hu ‘ful if it springs beneath the shadow of the oak.
id he is not singular in this belief.

Ms ~ Chatting about trees, he points out one or two oaks,
not at all rotten, but split half-way up the trunk—the
sit is perfectly visible—yet they have not been struck by
atning ; and he cannot explain it. Looking back upon
‘wood as we leave it with intense pride in his trees, he

3 me a rough version of the old story: how a knight

62 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

of ancient days, who had done the king some great service
was rewarded with a broad tract of land which he was to
hold for three crops. He sowed acorns, and thus secured
himself and descendants a tenure of almost 3000 years, at

least, according to Dryden :—

The monarch oak, the patriarch of trees,
Shoots, rising up, and spreads by slow degrees ;
Three centuries he grows, and three he stays
Supreme in state, and in three more decays.

The keeper wishes he had such an opportunity, The

knight, in his idea, reached the acme of wisdom with his

three crops of nearly a thousand years each.
His own kingdom may be said to begin with the park,

and the land ‘in demesne,’ to quote the quaint language of 4

the Domesday Book: a record not without its value as an
outline picture of English scenery eight centuries ago ;
telling us that near this village was a wood, near that a
stretch of meadow and a mill, here again arable land and
corn waving in the breeze, and everywhere the park and
domain of the feudal lords. The beauty of the park con-
sists in its ‘breadth’ as an artist would say—the meadows
with their green frames of hedges are cabinet pictures,
lovely, but small; this is life size, a broad cartoon from the
hand of Nature. The sward rises and rolls along in un-
dulations like the slow heave of an ocean wave. Besides
the elms there is a noble avenue of limes, and great oaks

THE PARK. 63

scattered here and there, under whose ample shade the
‘cattle repose in the heat of the day.

THE PARK.

In summer from out the leafy chambers of the limes
there falls the pleasant sound of bees innumerable, the
voice of whose trembling wings lulls the listening ear as
the drowsy sunshine weighs the eyelid till I walk the
avenue in a dream. It leads out into the park—no formal
gravel drive, simply a footpath on the sward between the
flowering trees: a path that becomes less and less marked
as I advance, and finally fades away, where the limes cease,

in the broad level of the opening ‘greeny field.’ These

64 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

honey-bees seem to fly higher and to exhibit much more
activity than the great humble-bee: here in the limes they
must be thirty feet above the ground. Wasps also fre-
quently wing their way at a considerable elevation, and
thus it is that the hive-bee and the wasp so commonly
enter the upper windows of houses. When its load of
honey is completed, the bee, too, returns home in a nearly
straight line, high enough in the air to pass over hedges
and such obstacles without the labour of rising up and
sinking again.

The heavy humble-bee is generally seen close to the
earth, and often goes down into the depths of the dry
ditches, and may there be heard buzzing slowly along
under the arch of brier and bramble. He seems to lose
his way now and then in the tangled undergrowth of the
woods ; and if a footstep disturbs and alarms him it is
amusing to see his desperate efforts to free himself hastily
from the interlacing grass-blades and ferns,

When the sap is rising, the bark of the smaller shoots
of the lime-tree ‘slips’ easily—ze. it can be peeled in
hollow cylinders if judiciously tapped and loosened by
gentle blows from the back of a knife. The ploughboys
know this, and make whistles out of such branches, as they
do also from the willow, and even the sycamore in the
season when the sap comes up in its floodtide.

It is difficult to decide at what time of the year the
park is in its glory. The may-flower on the great haw-

(ae

at

Bo, Ape SRO

BATTLE-FIELD IN THE PARK. 65

trees in spring may perhaps claim the pre-eminence,
> the soft breeze with exquisite odour. - These here
trees, not bushes, standing separate, with thick gnarled
s so polished by the constant rubbing of cattle as
st to shine like varnish. The may-bloom, pure white
its full splendour, takes a dull reddish tinge as it fades,
on a sudden shake will bring it down in showers. A
ing tree, I fancy, looks best when apart and not one
arow. In the latter case you can only see two sides
[not all round it. Here tall horse-chestnut trees stand
one great silvery candelabrum of blossom. Wood-
sons appear to have a liking for this tree. Nor must
| humble crab-tree be forgotten ; a crab-tree in bloom
Sz lovely sight.
a The idea of a park is associated with peace and
leas ure, yet even here there is one spot where the passions
men have left their mark. As previously hinted, the
aekeeper, like most persons with little book-learning
who take their impressions from nature, is somewhat
| erstitious, and regards this place as ‘ unkid ’—2ze, weird,
unc: nny. One particular green ‘drive’ into the wood
OJ ening on the park had always been believed to be a
art of a military track used many ages ago, but long
ploughed up for the greater part of its length, and
- preserved here by the accident of passing through a |
At last some labourers grubbing trees near the

th of the drive came upon a number of human
F

66 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

skeletons, close beneath the surface, and in their confused
arrangement presenting every sign of hasty interment, as
if after battle. Since then the keeper avoids the spot ;
nor will he, hardy as he is, go near it at night; not even
in the summer moonlight, when the night is merely a
prolongation of the day. |

There is nothing unusual in such a discovery: skele-

tons are found in all manner of places. I recollect seeing _

one dug out from the bank of a brook within two feet of
the stream. The place was perhaps in the olden time
covered with forest (traces of forest are to be found every-
where, as in. the names of hamlets), and therefore more
concealed than at present. Or, possibly, the stream, in
the slow passage of centuries, may have worn its way far
from its original bed.

It is strange to think of, yet it is true enough, that,
beautiful as the country is, with its green meadows and
graceful trees, its streams and forests and peaceful home-
steads, it would be difficult to find an acre of ground that
has not been stained with blood. A melancholy reflection
this, that carries the mind backwards, while the thrush
sings on the bough, through the nameless skirmishes of
the Civil War, the cruel assassinations of the rival Roses,
down to the axes of the Saxons and the ghastly wounds
_ they made. Everywhere under the flowers are the dead.

Not this park in particular, but others as well. form
pages of history. The keeper, in fact, can claim an

(ey

f
el ee en ee ad

HAUNTS OF BIRDS. 67

tt origin for his office, dating back to the forester
a ‘mark’ a year and a suit of green as his wages,
‘numbering in his predecessors Joscelin, the typical
) - in Scott’s novel of ‘ Woodstock, who aided the
ye of King Charles. Ever since the days of the
an king who loved the tall deer as if he were their
—in the words of his contemporary—and set store
hares that they too should go free, the keeper has
ceased out of the land.

There are always more small birds at the edge or just
de a wood than inside it; so that after leaving a
dow with blackbird, thrush, and finches merry in the
s, the wood seems quite silent and deserted save by
robin. This is speaking of the smaller birds,
great missel-thrush especially delights in the open
> of the park dotted with groups of trees. The
el-thrush is a lonely bird, and somehow seems like
le w—as if, though not precisely dangerous, he was
ed upon with suspicion by the other birds, which will
frequently quit a bush or tree directly he alights upon it.
Yet he builds near houses, and year after year in the same
p I knew a large yew-tree which stood almost in
ont and within a few yards of a sitting-room window in
h the missel-thrush had regularly built its nest for
ye successive years. These birds are singularly bold
efence of the nest, flying round and chattering at
se who would disturb it.

68 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,

In the ha-ha wall of the park, which is made of loose
stones or without mortar, the tomtit, or titmouse, has his
nest. He creeps in between the stones, following the
crannies for a surprising distance. Near here the part-
ridges roost on the ground; they like an open space far
from hedges, afraid, perhaps, of weasels and rats. On the
other side, where the wood comes up, if you watch quietly,
the pheasants step in lordly pride out into the grass; so
that there is no place without its especial class of life.

Perhaps, with the exception of our parks and hills,
there is scarcely any portion of southern England now
where a grand charge of cavalry could take place—scarcely
any open champaign country fit for operations of that kind
with horse. In the Civil War even, how constantly we
read of ‘lining the hedge with match, and now with en-
closures everywhere the difficulty would apparently be
great, despite good roads.

Park-fed beef is thought by many to be superior,
because the cattle run free—almost wild—the entire year
through, winter and summer, and have nothing but their
natural food, grass and hay: in strong contrast with the
bullocks shut up in stalls and forced forward with artificial
food. A great number of parks have been curtailed in
size as land became more valuable—the best ground being
selected and hedged off for purely agricultural purposes ;
so that it not uncommonly happens that the actual park is
the poorest soil in the district, having for that reason re-

SN, lt NE RT, nO le aN a Ms

WAYS OF THE FLOWERS. 69.

state of the country. So that when agitators of
unistic views lay stress upon the waste of land used
asure purposes they frequently declaim in utter
ce of the facts, which are in exact opposition to
theories. ;
ike animals and birds, plants have their favourite
3: violets love a bank with a southern aspect, especi-
if there be a hedge at the back for further shelter.
sre you have by chance lighted upon a wild flower once
may generally reckon upon finding it again next year
ich as the white variety of the bluebell or wild
inth, for which, unless you mark the place, you may
in vain amid the crowded blue bloom of the com-
‘sort. The orchis, with its purple flower and dark
1 spotted leaf, in the virtue of whose roots as a love-
the old people still believe, the strange-looking
rs tongue, the modest wild strawberry, with its tiny
piquant-flavoured fruit, all have their special resorts.
n the cowslips have their ways: by brooks sometimes
: ger variety grows ; nor is there a sweeter flower than
delicate yellow with small velvety brown spots, like
°5 on beauty’s cheek.
In autumn, when the leaves turn colour, the groups of
3 in the park are more effective in an artistic point of
‘than those in the woods (unless overlooked from a
close by, when it is like glancing along a roof of gold),

R

| THE GAMEKEEPER AT

because they stand out clear, and are not cc
in the general glow. But it is evening n
- yonder the fox steals out from the cover, 5
down into the meadows, where he will foll
along their course, mousing as he goes.

- A CLIFF. or

CHAPTER IV.

Dominions :—the Woors—fMeadows—and Water.

RE is a part of the wood where the bushes grow but
and the ashstoles are scattered at some distance
each other. It is on a steep slope—almost cliff—
the white chalk comes to the surface. On the edge
re rise tall beech trees with smooth round trunks,
se roots push and project through the wall of chalk,
bend downwards, sometimes dislodging lumps of
le to roll headlong among the bushes below. A few
firs cling half-way up, and a tangled mass of brier
bramble climbs nearly to them, with many a stout
i flourishing vigorously. |
_ To get up this cliff is a work of some little difficulty :

done by planting the foot on the ledges of rubble, or
¢ holes which the rabbits have made, holding tight to
: which curl and twist in fantastic shapes, or to the
dbine hanging in festoons from branch to branch.
‘rubble under foot crumbles and slips, the roots tear
bodily from the thin soil, the branches bend, and the
‘gives, and the wayfarer may piece descend

72 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

much more rapidly than he desires, Not that serious con-
sequences would ensue from a roll down forty feet of slope;
but the bed of brier and bramble at the bottom is not so
soft as it might be. The rabbits seem quite at home upon
the steepest spot ; they may be found upon much higher
and more precipitous chalk cliffs than this, darting from
point to point with ease, .

Once at the summit under the beeches, and there a
comfortable seat may be found upon the moss. The
wood stretches away beneath for more than a mile in
breadth, and beyond it winds the narrow mere glittering
in the rays of the early spring sunshine. ‘The bloom is
on the blackthorn, but not yet on the may; the hedges
are but just awakening from their long winter sleep, and
the trees have hardly put forth a sign, But the rooks are
busily engaged in the trees of the park, and away yonder
at the distant colony in the elms of the meadows.

The wood is restless with life: every minute a pigeon
rises, clattering his wings, and after him another; and so
there is a constant fluttering and motion above the ash-
poles. The number of wood-pigeons breeding here must

be immense. Later on, if you walk among the ash, you

may find a nest every half-dozen yards. It is formed of

a few twigs making a slender platform, on which the
glossy white egg is laid, and where the bird will sit till
you literally thrust her off her nest with your walking-
stick, Such slender platforms, if built in the hedgerow, so

3 276 ff ae &) rhe Ms:

i
msiifo
a 5 sar <-

ee ag ie ee

he Sones Yn

a pl as a 2a

WOOD-PIGEONS. 73

soon as-the breeze comes would assuredly be dashed to
pieces; but here the wind only touches the tops of the
poles, and causes them to sway gently with a rattling
noise, and the frail nest is not injured. When the pigeon

WOOD-PIGEON,

or dove builds in the more exposed hedgerows the nest is
stronger, and more twigs seem to be used, so that it is
heavier.

Boys steal these eggs by scores, yet it makes no
difference apparently to the endless numbers of these
birds, who fill the wood with their peculiar hoarse notes,

74 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

which some country people say resemble the words, ‘ Take
two cows, Taffy. The same good folk will have it that
when the weather threatens rain the pigeon’s note
changes to ‘ Joe’s toe bleeds, Betty... The boys who steal
the eggs have to swarm up the ashpoles for the purpose,
and in so doing often stain their clothes with red marks.
Upon the bark of the ash are innumerable little ex-
crescences which when rubbed exude a small quantity
of red juice.

‘The keeper detests this bird’s-nesting; not that he
. cares much about the pigeons, but because his pheasants
are frequently disturbed just at the season when he wishes
them to enjoy perfect quiet. It is easy to tell from this
post of vantage if any one be passing through the section
of the wood within view, though they may be hidden by
the boughs. The blackbirds utter a loud cry and scatter ;
the pigeons rise and wheel about; a pheasant gets up
with a scream audible for a long distance, and goes with

swift flight skimming away just above the ashpoles ; a

pair of jays jabber round the summit of a tall fir tree, and
thus the intruder’s course is made known. But the wind,
though light, is still too cold and chilly as it. sweeps
between the beech trunks to remain at this elevation ; it
is warmer below in the wood.

At the foot of the cliff a natural hollow has been
further scooped out by labour of man, and shaped into a

small cave, large enough for three or four to sit in. It is

ee

OUTSIDE THE WOOD. 75

supported by strong wooden pillars, and at the mouth
it of slabs, thickly covered by furze-faggots, has been
structed, with a door, and with roof thatched with
Is from the lake. A rude bench runs round three
$; against the fourth some digging tools recline—
tre ng ‘spades and grub-axes for rooting out a lost ferret,
ft here temporarily for convenience. The place, rough
; it is, gives shelter, and, throwing the door open, there
a vista among the ashpoles and the hazel bushes over-
ed with great fir trees and more distant oaks. In
2 later spring this is a lovely spot, the ground all tinted
the shimmering colour of the bluebells, and the
musical with the voice of the nightingale.

_ Outside the wood, where the downland begins to rise
ually, there stretches a broad expanse of furze growing
iriantly on the thin barren soil, and a mile or more in
It has a beauty of its own when in full yellow
som—a yellow sea of flower, scenting the air with an
st overpowering odour as of a coarser pineapple, and

yyme. It has another beauty later on when the thick
\ ergrowth of heath is in bloom, and a pale purple
De spreads around. Here rabbits breed and sport, and
res hide, and the curious furze-chats fly to and fro;
d lastly, but not leastly, my lord Reynard the Fox
yes to take his ease, till he finally meets his fate in the
of clamouring hounds, or is assassinated with the

76 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

aid of ‘villanous saltpetre. He is not easily shot, and
will stand a charge fired broadside at a short distance
without the slightest injury or apparent notice, beyond a
slight quickening of his pace. His thick fur and tough
skin turn the pellets. Even when mortally wounded, life
will linger for hours.

The ordinary idea of the fox is that of a flying
frightened creature tearing away for bare existence ; he is
really a bold and desperate animal. The keeper will tell
you that once, when for some purpose he was walking
up a deep dry ditch, his spaniel and retriever suddenly
‘chopped’ a fox, and got him at bay in a corner, when he
turned, and in an instant laid the spaniel helpless and
dying, and severely handled the retriever. Seeing his
dogs so injured and the fox as it were under his feet, the
keeper imprudently attempted to seize him, but could not
retain his hold, and got the sharp white teeth clean
through his hand.

Though but once actually bitten, he recollects being
snapped at viciously by another fox, whom he found in
broad daylight asleep in the hollow of a double mound,
with scarcely any shelter, and within sixty yards of a
house. Reynard was curled upon the ivy which in the
hedges trails along the ground. The keeper crawled up
on the bank and stopped, admiring the symmetry of the
creature, when, purposely breaking a twig, the fox was up

in a second, and snarled and snapped at his face, then

4

A FOX’S BED. 77

d into the ditch and away. The fox is, in fact,
as remarkable for boldness as for cunning. Last
mer I met a fine fox on the turnpike road and close
tollgate, in the middle of the day. He came at full
J with a young rabbit in his jaws, evidently but just
ied, and did not perceive that he was observed till
twenty yards, when, with a single bound he cleared
sward beside the road, alighting with a crash in the
2s, carrying his prey with him.

_ Hares will sometimes, in like manner, come as it were
meet people on country roads. Is it that the eyes,
> placed towards the side of the head, do not so
ily catch sight of dangers in front as on the flanks,
ially when the animal is absorbed in its purpose?
2s are peculiarly fond of limping at dusk along lonely
S.

Foxes, when they roam from the woods into the
dow-land, prefer to sleep during the day in those osier |
‘which are found in the narrow corners formed by
meanderings of the brooks. Between the willow-
ds there shoots up a thick undergrowth of sedges,
g coarse grass, and reeds; and in these the fox makes
bed, turning round and round till he has smoothed a
e and trampled down the grass; then reclining, well
tered from the wind. A dog will turn round and
d in the same way before he lies down on the

78 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

These reeds sometimes grow to a great height, as
much as ten or twelve feet. Along the Thames they are
used, bound in bundles, to pitch the barges; when the
hull has been roughly coated with pitch, one end of the
bundle of reeds (thickest end preferred) is set on fire and
passed over it to make it melt and run into the chinks.
So, mayhap, the Saxon and Danish rovers may have used
them to pitch the bottoms of their ‘ceols’ when worn
from constantly grounding on the shallows and eyots.

Here in the furze too is the haunt of the badger.
This animal becomes rarer year after year—the disuse of

the great rabbit-warrens being one cause; still he lingers,

and may be traced in the rabbit ‘buries’ where he en-

larges a hole for his habitation, sleeps during the day, and
comes forth in the gloaming. In summer he digs up the
wasps’ nests, not, as has been supposed, for the honey, but
for the white larvae they contain: the wasp secretes no
honey at all, and her nest is simply a series of cells in
which the grubs mature. Some credit the fox with a
fondness for the same food ;.and even the hornet’s nest
is said to be similarly ravaged. It is the nest of the
humble-bee which the badger roots up for the honey.
The humble-bee uses a tiny hole in a dry bank, some-
times a crack made by the heat in the earth, and really
deposits true honey in the comb. It is very sweet, like
that of the hive bee, but a little darker in colour and
much less in quantity. The haymakers search for these

he pote ies, eae | we!

eM: A ee eee

ee

THE BADGER’S HOLE. 79

A BADGER AT HIS FRONT DOOR,

nests along the hedgerows in their dinner-hour, and eat
the honey. There seem to be several sub-species of
humble-bee, differing in size and habit. One has its nest
as deep as possible in a hole; another makes a nest with
Scarcely any protection beyond the thick moss of the
bank, almost on the surface of the ground. The badger’s
hole has before it a huge quantity of sand, which he has
thrown out, and upon which the imprint of his foot will
be found, a mark, perhaps more like the spoor of the

80 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

large game of tropical forests than that left by any other
English animal. When seen it can ever afterwards be
instantly identified by the most careless observer,

In the meadows lower down, bounding the wood, the
hay is gone or is piled in summer ricks, which lean one
one way and another the other, and upon whose roofs,
sloping at an obtuse angle, the green snakes lie coiled in
the sunshine, Often when the waggon comes, and the
little rick is loaded, the ‘ pitch’ of hay on the prong as it
is flung up carries with it a snake whirling in the air.
He falls on the sward and is instantly pounced upon by
the farmer’s dog, who worries him, seizes him by the
middle and shakes him, while the snake twists and hisses
in vain. Some dogs will not touch snakes, others seem
to enjoy destroying them ; but it is noticeable that a dog
which previously has passed or avoided snakes, if once he
kills one, never passes another without slaughtering it.
A slime from the snake’s skin froths over the dog’s jaws,
and the sight is very unpleasant.

I have often tried to discover how the snakes get
upon these summer ricks. Solomon could not understand
the ‘way of a serpent upon the rock,’ and the way of a
common snake up the summer rick seems almost as
inexplicable. Though the roof or ‘top’ is often very
much out of the proper conical shape, and sometimes
sinks down nearly to a level, the sides for a height of
three or four feet are generally perpendicular, affording no

a Le e 2 laments
~ Pt ORE nae eed |<) ee od

_ REPTILES ON SUMMER RICKS. 81

on of any kind whatever ; hay is slippery, and the
_of course, too large for the snake to encircle it.
re they are commonly found, to the intense alarm
‘labouring women, who never can get over their
i <e of snakes, though they see them so frequently.

| nly way I can imagine by which they climb up is
neans of the holes, or galleries, used by field-mice.
mer ricks there are sometimes many mice, and in
uit of these the snake may find its way up through
‘runs. Toads are also occasionally found on these
_and it is not exactly clear how they get there either;
i their object is plain—z.e. the insects which swarm on
as

thick hedgerows of these woodland meads are
Mf trees, and others stand out in groups in the grass,
of them hollow. Elms often become hollow, and so
<s; the latter have such large cavities sometimes
t one or more persons may easily crouch therein.
is speaking of an ordinary sized tree; there are
y instances of patriarchs of the forest. within whose
cious trunks a dozen might stand upright.
These hollow trees, according to woodcraft, ought to
down by the axe without further loss of time. Yet
fortunate that we are not all of us, even in this
uic age, imbued with the stern utilitarian spirit ; for
aying tree is perhaps more interesting than one in

igour of growth. The starlings make their nests in |
é é

82 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

the upper knot-holes ; or, lower down, the owl feeds her
young ; and if you chance to pass near, and are not aware
of the ways of owls, you may fancy that a legion of
serpents are in the bushes, so loud and threatening is the
hissing noise made by the brood. The woodpecker
comes for the insects that flourish on the dying giant; so
does the curious little tree-climber, running up the trunk
like a mouse ; and in winter, when insect-life is scarce, it
is amusing to watch there the busy tomtit. He hangs
underneath a dead branch, head downwards, as if walking
on a ceiling, and with his tiny but strong bill chips off a
fragment of the loose dead bark. Under this bark, as he

well. knows, woodlice and all kinds of creeping things —

make their home. With the fragment he flies to an

adjacent twig, small enough to be grasped by his claws —
and so give him a firm foothold. There he pecks his —

morsel into minute pieces and lunches on the living con- ~

tents. Then, with a saucy chuckle of delight in his own

cleverness, he returns to the larger bough for a fresh

supply. As the bough decays the bark loosens, and is

invaded by insects which when it was green could not
touch it.

For the acorns the old oak still yields come rooks,
pigeons, and stately pheasants, with their glossy feathers
shining in the autumn sun. Thrushes carry wild hedge-
fruit up on the broad platform formed by the trunk where

the great limbs divide, and pecking it to pieces, leave the i:

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"a A HOLLOW TREE. 83

th into a mass of soft decaying ‘touchwood ;’
from the crown of the tree there presently stream
rds long trailing briers, bearing in June the sweet
d roses and in winter red oval fruit. Ivy comes
ping up, and in its thick warm coverts nests are built.
7, among the powdery ‘ touchwood’ which lines the
of this living hut, great fungi push their coloured
up to the light. And here you may take shelter
the rain comes unexpectedly pattering on the leaves,
listen as it rises to a roar within the forest. Some-
wild bees take up their residence in the hollow,
7 filling it with comb, buzzing busily to and fro ;
h ‘it is not to be approached so carelessly, though
ady are all creatures to acknowledge kindness that.
T have even made friends with the inhabitants of
p's nest. | |
thick carpet of dark green moss grows upon one
f the tree, and over it the tall brake fern rears its |
y stem. In the evening the goat-sucker or nightjar
; with a whirling phantom-like flight, wheeling round
round: a strange bird, which will roost all day on a
linking or sleeping in the daylight, and seeming to
-a rail ora branch without leaves to one that affords
‘Here also the smaller bats flit in the twilight, and,
1 stand still, will pursue their prey close to your head,
ing about it so that you may knock them down with

84 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

your hand if you wish. The labouring people call the bat
‘bat-mouse.’ Here also come many beetles; and some-
times on a summer’s day the swallows will rest from their
endless flight on the dying upper branches, for they too
like a bough clear or nearly clear of leaves. All the year
through the hollow tree is haunted by every kind of living
creature, and therefore let us hope it may yet be permitted
to linger awhile safe from the axe.

The lesser roots of the elm are porous like cane, and
are sometimes smoked as cigars by the ploughboys. The
leaf of the coltsfoot, which grows so luxuriantly in many
places and used to be regularly gathered and dried by the
‘lower classes for the pipe, is now rarely used since the

commoner tobaccos have become universally accessible.

Often and often, when standing in a meadow gateway —

partly hidden by the bushes, watching the woodpecker
on the ant-hills, of whose eggs, too, the partridges are so
fond (so that a good ant year, in which their nests are
prolific, is also a good partridge year), you may, if you are
still, hear a slight faint rustle in the hedge, and by-and-bye
a weasel will steal out. Seeing you he instantly pauses,
elevates his head, and steadily gazes: move but your eyes
and he is back in the hedge; remain quiet, still looking
straight before you as if you saw nothing, and he will
presently recover confidence, and actually cross the gate-

way almost under you.

This is the secret of observation: stillness, silence,

2 hls 6 alll

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--. a

Pde acuees

sath bes i ota sacace

_—

AN ASTONISHED RABBIT. 85

t indifference. In some instinctive way these
tures learn to distinguish when‘one is or is not
upon them in.a spirit of enmity; and if very near,
ways the eye they watch. So long as you observe
as it were, from the corner of the eyeball, sideways,
k over their heads at something beyond, it is well.
n your glance full upon them to get a better view,
they are gone.

en waiting in a dry ditch with a gun on a warm
n afternoon for a rabbit to come out, sometimes a
, will suddenly appear at the mouth of a hole which
knee nearly touches. He stops dead, as if petrified
astonishment, sitting on his haunches. His full dark
re is on you with a gaze of intense curiosity ; his nostrils
ork as if sniffing ; his whiskers move; and every now
then he thumps with his hind legs upon the earth
1 a low dull thud. This is evidently a sign of great
m, at the noise of which any other rabbit within
g instantly disappears in the ‘bury.’ Yet there
friend sits and watches you as if spell-bound, so long
have the patience neither to move hand or foot,
to turn your eye. Keep your glance on a frond of
fern just beyond him, and he will stay. The instant
‘eye meets his or a finger stirs, he plunges out of

is so also with birds. Walk across a meadow
ing a stick, even humming, and the rooks calmly

86 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

continue their search for grubs within thirty yards; stop
to look at them, and they rise on the wing directly. So,
too, the finches in the trees by the roadside. Let the
wayfarer pass beneath the bough on which they are sing-
ing, and they will sing on, if he moves without apparent
interest ; should he pause to listen, their wings glisten in
the sun as they fly.

The meadows lead down to the shores of the mere,
and the nearest fields melt almost insensibly into the green
margin of the water, for at the edge it is so full of flags,
and rushes, and weeds, as at a distance to be barely dis-
tinguishable there from the sward. As we approach, the —
cuckoo sings passing over head ; ‘she cries as she flies’ is A
the common country saying. | |

I used to imagine that the cuckoo was fond of an
echo, having noticed that a particular clump of trees over-
hanging some water, the opposite bank of which sent
back a clear reply, was a specially favourite resort of that
bird. The reduplication of the liquid notes, as they
travelled to and fro, was peculiarly pleasant : the water,
perhaps, lending, like a sounding-board, a fulness and
roundness to her song. She might possibly have fancied
that another bird was answering; certainly she ‘cried’
_much longer there than in other places. Morning after
morning, and about the same time—eleven o’clock—a
cuckoo sang in that group of trees, from noting which I

was led to think that perhaps the cuckoo, though A

_.. THE CUCKOO’S OMEN. -

it y wandering aimlessly about, really has more
and regularity in her habits than would seem.

intry people will have it that cuckoos are growing
r every year, and do not come in the numbers they
did ; and, whether it be the chance of unfavour-
le ‘seasons or other causes, it is certainly the fact in
me localities, I recollect seeing as many as four at
in a tall elm—a tree they love—all crying and
ng, as it were, in the throat together ; this was some
since, and that district is now much less frequented
hese birds.

There was a superstition that where or in whatever
tion you happened to be when you heard.the cuckoo
st time in the spring, so you would remain for the
twelvemonth ; for which reason it was a misfortune
her first in bed, since it might mean a long illness.
by-the-bye, may have been a pleasant fable invented
; milkmaids up early of a morning.

The number of coarse fish in the brook which flows
of the shallow mere bounding one edge of the keeper’s
ain of woods has, he thinks, very much decreased of
years. When he first came here the stream seemed
of fish, notwithstanding very little care had till then
1 taken with their preservation. They used to net it
> now and then, and he has seen a full hundredweight
uir-sized jack, perch, tench, etc., taken out of the water
1 very short time, besides quantities of smaller fry

88 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,

which were put back again. But although the brook, so
far as his jurisdiction goes, has since been comparatively
well preserved, yet he feels certain the fish have diminished.

There are no chemical works to account for this with
the subtle poison of their waste, neither are there mills to
prevent the fish coming up—perhaps it would be better
if there were some mills, as they would stop the fish going
down. I have noticed that where old water-wheels have
ceased working the fish have almost disappeared. This,
of course, may be but a purely local phenomenon, but it
is certainly the case in some districts. Comparatively
little wheat now is ground in rural places; the greater
portion is carried away to the towns and turned into flour
by steam. So that in walking up a brook you will now
and then come upon an ancient mill whose business has
departed: the fabric itself is tenanted by two or three
cottage families, and their garden covers the site of the
old mill-pond. In the depths of that pool there were
formerly plenty of fish, with deep dark spots in which to
hide. Their natural increase was not swept away by
floods ; neither could they wander, because of the dam
and grating. They were also under the eye of the miller,
and so preserved. But when the dam was levelled and
the stream allowed to follow its course, this resting-place,
so to say, was abolished, and the fish dispersed were lost
or captured.

Upon the particular brook which I have now in view

ne
a

—

>

a OLD DITCHES. 89

no mills; but there used to be several large
s— distinct from the stream, yet communicating by
channel. These likewise sheltered the fish, and
vourable to their propagation. Improvements,
sr, have swept them away ; they are filled up, every
ground having become valuable for agricultural
Then there were vast ditches running up
the hedgerows, and ending in the brook ; perfect
ses these of all aquatic life. Fish used to go up
for shelter (they were as deep or deeper than the
itself, and it was a good jump for a man across),
to feed on the insects blown off the overhanging
/and bushes, or brought down by the streamlet drain-
e field above. Wild duck made their nests among
es, sitting there while their beautiful consorts, the
s, swam lonely in the mere. Moorhens were busy ~
weeds, or came out to feed upon the sward.

h great ditches are now filled up, and drains take
‘place. It is better so, no doubt, in a purely utili-
sense, but the fish haunt the spot no more. Some
reaches of the brook, where the ground was flat
egy, used to resemble a long narrow lake, extremely
y, with the deeper current running yards away from
ore: and here the snipe came in the winter. But
nks are now made up higher by artificial means,
marsh is dry. All these changes diminish those _
¢ nooks and corners in which fish love to linger.

go THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

WILD DUCK AND MOORHEN,

Finally came the weed said to have been imported.
from America, pushing its way up stream, and filling it
with an abominable mass of vegetable matter that no fish
_could enter. Hereabouts, however, this pest has of late

shown signs of exhaustion—it does not grow with its

st Abt

sii ah

DECREASE OF COARSE FISH.
ur, and its progress seems checked. The
- winding for several miles, the lower course
md the keeper’s boundaries, empties itself into
before the canal was made it ran much farther,

a

increased in volume almost to a river. Now

fish which go down the stfeam and enter the

.

‘speedily destroyed, while the canal on its part
fish to the upper waters. This is how the

92 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

CHAPTER V.
Some of his Subjects: Dogs, Rabbits, ‘Mice, and such small Deer.’

WHEN a dog, young and yet unskilled, follows his master
across the meadows, it often happens that he meets with
difficulties which ‘sorely try the capacity of the inex-
perienced brain.’ The two came to a broad deep brook.

The man glances at the opposite bank, and compares in —

his mind the distance to the other side with other distances
he has previously leaped. The result is not quite satisfac-
tory ; somehow a latent doubt develops itself into a ques-
tion of his ability to spring over. He cranes his neck,

looks at the jump sideways to get an angular measurement,

retires a few paces to run, shakes his head, deliberates, >

instinctively glances round as if for assistance or advice,
and presently again advances to the edge. No; it will not
do. He recalls to mind the division of space into yards,
feet, and inches, and endeavours to apply it without a rule
to the smooth surface of the water. He can judge a yard
on the grass, because there is something to fix the eye on

—the tall bennet or the buttercup yonder; but the water — *

affords no data.

On second thoughts, yes—even the smooth flowing © : ‘i

_ GAUGING WIDTH OF BROOK. 93

ha: its marks. Here, not far from the steep bank
, bowed or broken, whose pennant-like tongue of
floats just beneath the surface, slowly vibrating to
, aS you wave your hand in token of farewell.
is mark one—say three feet from the shore.
newhat farther there is a curl upon the water, not
t, but coming every few seconds in obedience to
ease or decrease of the volume of the stream,
there meets with some slight obstacle out of sight.
although the water appears level and unvarying, it
y rises and sinks in ever so minute a degree with a
alternation. If you will lie down on the sward,
y sometimes see it by fixing a steady gaze upon
circular cave where the gallery of a water-rat
on this the Grand Canal of his Venice. Into it
rises now and again a gentle swell—barely per-
—a faint pulse rising and falling. The stream is
fuller and stronger at one moment than another ;
vith each swell the curl, or tiny whirlpool, rotates —
the hidden irregularity of the bottom. If you sit by
m higher up the brook, and watch the arch of the
t rolling over, it is perhaps more visible. Every
id then a check seems to stay the current moment-
and at night, when it is perfectly still, listening to
ur of the falling water from a distance, under
le-trees in the garden it runs a scale—now up,
down; each variation of volume changing the

94 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

musical note. This faint undulation is more visible in
some brooks than others.

A third mark is where a branch, as it was carried
along, grounded on a shallow spot; and one mast, as it
were, of the wreck protruding upwards, catches the stray
weeds as they swim down and holds them. Thus, step
by step, the mind of the man measures the distance, and
assures him that it is a little beyond what he has hitherto
attempted ; yet will not extra exertion clear it ?for
having once approached the brink, shame and the dislike ©
of giving up pull him forward. He walks hastily twenty
yards up the brook, then as many the other way, but
discovers no more favourable spot ; hesitates again; next
carefully examines the tripping place, lest the turf, under-
mined, yield to the sudden pressure, as also the landing,
for fear of falling back. Finally he retires a few yards,
and pauses a second and runs. Even after the start,
uncertain in mind and but half resolved, it is his own
motion which impels the will, and he arrives on the
opposite shore with a sense of surprise. Now comes the
dog, and note his actions; contrast the two, and say
which is instinct, which is mind. 3

The dog races to the bank—he has been hitherto
hunting in a hedge and suddenly misses his master—and,
like his lord, stops short on the brink. He has had but
little experience in jumping as yet; water is not his
natural element, and he pauses doubtfully. He looks a

A DOG DELIBERATING. 95

across earnestly, sniffs the air as if to smell the distance,
then whines in distress of mind. Presently he makes a
_ movement to spring, checks it, and turns round as if look-

ing for advice or encouragement. Next he runs back a

_ the original spot. The lines of his face, the straining eye,
the voice that seems struggling to articulate in the throat,

a the attitude of the body,—all convey the idea of intense

96 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

desire which fear prevents him from translating into action.
There is indecision—uncertainty——-in the nervous grasp
of the paws on the grass, in the quick short coursings to
and fro. Would infallible instinct hesitate? He has no
knowledge of yards, feet, and inches—yet he is clearly try-
ing to judge the distance. Finally, just as his master
disappears through a gateway, the agony of his ‘mind’
rises to the highest pitch. He advances to the very brink
—he half springs, stays himself, his hinder paws slip down
the steep bank, he partly loses his balance, and then

makes a great leap, lights with a splash in mid-stream,

and swims the remainder with ease. There is, at least, a

singular coincidence in the outward actions of the two. —
The gamekeeper, with dogs around him from morning
till night, associated with them from childhood, has no
doubts upon the matter whatever, but with characteristic
decision is perfectly certain that they think and reason in
the same way as human beings, though of course in a
limited degree. Most of his class believe, likewise, in the
reasoning power of the dog: so do shepherds; and so,
too, the labourers who wait on and feed cattle are fully
persuaded of their intelligence, which, however, in no way
prevents them throwing the milking-stool at their heads
when unruly. But the concession of reason is no guarantee
against ill-usage, else the labourer’s wife would escape.
The keeper, without thinking it perhaps, affords a

strong illustration of his own firm faith in the mind of the

enseh Ai. i:

* (Oh Se

ante baw ST oe

- MENTAL POWER OF ANIMALS’ 97

is are taught their proper business thoroughly ;
eit ends. ‘I never makes them learn no tricks,
‘because I don’t like to see ’em made fools of’
bserved that almost all those whose labour lies in
ld, and who go down to their business in the green
ws, admit the animal world to a share in the faculty
ison. It is the cabinet thinkers who construct a
> of automatons.

No better illustration of the two modes of observation
found than in the scene of Goethe’s ‘ Faust’ where
st and Wagner walking in the field are met by a strange
The first sees something more than a mere dog;
s the presence of an intelligence within the outward
nce—in this case an evil intelligence, it is true, but
something beyond mere tail and paws and ears,
ener it is a dog and nothing more—that will sit at
t of his master and fawn on him if spoken to, who
taught to fetch and carry or bring a stick ; the end,
Sr, proves different. So one mind sees the outside
another projects itself into the mind of the creature,
it dog, or horse, or bird.

perience certainly educates the, dog as it does the
. After long acquaintance and practice in the field
“arn the habits and ways of game—to know where it
‘not be found. A young dog in the same way
es swiftly up a hedge, and misses the rabbit that, hear-

x him coming, doubles back behind a tree or stole; an
: H

98 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

old dog leaves nothing behind him, searching every corner.
This is acquired knowledge. Neither does all depend
upon hereditary predisposition as exhibited in the various
breeds—the setter, the pointer, the spaniel, or greyhound
—and their especial drift of brain; their capacity is not
wholly confined to one sphere. They possess an initiating
power—what.in man is called originality, invention, dis-
covery : they make experiments. |

I had a pointer that exhibited this faculty in a curious
manner. She was weakly when young, and for that
reason, together with other circumstances, was never

properly trained: a fact that may perhaps have prevented

her ‘mind’ from congealing into the. stolidity of routine.
She became an outdoor pet, and followed at heel every-
where. One day some ponds were netted, and of the fish
taken a few chanced to be placed in a great stone trough
from which cattle drank in the yard—a common thing in
the. country. Some ‘time afterwards, the trough being
foul, the fish—they were roach, tench, perch, and one
small jack—were removed to a shallow tub while it was
being cleansed. In this tub, being scarcely a foot deep
though broad, the fish were of course distinctly visible,
and at once became an object of the most intense interest
to the pointer. She would not leave it ; but stood watch-

ing every motion of the fish, with her head now on one

side, now on the other. There she must have remained —

some hours, and was found at last in the act of removing fe :

a +a sp

A FISHING POINTER. 99

POINTER AND FISH.

them one by one and laying them softly, quite unhurt, on
the grass.

= 1 put them back into the water, and waited to see the
4 result. She took a good look, and then plunged her nose
a tight under the surface and half-way up the neck, com-
pletely submerging the head, and in that position groped
about on the bottom till a fish came in contact with her
mouth and was instantly snatched out. Her head must

have been under water each time nearly a minute, feeling

Se ee Te

for the fish. One by one she drew them out and placed

100 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

them on the ground, till only the jack remained. He
puzzled her, darting away swift as an arrow and seeming
to anticipate the enemy, But after a time he, too, was
captured.

They were not injured—not the mark of a tooth was
to be seen—and swam as freely as ever when restored
to the water. So soon as they were put in again the
pointer recommenced her fishing, and could hardly be got
away by force. The fish were purposely left in the tub.
The next day she ‘returned to the amusement, and soon
became so dexterous as to pull a fish out almost the in-
_ stant her nose went under water. The jack was always
the most difficult to catch, but she managed to conquer
him sooner or later, When returned to the trough, how-
ever, she was done—the water was too deep. Scarcely
anything could be imagined apparently more opposite to.
the hereditary intelligence of a pointer than this; and
certainly no one attempted to teach her, neither did she»
do it for food, It was an original motion of her own: to
what can it be compared but mind proceeding by experi-
ment? They can also adjust their conduct to circum-
stances, as when they take to hunting on their own
account: they then generally work in couples.

If a spaniel, for instance, one of those allowed to lie
loose about farmhouses, takes to hunting for herself, she is
almost always found to meet a canine friend at a little
distance from the homestead. It is said that spaniels

_ COURSING. Ior

they go off like this never bark when on the heels
a rabbit, as they would do if a sportsman was with
’ n and the chase legitimate. This suppression of what
be an almost uncontrollable inclination shows no
= intelligence. If they gave tongue, they would be
ainly detected, and as certainly thrashed. To watch
sneaking way in which a spaniel will come home after
unlawful expedition of this kind is most amusing.
ne makes her appearance on the road or footpath so as
ot to look as if coming from the hedges, and enters at
r back; or if any movement be going on, as the driving
‘cattle, she will join in it, displaying extraordinary zeal
assisting : anything to throw off suspicion.

_ Of all sport, if a man desires to widen his chest, and
1in some idea of the chase as it was in ancient days, let
take two good greyhounds and ‘uncouple at the
orous flying hare,’ following himself on foot. A race
this over the elastic turf of the downs, inhaling with
xpanded lungs air which acts on the blood as strong
nk on the brain, stimulating the pulse, and strengthen-
every fibre of the frame, is equal to another year of
| Coursing for the coursing’s sake is capital sport.
hare when sorely tried with the hot breath from the
ds’ nostrils on his flanks, will sometimes puzzle them
y dashing round and round a rick. Then in sweeping
sircles the trio strain their limbs, but the hare, having at the
$s the inner side and less ground to cover, easily

102 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

keeps just ahead. This game lasts several minutes, till
presently one of the hounds is sharp enough to dodge
back and meet the hare the opposite way. Even then his
quick eye and ready turn often give him another short
breathing space by rushing away at a tangent.

Rabbits, although of ‘low degree’ in comparison with
the pheasant, really form an important item in the list of
the keeper's charges. Shooting generally commences
with picking out the young rabbits about the middle or
towards the end of the hay harvest, according as the
season is early or late. Some are shot by the farmers,
who have the right to use a gun, earlier than this, while
they still disport in the mowing grass. It requires ex-
perience and skill to select the young rabbit just fit for

table from the old bucks, the does which may yet bring —

forth another litter, and those little bunnies that do not

exceed the size of rats.

The grass conceals the body of the animal, and

nothing is visible beyond the tips of the ears; and at
thirty yards distance one pair of ears is very like another
pair. The developed ear is, however, less pointed than
the other ; and in the rabbit of a proper size they are or
seem to be wider apart. The eye is also guided by the
grass itself and the elevation of the rabbit’s head abovesit
when lifted in alarm at a chance sound: if the animal is
full grown of course the head stands higher. In motion

the difference is at once seen; the larger animal’s back

piscine pinks ic: oe Sey rae
Ph J- fare ee men tt el cap ay \ yey ea cr a

"ee
Se even aes fe OF oe Sn

SUMMER SHOOTING. . — 103

flan! ; show boldly, while the lesser seems to slip
igh the grass. By these signs, and by a kind of
et which grows upon one when always in the field, it
| c ‘to distinguish between them even in tall grass
» gloaming. - .

‘sort of shooting, if it does not afford the excite-
the pheasant battue, or require the alertness
ry in partridge killing, is not without its. special
es. These are chiefly to be attributed to the
warmth of the weather at that season, when the
have only just begun to put the tall corn to the
their crooked swords, and one can linger by the
id without dread of wintry chills.

> aftermath in which the rabbits feed is not so tall
mowing grass, and more easy and pleasant to walk
1, though it is almost devoid of flowers. Neither
t - give so much shelter ; and you must walk close to
°, gliding gently from bush to bush, the slower
Rabbits feed several times during the day—
n the very early morning, next about eleven o'clock,
ain at three or four, and again at six or seven. Not
at every rabbit comes out to nibble at those hours, but
that time some will be seen moving outside the

you stroll beside the hedge, brushing the boughs,
feeding two hundred yards away will lift his head
gly from the grass. Then stop, and remain still

104 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. Ria

as the elm tree hard by. In a minute or two, reassured,

the ears perked up so sharply fall back, and he feeds

again. Another advance of ten or twenty yards, and up ~
go the ears—you are still till they drop once more. The —
rabbit presently turns his back towards you, sniffing — ie

about for the tenderest blades; this is an opportunity,
and an advance of forty or fifty paces perhaps is accom-
plished. Now, if you have a rook-rifle you are near
enough ; if a smooth-bore, the same system of stalking

must be carried farther yet. If you are patient enough

to wait when he takes alarm, and only to advance when
he feeds, you are pretty sure to ‘bag’ him,

| Sometimes, when thus gliding with stealthy tread,
another rabbit will suddenly appear out of the ditch

within easy reach ; it is so quiet he never suspected the — j .

presence of an enemy. If you pause and keep quite still,

which is the secret of all stalking, he will soon begin to — ¢
feed, and the moment he turns his back towards youup

goes the gun; not before, because if he sees your arm
move he will be off to the ditch. True, a snap-shot might

be made as he runs, which at first sight would appear
more sportsmanlike than ‘ potting ;’ but it is not so, for it

is ten chances to one that you do not kill him dead on
the spot in the short distance he has to traverse. Perhaps
the hind legs will be broken ; well, then he will drag them
along behind him, using the fore paws with astonishing
rapidity and power. Before the second barrel can be

EFFECTS OF SHOT. 105

4 emptied he will gain the shelter of the fern that grows on

_ the edge of the bank and dive into a burrow, there to die
3 in misery. So that it is much better to steadily ‘pot’ him.
_ Besides which, if a rabbit dies in a burrow all the other
animals in that particular burrow desert it till nature’s
A scavengers have done their work. A dog cannot well be
: taken while stalking—not that dogs will not follow quietly,
_ but because a rabbit, catching sight of a dog, is generally
stricken with panic even if a hundred yards away, and
1 bolts immediately.

I have seen a rabbit whose back was broken by shot

3 drag itself ten yards to the ditch. If the forelegs are
_ broken, then he is helpless: all the kicks of the hind legs
; only tumble him over and over without giving him much
_ progress. The effects of shot are very strange, and some-
: times almost inexplicable; as when a hare which has
"received a pellet through the edge of the heart runs a
quarter of a mile before dropping. It is noticed that hares
_ and rabbits, hit in the vital organs about the heart, often
run a considerable distance, and then, suddenly in the
midst of their career,'roll head over heels dead. Both
a hares and rabbits are occasionally killed with marks of old
_ shot wounds, but not very often, and they are but of a

i

_ €ars are frequently seen, of course doing no serious harm.

r

slight character—the pellets are found just under the skin,
with a kind of lump round them. Shot holes through the

Now and then a rabbit hit in the head will run round

106 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

and round in circles, making not the slightest attempt to
escape. The first time I saw this, not understanding it, I
gave the creature the second barrel ; but next time I let
the rabbit do as he would. He circled round and round,
going at a rapid pace. I stood in his way, and he passed
between my legs. After half a dozen circles the pace grew
slower. Finally, he stopped, sat up quite still for a minute
or so, and then drooped and died. The pellet had struck
some portion of the brain.

I once, while looking for snipe with charges of small
shot in the barrels, roused a fine hare, and fired without
apparent effect. But after crossing about half of the field
with a spaniel tearing behind, he began to slacken speed,
and I immediately followed. The hare dodged the spaniel
admirably, and it was with the utmost difficulty I secured
him (refraining from firing the second barrel on purpose).
He had been stopped by one single little pellet in the
great sinew of the hind leg, which had partly cut it through.
Had it been a rabbit he would certainly have escaped into
a bury, and there, perhaps died, as shot wounds frequently
fester: so that in stalking rabbits, or waiting for them
behind a tree or bush, it is much better to take a steady
aim at the head, and so avoid torturing the creature.

‘Potting’ is hardly sport, yet it has an advantage to
those who take a pleasure in observing the ways of bird
and animal. There is just sufficient interest to induce one

to remain quiet and still, which is the prime condition of

We ALS

yin =
"hinge cin ; eH BET”
ie a a i a a ee Ho =

d teen aaths

IN AMBUSH. 107

thing ; and in my own case the rabbits so
- stalked have at last often gone free, either from
amusing antics, or because the noise of the ex-
would disturb something else under observation.
rt it is too cold; then you step quietly and yet
up to a fence or a gateway, and glance over, and
at once ; or with the spaniels hunt the bunnies from
upon the banks, yourself one side of the hedge |
keeper the other.

excavating his dwelling, the rabbit, thoughtless of
onstructs what may be called a natural auditorium
tly adapted for gathering the expiring vibrations of
und. His round tunnel bored in a sandy bank is
at the opening, like the mouth of a trumpet, and
ts within—a form which focusses the undulations of
? To obtain the full effect the ear should listen
short way within ; but the sound, as it is thrown
s after entering, is often sufficiently marked to be
i le when you listen outside. The great deep
are dry in summer; and though shooting be not
bet, yet a gun for knocking over casual vermin is a
it excuse for idling in a reclining position shoulder-
in fern, hidden like a skirmisher in such an entrench-
oA mighty root bulging from the slope of the bank
natural seat. There is a cushion of dark green
to lean against, and the sand worked out from the
—one nearly on a level with the head and another

108 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

lower down—has here filled up the ditch to some height,
making a footstool.
In the ditch lie numbers of last year’s oak leaves, which

so sturdily resist decay. All the winter and spring they —

were soaked by the water from the ‘land-springs ’—as
those which only run in wet weather are called—draining
into it, and to that water they communicated a peculiar
flavour, slightly astringent. Even moderate-sized stream-
lets become tainted in the latter part of the autumn by the
mass of leaves they carry down, or filter through, in wood-
land districts. Often the cottagers draw their water from
a small pool filled by such a ditch, and coated at the
bottom with a thick layer of decomposing leaves. The
taste of this water is strong enough to overcome the flavour
of their weak tea, yet they would rather use such water
than walk fifty yards to a brook. It must, however, be
admitted that the brooks at that time are also tinctured
with leaf, and there seems to be no harm in it.

Out from among these dead leaves in the ditch pro-
trudes a crooked branch fallen long since from the oak,
and covered with grey lichen. On the right hand a
tangled thicket of bramble with its uneven-shaped stems
closes the spot in, and on the left a stole of hazel rises
with the parasitical ‘hardy fern’ fringing it near the earth.
The outer bark of the hazel is very thin; it is of a dark
mottled hue; bruise it roughly, and the inner bark shows

a bright green. The lowly ivy creeps over the bank—its

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ACOUSTICS OF A RABBIT-HOLE. 109

h the hawthorn bushes above comes a faint but
ur sound—it is the parting fibres of the grass-blades

steadily eating their way onwards. The odour of
breath floats heavy on the air. The sun is sinking,
here is a hush and silence.
But the rabbit-burrow here at my elbow is not silent ;
ms to catch and heighten faint noises from a distance.
is walking slowly home from his work up the lane
er; the fall of his footsteps is distinctly rendered by
le here. The dull thuds of a far-off mallet or ‘bitel’
e) driving in a stake are plainly audible. The thump-
p of a horse’s hoofs cantering on the sward by the
ide, though deadened by the turf, are reproduced or
sned. Most distinct of all comes the regular sound
f oars against the tholepins or rowlocks of a boat moving
n the lake many fields away. So that in all probability
he rabbit his hole must be a perfect ‘Ear of Dionysius,
snifying a whisper—unless, indeed, its turns and wind-
; confuse the undulations of sound. It is observable
hat before the rabbit ventures forth he stays and listens
ust within the entrance of his burrow, where he cannot see
an - danger unless absolutely straight before him—a habit
: may have unconsciously grown up from the apparent
nance of sound there.
Sitting thus silently on the root of the oak, presently

1 fe) THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

I hear a slight rustling among the dead leaves at the —

bottom of the ditch. They heave up as if something was

pushing underneath ; and after a while, as he comes to the

heap of sand thrown out by the rabbits, a mole emerges, — |

and instantly with a shiver, as it were, of his skin throws

off the particles of dust upon his fur as a dog fresh from ‘

the water sends a shower from his coat. The summer

weather having dried the clay under the meadow turf and a

TRAPS.

from the end of slender willow boughs. Moles seem to —

made it difficult to work;

~
i.

he has descended into the —

ditch, beneath which there

is still a certain moistness, —

and where he can easily |
bore a tunnel.

It is rather rare to see

a mole above ground ; for- i
tunately for him he is of

diminutive size, or so glossy

a fur would prove his ruin.

As it is, every other old E

pollard willow tree along
the hedge is hung with

miserable moles, caught in

traps, and after death sus-

pended — like criminals

swinging on a gibbet— —

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there, next because under the trees the earth
-softer, retains its moisture longer, and is easier
From the woods their tracks branch out,
like the roads which lead from a city. They
addition main arteries of traffic, king’s high-
ong which they will journey one after the other ;
the mole-catcher, if he can discover such a road,
ig ters many in succession. The heaps they throw up
ykward in mowing grass, the scythe striking against
and in consequence of complaints of their rapid
ation in the woods the keeper has to employ men
e their numbers. It is curious to note how speedily
> buries himself in the soil; it is as if he suddenly
to the earth.

ther slight rustling—a pause, and it is repeated ;
- on the bank, among the dry grass. It is mice;
ye a nervous habit of progressing in sharp, short
They rush forward seven or eight inches with
e-like celerity—a dun streak seems to pass before
eye; then they stop short a moment or two, and
‘make another dash. This renders it difficult to
them, especially as a single dead brown leaf is
ent to hide one. It is so silent that they grow bold,
lay their antics freely, darting to and fro, round and
‘the stoles, chasing each other. Sometimes they
1e bushes, running along the upper surface of the

112 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

boughs that chance to be nearly horizontal. Once on a

hawthorn branch in a hedge I saw a mouse descending

with an acorn ; he was, perhaps, five feet from the ground, ~

and how and from whence he had got his burden was
rather puzzling at first. Probably the acorn, dropping
from the tree, had been caught and held in the interlacing
of the bush till observed by the keen, if tiny, eyes below.
Mice have a magical way of getting into strange places.
In some farmhouses they still use the ancient, old-fashioned
lanterns made of tin—huge machines intended for a tallow
candle, and with plates of thin translucent horn instead of
glass. They are not wholly despicable ; since if set on the
ground and kicked over by a recalcitrant cow in the sheds,
the horn does not break as glass would. These lanterns,
having a handle at the top, are by it hung up to the beam

in the kitchen ; and sometimes to the astonishment of the ©

servants in the quiet of the evening, they are found to be
animated by some motive power, swinging to and fro and
partly turning round. A mouse has got in—for the grease;
but how? that is the ‘wonderment, as the rustic philoso-
phers express it; for, being hung from the beam, eight or
nine feet from the stone-flagged floor, there seems no way
of approach for the mouse except by ‘walking’ on the
ceiling or along and partly underneath the beam itself,
If so, it would seem to be mainly by the propulsive power
exerted previous to starting on the trip—just as a man

can get a little way up the perpendicular side of a rick by

at it. Occasionally, no doubt, the mouse has
when the lantern has been left opened while
on the ground, and so got shut in; but mice have
und in lanterns cobwebbed from long disuse. :

idenly there peeps out from the lower rabbit-hole
althy reddish body of a weasel. I instinctively
for the gun leaning against the bank, and immedi-
the spell is broken. The mice rush to their holes,
eas darts back into the bowels of the earth, a
that has quietly slipped out unseen into the grass
is with eager haste to cover, and out of the oak over-
there rises, with a great clatter of wings, a wood-
that had settled there.

hen the pale winter sunshine falls upon the bare
s of an avenue of elms—such as so often ornament
they appear lit up with a faint rosy colour, which
y vanishes on the approach of a shadow. This

ing mirage in the boughs seems due to the

ds of lesser twigs, which at the extremities have a
of red, invisible at a distance till the sunbeams

nate the trees. Beyond this passing gleam of colour,

x relieves the blackness of the January landscape,

here and there the bright silvery bark of the birch.

or several seasons now in succession the thrush has

-on the shortest days, as though it were spring; a

: later, in the early mornings, the blackbird joins,

x the copse with a chorus at the dawn. But, if the
I

114 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

wind turns to east or north, the rooks perch on the oaks
in the hedgerows in the middle of the day, puffing out
their feathers and seeming to abandon all search for food,
as if seized with uncontrollable melancholy. Hardy as
these birds are, a long frost kills them ‘in numbers,
principally by slow starvation. They ‘die ‘during the
night, dropping suddenly from their roosting-place on the
highest boughs of the great beech-trees, with a thud
distinctly heard in the silence of the woods. The leaves
of the beech décay so gradually as to lie in heaps beneath
for months, filling up the. hollows, so that an unwary
passer-by may plunge knee-deep in leaves. Rooks when
feeding usually cross the field facing the wind, perhaps to
prevent the ruffling of their feathers.

Wood-pigeons have apparently much increased in

numbers of recent. years; they frequent sheltered spots
where the bushes diminish the severity of the frost.
Sometimes on the hills at a lonely farmhouse, where the
bailiff has a long-barrelled ancient fowling-piece, he will
lay a train of grain for them, and with a double charge of
shot, kill many at a time.

Men have boasted of shooting twenty at once. But
with an ordinary gun it is not credible ; and the statement,
without wilful exaggeration, may arise from confusion in
counting, for it is a fact that some of the older uneducated
country labourers cannot reckon correctly. It is not un-

usual in parishes to hear of a cottage woman who has had

iki Sages

SHOOTING BY MOONLIGHT. 115

twenty children. Upon investigation the real number is
found to be sixteen or seventeen, yet nothing on earth
will convince the mother that she has not given birth to a

score. They get hazy in figures when exceeding a dozen.

SHOOTING WOOD-PIGEONS BY MOONLIGHT.

A pigeon is not easily brought down—the quills are
so stiff and strong that the shot, if it comes aslant, will
. glance off. Many pigeons roost in the oaks of the hedges,
choosing by preference one well hung with ivy, and when

it is a moonlit night afford tolerable sport. It requires a

116 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

gun on each side of the hedge. A stick flung up awakes
the birds; they rise with a rush and clatter, and in the
wildness of their flight and the dim light are difficult to
hit. There is a belief that pigeons are partially deaf. If
stalked in the daytime they take little heed of footsteps or
slight noises which would alarm other creatures; but, on
the other hand, they are quick of eye, and are gone directly
anything suspicious appears in sight. You may get quite
under them and shoot them on the bough at night, It is
not their greater wakefulness but the noise they make in
rising which renders them good protectors of preserves ; it
alarms other birds and can be heard at some distance.
When a great mound and hedgerow is grubbed up,
the men engaged in the work often anticipate making a
considerable bag of the rabbits, whose holes riddle it in
every direction, thinking to dig them out even of those
innermost chambers whence the ferret has sometimes been
unable to dislodge them. But this hope is almost always
disappointed ; and when the grub-axe and spade have
laid bare the ‘buries’ only recently teeming with life, not
a rabbit is found. By some instinct they have discovered
the approach of destruction, and as soon as the first few
yards of the hedge are levelled secretly depart. After a
‘bury’ has been ferreted it is some time before another
colony takes possession : this is seemingly from the intense
antipathy of the rabbit to the smell of the ferret, Even

when shot at and pressed by dogs, a rabbit in his hasty :

“ of he) nih

APH P* ©,
~—+s

ad grea,

\ ssctasen bal tte . or P .
<TR aR Rat Ris

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| WEATHER PREDICTIONS. 117

ill often pass a hole which would have afforded
shelter because it has been recently ferreted.

this season the labourers are busy with ‘beetle’
ed ‘bitel’)—a huge mallet—and iron wedges,
‘the tough elm-butts and logs - firewood. In

> the weather for the ensuing twelve months from -
twelve days of January. As the wind blew on

of signs and omens still follows the ancient
ing, which ought never to have been interfered with.

118 | THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

CHAPTER VI.
His Enemies—Birds and Beasts of [3rev—Trespassers,

THERE are other enemies of game life besides human
poachers whose numbers must be kept within bounds to
ensure successful sport. The thirst of the weasel for
blood is insatiable, and it is curious to watch the persist-
—ency with which he will hunt down the particular rabbit
he has singled out for destruction. Through the winding

subterranean galleries of the ‘buries’ with their cross-

passages, ‘blind’ holes and ‘pop’ holes (ée. those which - 3

end in undisturbed soil, and those which are simply bored
from one side of the bank to the other, being only used _
for temporary concealment), never once in the dark close
caverns losing sight or scent of his victim, he pursues it
with a species of eager patience. It is generally a long
chase. The rabbit makes a dash ahead and a double or |
two, and then halts, usually at the mouth of a hole: per-
haps to breathe. By-and-by the weasel, baffled for a few
minutes, comes up behind. Instantly the rabbit slips over
the bank outside and down the ditch for a dozen yards,
and there enters the ‘bury’ again. The weasel follows,
gliding up the bank with a motion not unlike that of the

_ BLOODHOUNDS OF THE HEDGEROW. 119

3 for his body and neck are long and slender and
legs short. Apparently he is not in haste, but rather
er: over the scent. This is repeated five or six times,
the whole length of the hedgerow has been traversed —
etimes up and down again. The chase may be easily
ar ed by any one who will keep a little in the back-
nd. Although the bank be tenanted by fifty other
its, past whose hiding-place the weasel must go, yet
scarcely take any notice. One or two whom he has
ached too closely bolt out and in again; but as a
the furry population remain quiet, as if perfectly
e that they are not yet marked out for slaughter. |
At last, having exhausted the resources of the bank,
e rabbit rushes across the field to a hedgerow, perhaps a
dred yards away. Here the wretched creature seems
find a difficulty in obtaining admittance. Hardly has
he disappeared in a hole before he comes out again, as if
the inhabitants of the place refused to give him shelter.
‘many animals have a strong tribal feeling, and their
mpathy, like ‘that of man in a savage state, is confined
ithin their special settlement.

With birds it is the same: rooks, for instance, will not
allow a strange pair to build in their trees, but drive them
f with relentless beak, tearing down the half-formed nest,
taking the materials to their own use. The sentiment,
| f Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, what good
Il my life. do me?’ appears to animate the breasts of

120 - THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

gregarious creatures of this kind. Rooks intermarry
generation after generation ; and if a black lover brings
home a foreign bride they are forced to build in a tree at
some distance. Near large rookeries several such outlying
colonies. may be seen.

The rabbit, failing to find a cover, hides in the grass
and dry rushes ; but across the meadow, stealing along the
furrow, comes the weasel ; and, shift his place how he may,
in the end, worn out and weary, bunny succumbs, and the
sharp teeth meet in the neck behind the ear, severing the
vein. Often in the end the rabbit runs to earth in a hole
_ which is a cul-de-sac, with his back towards the pursuer.

The weasel, unable to get at the poll, which is his desire,
will mangle the hinder parts in a terrible manner—as will

the civilised ferret under similar conditions. Now and then s

the rabbit, scratching and struggling, fills the hole in the -
rear with earth, and so at the last moment chokes off his |

assailant and finds safety almost in the death-agony. In

the woods, once the rabbit is away from the ‘buries,’ the
chase really does resemble a hunt; from furze-bush to
bracken, from fern to rough grass, round and round, back-
wards, doubling, to and fro, and all in vain.

At such times, eager for blood, the weasel will run
right across your path, almost close enough to be kicked.
Pursue him in turn, and if there be no hedge or hole near,
if you have him in the open, he will dart hither and thither
right between your legs, uttering a sharp short note of

ee ee ee ee

——e

WEASELS HUNTING IN PACKS. 121

A WEASEL HUNTING.

anger and alarm, something composed of a tiny bark and
ascream. He is easily killed with a stick when you catch
him in the open, for he is by no means swift; but if a

hedge be near it is impossible to secure him.

Weasels frequently hunt in couples, and sometimes
more than two will work together. I once saw five, and

have heard of eight. The five I saw were working a sandy

122 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

bank drilled with holes, from which the rabbits in wild
alarm were darting in all directions, The weasels raced
from hole to hole and along the sides of the bank exactly —
like a pack of hounds, and seemed intensely excited.
Their manner of hunting resembles the motions of ants;_
these insects run a little way very swiftly, then stop, turn :
to the right or left, make a short detour, and afterwards on — 4 |
again ina straight line. So the pack of weasels darted —
forward, stopped, went from side to side, and then on a
yard or two, and repeated the process. To see their
reddish heads thrust for a moment from the holes, then
withdrawn to reappear at another, would have been amus- |
ing had it not been for the reflection that their frisky
tricks would assuredly end in death. They ran their
quarry out of the bank and into a wood, where I lost
sight of them. The pack of eight was seen by a labourer
returning down a woodland lane from work one afternoon
He told me he got into the ditch, half from curiosity to
watch them, and half from fear—laughable as that may
seem—for he had heard the old people tell stories of men
in the days when the corn was kept for years in barns, and
so bred hundreds of rats, being attacked by those vicious
brutes. He said they made a noise, crying to each other, a
short sharp snappy sounds ; but the pack of five I myself 3
saw hunted in silence. W
Stoats, though not so numerous as weasels, probably
do quite as much injury, being larger, swifter, stronger, and

STOATS, b 123

very bold, sometimes entering sheds close to dwelling-
houses.” The labouring people—at least the elder folk—
declare’ that they have been known to suck the blood of
infants left asleep in the cradle upon the floor, biting the

lild behind the ear. They hunt in couples also—seldom
in larger numbers. ' I have seen three at work together,
id with a single shot killed two out of the trio. In
egance of shape they surpass the weasel, and the colour
is brighter. Their range of destruction seems only

limited by their strength: they attack anything they can

_ manage.
_ The keeper looks upon weasel and stoat as bitter

foes, to be ruthlessly exterminated with shot and gin. He
lays to their charge deadly crimes of murder, the death of
_ rabbits, hares, birds, the theft and destruction of his young
_ broods, even occasional abstraction of a chicken close to
_ his very door, despite the dogs chained there. They are
‘not easily shot, being quick to take shelter at the sight of
a dog, and when hard hit with the pellets frequently
_ escaping, though perhaps to die. Both weasel and stoat,
and especially the latter, will snap viciously at the dog
that overtakes them, even when sore wounded, always
aiming to fix their teeth in his nose, and fighting savagely
to the last gasp. The keeper slays a wonderful number

ever. He traps perhaps more than he shoots.

q It is not always safe to touch a stoat caught in a trap ;

|
|

in the course of a year, yet they seem as plentiful as

\

124 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. | oh,

he lies apparently dead, but lift him up, and instantly his
teeth are in your hand, and it is said such wounds some-
times fester for months. Stoats are tough as leather :
though severely nipped by the iron fangs of the gin, struc
on the head with the butt of the gun, and seemingly quite
lifeless, yet, if thrown on the grass and left, you will often 4
find on returning to the place in a few hours’ time that the —
animal is gone. Warned by experiences of this kind, ea
keeper never picks up a stoat till ‘settled’ with a stick or —
shot, and never leaves him till he is nailed to the Pe
Stoats sometimes emit a disgusting odour when caught in
a trap. The keeper has no mercy for such vermin, though 4 4
he thinks some of. his feathered enemies are even = |
destructive. ay 4
Twice a year the hawks and other birds of prey find a .
great feast spread before them; first, in the spring and 4
early summer, when the hedges and fields are full of young
creatures scarcely able to use their wings, and again in m4
severe weather of winter when cold and hunger ssi en-,
feebled them.
It is difficult to understand upon what orinieigle the
hawk selects his prey. He will pass by with apparent dis- —
dain birds that are within easy reach. Sometimes a whole j
cloud of birds will surround and chase him out of a field ; 4
and he pursues the even tenour of his way unmoved, a
though sparrow and finch almost brush against his talons. a :
Perhaps he has the palate of an epicure, and likes to vary 4

BIRDS OF PREY. ; 125

the dish of flesh torn alive from the breast of partridge,
chicken, or mouse. He does not eat all he kills; he will

A HAWK PURSUED BY FINCHES AND SWALLOWS.

“sometimes carry a bird a considerable distance and then
drop the poor thing. Only recently I saw a hawk, pur-
sued by twenty or thirty finches and other birds across a

126 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

ploughed field, suddenly drop a bird from his claws as he 4
passed over a hedge. The bird fell almost perpendicularly, :
with a slight fluttering of the wings, just sufficient to —
preserve it from turning head-over-heels, and on reaching
the hedge could not hold to the first branches, but brought
up on one near the ground. It was a sparrow, and was
not apparently hurt—simply breathless from fright.

All kinds of birds are sometimes seen with the tail —

feathers gone: have they barely escaped in this condition a
from the clutches of the hawk? Blackbirds, thrushes,and

pigeons are frequently struck: the hawk seems to lay them
on the back, for if he is disturbed that is the position his
victim usually remains in. Though hawks do not devour

every morsel, yet as a rule nothing is found but the

feathers—usually scattered in a circle. Even the bones” 4

disappear: probably ground vermin make away with the

fragments.

The hawk is not always successful in disabling his, q

prey. I have seen a partridge dashed to the ground, get
up again, and escape. The bird was flying close to the
ground when struck; the hawk alighted on the grass a
few yards farther in a confused way as if overbalanced, and
before he could reach the partridge the latter was up and
found shelter in a thick hedge.

The power to hover or remain suspended in one place
in the air does not, as some have supposed, depend upon
the assistance of the wind, against which the hawk inclines :

THE ‘HOVERING’ OF BIRDS. 127

the plane of his wings like an artificial kite. He can

accomplish the feat when the air is quite still and no wind
stirring. Nor is he the only bird capable of doing. this,
although the others possess the power in a much less

degree. The common lark sometimes hovers for a few

moments low down over the young green corn, as if con-
_ sidering upon what spot to alight. The flycatcher contrives
to suspend itself momentarily, but it is by a rapid motion

of the wings, and is done when the first snap at the insect
has failed. It is the rook that hovers by the assistance of
the wind as he rises with his broad, flat wings over a hedge
and meets its full force, which counterpoises his onward

impetus and sustains him stationary, sometimes compelling

_ him to return with the current.

Hawks have a habit of perching on the tops of sais

E. lisdes or dead trees, and are there frequently caught in the
_ gin the keeper sets for them. The cuckoo, which so
- curiously resembles the hawk, has the same habit, and

will perch on a solitary post in the middle of a field, or
on those upright stones sometimes placed for the cattle to’

rub themselves against. Though ‘wild as a hawk’ is a
_ proverbial phrase, yet hawks are bold enough to enter
_ gardens, and even take their prey from the ivy which
§ grows over the gable of the house. The destruction they
~ work among the young partridges in early summer is very

great. The keeper is always shooting them, yet they

- come just the same, or nearly ; for, if he exterminates

128 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,

them one season others arrive from a distance. He is
particularly careful to look out for their nests, so as to
kill both the old birds and to prevent their breeding.
There is little difficulty in finding the nest (which is built
in a high tree) when the young get to any size; their cry
is unmistakable and audible at some distance, :

Against sparrow-hawk and kestrel, and the rarer kinds
that occasionally come down from the mountains of the
north or the west—the magazines of these birds—the
keeper wages ceaseless war. :

So too with jay and magpie; he shoots them down
whenever they cross his path, unless, as is sometimes the
case, specially ordered to save the latter. For the magpie
of recent years has become much less common. Though

still often seen in some districts, there are other localities —

where this odd bird is nearly extinct. It does not seem

_to breed now, and you may ask to be shown a nest in

vain. A magpie’s nest in an orchard that I knew of was.

thought so great a curiosity that every now and then
people came to see it from a distance. Im other places
the bird may be frequently met with, almost always with
his partner; and so jays usually go in couples, even in
winter.

The jay is a handsome bird, whose chatter enlivens
the plantations, and whose bright plumage contrasts

pleasantly with the dull green of the firs. A pair will

work a hedge in a sportsmanlike manner, one on one side,

TARRY his eee gual

+
i coral

yielded”

St eer 2 2 ee

a al

_

ee en eee ene

A JAUNTY JAY. 129

_ the second on the other ; while the tiny wren, which creeps
; through the bushes as a mouse through the grass, cowers
; in terror, or slips into a knot-hole till the danger is past.
_ When the husbandman has sown his field with the drill,
hardly has he left the gateway before a legion of small

birds pours out from the hedgerows and seeks for the
stray seeds. Then you may see the jay hop out among
them with an air of utter innocence, settling on the larger

lumps of clay for convenience of view, swelling out his
breast in pride of beauty, jerking his tail up and down, as
if to say, Admire me. With a sidelong hop and two flaps

of the wing, he half springs, half glides to another coign

of vantage. The small birds, sparrows, chaffinches, green-

finches—instantly scatter swiftly right and left, not rising,
but with a hasty run fora yard or so. They know well
his murderous intent, and yet are so busy they only put
themselves just out of reach, aware that, unlike the hawk,
he cannot strike at a distance. This game will continue
for a long time; the jay all the while affecting an utter
indifference, yet ever on the alert till he spies his chance.
It is the young or weakly partridges and pheasants that

fall to the jay and magpie.

The keeper also destroys owls—on suspicion. Now
and then some one argues with the keeper, assuring him
that they do not touch game, but this he regards as pure
sentimentalism. ‘Look at his beak,’ is his steady reply.

“Tell me that that there bill weren’t made to tear a bird’s
K

130 - THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

breast to bits? Just see here—all crooked and pointed :
why, an owl have got a hooked bill like an eagle. It

stands to reason as he must be in mischief’ So the poor | ‘d

owls are shot and trapped, and nailed to the side of the © |
shed.
But upon the crow the full vials of the keeper’s wrath

are poured, and not without reason. The crow among
birds is like the local professional among human poachers :
he haunts the place and clears everything—it would be
hard to say what comes amiss to him. He is the imper-
sonation of murder. His long, stout, pointed beak is a
weapon of deadly power, wielded with surprising force by
the sinewy neck. From a tiny callow fledgling, fallen out
of the thrush’s nest, to the partridge or a toothsome young ;
rabbit, it is all one to him. Even the swift leveret is said 4
sometimes to fall a prey, being so buffeted by the sooty
wings of the assassin and so blinded by the sharp beak
striking at his eyes as to be presently overcome. For the
crow has a terrible penchant for the morsel afforded by
another’s eyes: I have seen the skull of a miserable thrush,
from which a crow rose and slowly sailed away, literally —~
split as if by a chisel—doubtless by the blow that destroyed a
its sight. Birds that are at all diseased or weakly—as
whole broods sometimes are in wet unkindly seasons—
rabbits touched by the dread parasite that causes the fatal

‘rot, the young pheasant straying from the coop, even the — ¢
chicken at the lone farmstead, where the bailiff only lives 7

THE MURDEROUS CROW. 131

and is in the fields all day—these are the victims of the
crow.

Crows work almost always in pairs—it is remarkable
that hawks, jays, magpies, crows, nearly all birds of prey,
m to remain in pairs the entire year—and when they
shave once tasted a member of a brood, be it pheasant,
partridge, or chicken, they stay till they have cleared
off the lot. Slow of flight and somewhat lazy of habit,
they will perch for hours on a low tree, croaking and
a pruning their feathers; they peer into every nook and
¥ corner of the woodlands, not like the swift hawk, who
circles over and is gone and in a few minutes is a mile
a away. So that neither the mouse in the furrow nor the
timid partridge cowering in the hedge can escape their
leering eyes.

3 Therefore the keeper smites them hip and thigh when-
ever he finds them; and if he comes across the nest,
placed on the broad top of a pollard-tree—not in the
branches, but on the trunk—-sends his shot through it to’
_ smash the eggs. For if the young birds come to maturity
- they will remain in that immediate locality for months,
working every hedge and copse and ditch with cruel per-
tinacity. In consequence of this unceasing destruction
the crow has become much rarer of late, and its nest is
hardly to be found in many woods. They breed in the
- scattered trees of the meadows and fields, especially where
4 no regular game preservation is attempted, and where no

132 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,

keeper goes his rounds. Even to this day a lingering
superstition associates this bird with coming evil; and I
have heard the women working in the fields remark that
such and such a farmer then lying ill would not recover,
for a crow had been seen to fly over his house but just
above the roof-tree.

Trespassers give him a good deal of trouble, for a
great wood seems to have an irresistible attraction for all
sorts of semi-Bohemians, besides those who come for
poaching purposes. The keeper thinks it much more
difficult to watch a wood like this, which is continuous
and all in one, than it is to guard a number of detached
plantations, though in the aggregate they may cover an equal
area. It is impossible to see into it any distance; to

walk round it is a task of time. A poacher may slink |

from tree to tree and from thicket to thicket, and, unless

the dogs chance to sniff him out, may lie hidden in tangled —
masses of fern and bramble, while the keeper passes not

ten yards away. But plantations laid out in regular |

order with broad open spaces, sometimes with small fields
between, do not afford anything like cover for human
beings. Ifa man is concealed in one of these copses, and
finds that the keeper or his assistants are about to go
through it, he must move or be caught; and in moving he
has to pass across an open space, and is nearly sure to be
detected. In a continuous wood of large extent, if he

hears the keepers coming, he has but to slip as rapidly

SLINKING AWAY. 133

THE POACHER.

and silently as possible to one ‘side, and often has the
pleasure to see them pass right over the spot where only
recently he was lying.

Therefore, although a wood is much more beautiful
from an artistic point of view, with its lovely greens in
spring and yellow and browns in autumn, its shades and

_ recesses and fern-strewn glades, yet if a gentleman desires
to imitate the monarch who laid out the New Forest and

——— ———_ ©

134 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

plant wood, and his | object be simply game, the keeper is —
of opinion that the somewhat stiff and trim plantations
are preferable. They are generally of fir; and fir is the
most difficult of trees to slip past, being decidedly of an —
obstructive turn. The boughs grow so close to the
ground that unless you crawl you cannot go under them.
The trunks—unlike those of many other trees — will
flourish so near together that the extremities of the — |
branches touch and almost interweave, and they are rough
and unpleasant to push through. To shoot or trap, or use
a net or other poacher’s implement, is very difficult in a
young fir plantation, because of this thickness of growth ;
so that ina measure the tree itself protects the game.
Then the cover afforded is warm and liked by the birds 3s

and so for many reasons the fir has become a great oi

favourite, notwithstanding that it is of very little value F
when finally cut down.

For fox preserving firs are hardly so suitable, because —
the needles, or small sharp leaves, quite destroy all under-
growth—not only by the turpentine they contain, but by
forming a thick. mat, as it were, upon the earth. This —
mass of needles takes years, to all appearance, to decay, f
and no young green’ blade or shoot can get through it;
besides which the fir-boughs above make a roof almost
impenetrable to air and light, the chief necessities of a
plant’s existence. Foxes like a close warm under-growth,
such as furze, sedges when the ground is dry, the under- :

TRESPASSERS. 135

wood that springs up between the ash stoles. Although
constantly out of doors—if such a phrase be allowable—
foxes seem to dislike cold and draught, as do weasels and
all their kind, notably ferrets. But for pure game pre-
serving, and for convenience of watching, the keeper thinks
the detached plantations of fir preferable. Doubtless he
is professionally right ; and yet somehow a great wood
seems infinitely more English and appeals to the heart far
more powerfully, with its noble oaks and beeches and ash
trees, its bramble-thickets and brake, and endless beauties,
which a life of study will not exhaust.

But the semi-Bohemians detested by the keeper do
not prow! about the confines of a wood with artistic views ;
their objects are extremely prosaic, and though not always
precisely injurious, yet they annoy him beyond endurance.
He is like a spider in the centre of a vast spreading web,

and the instant the most outlying threads—in this case

_ represented by fences—are broken he is all agitation till

he has expelled the intruder. Men and boys in the
winter come stealing into the wood where the blackthorn
thickets are for sloes, which are reputed to be improved

_by the first frosts, and are used for making sloe gin, ete.

Those they gather they sell, of course; and although the
pursuit may be perfectly harmless in itself, how is the
keeper to be certain that, if opportunity offered, these
gentry would not pounce upon a rabbit or anything else ?
Others come for the dead wood ; and it does on the face

136 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. ae

of it seem hard to deny an old woman who has works’ :

all her days in the field a bundle of fallen branches rotting

under the trees. The accumulations of such dead sticks —
in some places are astonishing: the soil under the ash-—

poles must slowly rise from the mass of decaying wood
and ultimately become greatly enriched by this natural
manure.

When a hard clay soil is revealed by the operations |

for draining a meadow, and the crust of black or reddish

mould on which the sweet green grass flourishes is seen to

be but spade-deep, the idea naturally occurs that that thin
crust must have been originated by some similar process
to what is now going on in the ash wood. Those six or
nine inches of mould perhaps represent several centuries of

forest. But if the keeper admits the old woman shivering ¥

over her embers in the cottage to pick up these dead

boughs, how can he tell what further tricks others may —
be up to? The privilege has often been offered and as —

often abused, until at last it has been finally withdrawn—
not only because of the poaching carried on under the
cloak of picking up dead wood, but because the intruders

tore down fine living branches from the trees and spoiled f a

and disfigured them without mercy. Sometimes gentle-
men go to the expense of having wood periodically
gathered and distributed among the poor, which is a con-
siderate system and worthy of imitation where possible. _

Occasionally men come to search for walking-sticks,

CUTTING WALKING-STICKS. 137

for which there is now a regular trade. Just at present
‘natural’ sticks—that is, those cut from the stem with the
bark on—are rather popular, both for walking and for
umbrella handles, which causes this kind of search to be
actively prosecuted. The best ‘natural’ sticks are those
which when growing were themselves young trees, sprung
up direct from seed or shoots—saplings, which are stronger
and more pliant than those cut from a stole or pollard.
To cut such a stick as this is equivalent to destroying a
future tree, and of course a good deal of mischief may be
easily done in a short time.

Another kind of ash stick which is in demand is one
round which there runs a spiral groove. This, spiral is
caused by the bine of honeysuckle or woodbine, and in
some cases by wild hops. These climbing plants grow in
great profusion when they once get fixed in the soil, and
twist their tendrils or ‘leaders’ round and round the tall,
straight, young ash poles with so tight a grasp as to partly
strangle the stick and ferm a deep screw-like groove in it.
When well polished, or sometimes in its rough state, such
a stick attract csustomers ; and so popular is this ‘style’
of thing that the spiral groove is frequently cut by the
lathe in more expensive woods than ash. Wild hops are
common in many places, and will almost destroy a hedge
or a little copse by the power with which they twine their
coils about stem and branch. Young oak saplings, in the

same way, are frequently cut; and the potential tree

138 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. i

which might have grown large enough to form part of a
ship’s timbers is sold for a shilling. | Po

Holly is another favourite wood for sticks, and fetches es
more money than oak or ash, on account of its ivory-like
whiteness when peeled. To get a good stick with a knob
to it frequently necessitates a considerable amount of
cutting and chopping, and does far more damage than the
loss of the stick itself represents. Neither blackthorn nor
crabtree seem so popular as they once were for this
purpose.

In the autumn scores of men, women, and children
scour the hedges and woods for acorns, which bring a
regular price per bushel or sack, affording a valuable food
for pigs. Others seek elderberries to sell for making wine,
and for a few weeks a trade is done in blackberries.
Chair-menders and basket-makers frequent the shore of
the little mere or lake looking for bulrushes or flags: the -
old rush-bottomed chairs are still to be found in country
houses, and require mending ; and flag-baskets are much
used.

Hazel-nuts and filberts perhaps cause more trouble —
than all the rest; this fruit is now worth money, and in
some counties the yield of nuts is looked forward to in
the same way as any other crop—as in Kent, where cob-
nuts are cultivated, and where the disorderly hop-pickers
are great thieves. I have heard of owners of copses losing

ten or fifteen pounds’ worth of nuts by a single raid.

ve

eee Eg Ee ee ee ee gy in

WANTON MISCHIEF. 139

Here, in this wood, no attempt is made to obtain profit
from the fruit, yet it gives rise to muchtrouble. The nut-
stealers take no care in pulling down the boughs, but
break them shamefully, destroying entire bushes ; and for
this reason in many places, where nutting was once freely
permitted, it is now rigidly repressed. Just before the
nuts become ripe they are gathered by men employed on
the place, and thrown down in sackfuls, making great
heaps by the public footpaths—ocular evidence that it is
useless to enter the wood a-nutting.

The keeper thinks that these trespassers grow more
coarsely mischievous year by year. He can recollect when
the wood in a measure was free and open, and, provided a
man had not got a gun or was not suspected of poaching,
he might roam pretty much at large; while the resident
labouring people went to and fro by the nearest short
cut they could find. But whether the railways bring rude

strangers with no respect for the local authorities, or

‘whether ‘tramps’ have become more numerous, it is certain

that only by constant watchfulness can downright destruc-

tion be prevented. It is not only the game preserved

_ within that closes these beautiful woodlands to the public,

but the wanton damage to tree and shrub, the useless,
objectless mischief so frequently practised. For instance,
a column of smoke, curling like a huge snake round the
limbs of a great tree and then floating away from the top-

most branches, is a singular spectacle, so opposed to the

140 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

ordinary current of ideas as to be certain of attracting the
passer-by. It is the work, of course, of some mischievous
lout who has set fire to the hollow interior of the tree.
Such a tree, as previously pointed out, is the favourite
resort of bird and insect life. The heedless mischief of
_the bird-keeping boys, or the ploughlads rambling about
on Sunday, destroys this Hétel de Ville of the forest or
hedgerow, the central house of assembly of the birds. To
light a fire seems one of the special delights of these lads,
and sometimes of men who should have learned better ;
and to light it in a hollow tree is the highest flight of
genius. A few handfuls of withered grass and dead fern,
half a dozen dry sticks, a lucifer-match, and the thing is
done. The hollow within the tree is shaped like an
inverted funnel, large at the bottom and decreasing
upwards, where at the pointed roof one thin streak of day-
light penetrates. This formation is admirably adapted to
‘draw’ a fire at the bottom, and so, once lit, it is not
easily put out. The ‘touchwood’ smoulders and smokes
immensely, and a great black column rises in the air. So
it will go on smouldering and smoking for days till nothing
but a charred stump be left. Now and then there is
sufficient sap yet remaining in the bark and outer ring of
wood to check the fire when it reaches it; and finally it
dies out, being unable to burn the green casing of the
trunk. Even then, so strong is the vital force, the oak

may stand for years and put forth leaves on its branches

aed LM eae

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par oe

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AN ENGLISH PRAIRIE-FIRE. I4I

—leaves which, when dead, will linger, loth to fall, almost

through the winter, rustling in the wind, till the buds of

spring push them off.

Graver mischief is sometimes committed with the
lucifer-match, and with more of the set purpose of destruc-
tion. In the vast expanse of furze outside the wood on
the high ground the huntsmen are almost certain of a find,
and, if they can get between the fox and the wood, of a
rattling burst along the edge of the downs; no wonder,
therefore, that both they and the keeper set store by this

breadth of ‘bush.’ To this great covert more than once -

AN ENGLISH PRAIRIE-FIRE.

some skulking scoundrel has set fire, taking good care to
strike his match well to windward, so that the flames might
drive across the whole, and to choose a wind which would
also endanger the wood. Now nothing flares up with

142 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

such a sudden fierceness as furze, and there is no possi-
bility of stopping it. With a loud crackling, and swaying
of pointed tongues of flame visible miles away even at
noontide, and a cloud of smoke, the rift rolls on, licking
up grass and fern and heath; and its hot breath goes
before it, and the blast rises behind it. As on the beach
the wave seems to break at the foot, and then in an instant
the surf runs away along the sand, so from its first start
the flame widens out right and left with a greedy eagerness,
and what five minutes ago was but a rolling bonfire is now
a wall of fire a quarter of a mile broad, and swelling as it
goes. :
Then happens on a lesser scale exactly the same thing
that travellers describe of the burning prairies of the Far
West—a stampede of the thousands of living creatures,
bird and beast: rabbits, hares, foxes, weasels, stoats,

badgers, wild cats, all rushing in a maddened frenzy of

fear they know not whither. Often, with a strange

reversal of instinct, so to say, they will crowd together
right in the way of the flames, huddling in hundreds where
the fire must pass, and no effort of voice or presence of
man will drive them away. The hissing, crackling fire
sweeps over, and in an instant all have perished. No
more miserable spectacle can be witnessed than the terror
of these wretched creatures... Birds seem to fly into the
smoke and are suffocated—they fall and are burned.
Hares, utterly beside themselves, will rush almost into the

nef hi es,

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are not obliterated for years.

- from the torture of animals, the damage to
p oth hunting and shooting—is immense, and takes
° remedy ; for although furze and fern soon shoot
1, yet animal life is not so quickly repaired. Some-
3 a few sheep wandering from the downs are roasted
in this manner; and one or more dogs from the
watching are sure to run into the flames, which
exercise a fascination over some canine minds.
rs wrath bubbles up years afterwards as he re-

fell into his hands.
: it is rarely these rascals are captured.

But the mischief can be so easily

144 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

CHAPTER VII.
Professional Poachers—The art of Wiring Game.

THERE are three kinds of poachers, the local men, the
raiders coming in gangs from a distance, and the
* mouchers ’—fellows who do not make precisely a pro-
fession of it, but who occasionally loiter along the roads
and hedges picking up whatever they can lay hands on.
Philologists may trace a resemblance between the present
provincial word ‘mouching’ and Shakspeare’s ‘ mitcher,
who ate blackberries. Of the three probably the largest —
amount of business is done by the local men, on the prin- —
ciple that the sitting gamester sweeps the board. Te:
therefore deserve first consideration.

It is a popular belief that the village poacher is an idle,
hang-dog ne’er-do-well, with a spice of sneaking romance
in his disposition—the Bohemian of the hamlet, whose
grain of genius has sprouted under difficulties, and pro-.
duced weeds instead of wheat. This is a complete fallacy,
in our day at least. Poaching is no longer an amusement,
a thing to be indulged in because

It’s my delight of a shiny night
In the season of the year ;

THE REAL POACHER. 145

but a hard, prosaic business, a matter of & s. d., requiring
a long-headed, shrewd fellow, with a» power of silence,
capable of a delicacy of touch which almost raises poaching
into a fine art. The real man is often a sober and to all

appearance industrious individual, working steadily during
__ the day at some handicraft in the village, as blacksmithing,
3 hedge-carpentering—z.e. making posts and rails, etc.—
cobbling, tinkering, or perhaps’in the mill; a somewhat
reserved, solitary workman of superior intelligence and
frequently advanced views as to the ‘rights of labour,’
He has no appetite for thrilling adventure; his idea is
simply money, and he looks upon his night-work precisely
as he does upon his day-labour.

His great object is to avoid suspicion, knowing that
success will be proportionate to his skill in cloaking his
3 operations; for in a small community, when a man is
‘suspect, it is comparatively easy to watch him, and a
) poacher knows that if he is watched he must sooner or
- later be caught. Secrecy is not so very difficult ; for it is
only with certain classes that he need practise concealment:
__ his own class will hold their peace. If a man is seen at
his work in the day, if he is moderate in his public-house
| attendance, shows himself at church, and makes friends
_ with the resident policemen (not as a confederate, but to
4 know his beat and movements), he may go on for years
without detection.

Perhaps the most promising position for a man who
L

146 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

makes a science of it is a village at the edge of arange of
downs, generally fringed with large woods on the lower
slopes. He has then ground to work alternately, accord-
ing to the character of the weather and the changes of the
moon. If the weather be wet, windy, or dark from the
absence of the moon, then the wide open: hills are safe;

Sn PS gt TN eee aL

while, on the other hand, the woods are practically in-.
accessible, for a man must have the eyes of a cat to see to
do his work in the impenetrable blackness of the planta-
tions. So that upon a bright night the judicious poacher

| prefers the woods, because he can see his way, and avoids |
the hills, because, having no fences to speak of, a watcher
‘may detect him a mile off.

Meadows with double mounds and thick hedges may
be worked almost at any time, as one side of the hedge is 4
sure to cast a shadow, and instant cover is afforded by the .
bushes and ditches. Such meadows are the happy hunting-
grounds of the poacher for that reason, especially if not
far distant from woods, and consequently overrun with
rabbits. For, since the price of rabbits has risen so high,
they are very profitable as game, considering that a dozen
or two may be captured without noise and without having
to traverse much space—perhaps in a single hedge. =

The weather most unsuitable is that kind of frost which
comes on in the early morning, and is accompanied with
some rime on the grass—a duck’s frost, just sufficient to

check fox-hunting. Every footstep on grass in this con-

POACHER’S WEATHER. 147

dition when the sun comes out burns up as black as if the

sole of the boot were of red-hot iron; and the poacher
leaves an indelible trail behind him. But as three duck’s
frosts usually bring rain, a little patience is alone necessary.
A real, downright six weeks’ frost is, on the contrary, very
useful—game lie close. But a deep snow is not welcome ;
for, although many starved animals may be picked up, yet
it quite suspends the operations of the regular hand: he
can neither use wire, net, nor ferret.

Windy nights are disliked, particularly by rabbit-
catchers, who have to depend a great deal upon their sense
of hearing to know when a rabbit is moving in the ‘buries,’
and where he is likely to ‘bolt,’ so as to lay hands on him
the instant he isin the net. But with the ‘oak’s mysterious
roar’ overhead, the snapping of dead. branches, and the
moan of the gale as it rushes through the hawthorn, it is
difficult to distinguish the low, peculiar thumping sound of
a rabbit in his catacomb. The rabbit is not easily dis-
lodged in rain; for this animal avoids getting wet as much |
as possible: he ‘bolts’ best when it is dry and still.

A judicious man rarely uses a gun, for the reason that
noise is inconvenient, and a gun is an awkward tool to
carry concealed about the person even when taken to

pieces. There is a certain prejudice in rural places against

a labouring man possessing a gun; it is sure to draw
suspicion upon him. A _ professional poacher is pre-

eminently a trapper, relying chiefly upon the dexterous

148 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

employment of the snare. If he does shoot, by preference
he chooses a misty day, knowing that the sound of the
report travels scarcely half the usual distance through fog;
and he beats the meadows rather than the preserves, where
the discharge would instantly attract attention, while in the
meadows or ploughed fields it may pass unnoticed as fired
by a farmer with leave to kill rabbits.

PARTRIDGES AT EVENING,

When the acorns are ripe and the pheasants wander

great distances from the plantations along the hedgerows is

wee

sac aot CES Ke gece) ee ae

i iy
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cardi ‘4 Ne ‘

Lae,

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pad

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a

‘POTTING’ PARTRIDGES. 149

his best time for shooting ; no keepers at that period can
protect them. He also observes where the partridges which
roost on the ground assemble nightly as it grows dark,
easily ascertaining the spot by their repeated calls to each
other, and sometimes knocks over three or four at a shot.
Occasionally, also, early in the season, before the legiti-
mate sportsman perhaps has stepped into the stubble, and
while the coveys are large, he sees a good chance, and with
two or even three ounces of shot makes havoc among them.
He invariably fires at his game sitting, first, because he
cannot lose an opportunity, and, next, because he can kill

several at once. He creeps up behind a hedge, much as

_ the sportsman in Rubens’ picture in the National Gallery

is represented, stooping to get a view, himself unseen, at
the brown birds on the ground. With the antique firelock

such a practice was necessary ; but nothing in our day so

stamps a man a poacher as this total denial of ‘law’ to
the game.

When the pheasant is shot his next difficulty is with
the feathers. The fluffy, downy under-feathers fly in all
directions, scattering over the grass, and if left behind
would tell an unmistakable tale. They must therefore be
collected as far as possible, and hidden in the ditch. The
best pockets for carrying game are those made in the tails
of the coat, underneath: many poachers’ coats are one
vast pocket behind the lining.

When there is special danger of being personally over-

150 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

hauled and searched, or when the ‘bag’ is large, the game
is frequently hidden in a rabbit-hole, taking care to fence
the hole some distance inside with a stout stick across it,
the object of which is*that if the keeper or a sportsman

RUBENS’ SPORTSMAN.

should pass that way his dogs, scenting the game, will
endeavour to scratch out the earth and get in after it.
This the cross stick will prevent, and the keeper will prob-
ably thrash his dog for refusing to obey when called off.
A great deal of poaching used to be accomplished by

pile Raemicalp

es
ee £

ot ae)

Mees

SNARING HARES. 151

nets, into which both partridges and pheasants were driven.
If skilfully alarmed—that is, not too much hurried—these
birds will run a long way before rising, and, if their tracks
are known, may be netted in considerable numbers. But
of recent years, since pheasants especially have become so
costly a luxury to keep, the preserves and roosting-places
have been more effectually watched, and this plan has be-
come more difficult to put in practice. In fact, the local
man thinks twice before he puts his foot inside a preserve,
and, if possible, prefers to pick up outside. If a preserve
is broken into the birds are at once missed, and there is a
hue and cry ; but the loss of outsiders is not immediately
noticed.

The wire is, perhaps, the regular poacher’s best imple-
ment, and ground game his most profitable source of
income. Hares exist in numbers upon the downs, especi-
ally near the localities where the great coursing meetings
are held, where a dozen may be kicked out of the grass in
five minutes. In these ‘districts of course the downs are
watched ; but hares cannot be kept within bounds, and
wander miles and miles at night, limping daintily with
their odd gait (when undisturbed) along the lanes leading
into the ploughed fields on the lower slopes and plains.
The hills—wide and almost pathless, and practically des-
titute of fences—where the foot leaves no trail on the
short grass and elastic turf, are peculiarly favourable to
illicit sport.

152 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

Though apparently roaming aimlessly, hares have their
regular highways or ‘runs ;’ and it is the poacher’s business
to discover which of these narrow paths are most beaten by
continuous use. He then sets his wire, as early in the
evening as compatible with safety to himself, for hares are
abroad with the twilight.

Long practice and delicate skill are essential to success-
ful snaring. First, the loop itself into which the hare is to
run his head must be of the exact size. If it be too small —
he will simply thrust it aside; if too large his body will
slip through, and his hind leg will be captured: being
crooked, it draws the noose probably. Then if caught by
the hind leg, the wretched creature, mad with terror, will
shriek his loudest; and a hare shrieks precisely like a
human being in distress. The sound, well understood by
the watchers, will at once reveal what is going forward.
But there may be no watchers about; and in that case

_ the miserable animal will tug and tug during the night i 2

till the wire completely bares the lower bone of the leg,
and in the morning, should any one pass, his leaps and
bounds and rolls will of course be seen. Sometimes he
twists the wire till it snaps, and so escapes—but probably —
to die a lingering death, since the copper or brass is pretty
sure to mortify the flesh. No greater cruelty can be im-
agined. The poacher, however, is very anxious to avoid
it, as it may lead to detection ; and if his wire is properly
set the animal simply hangs himself, brought up with a

—S-

THE DEADLY WIRE.

153
sudden jerk which kills him in two seconds, and with less

pain than is caused by the sting of the sportsman’s cartridge.

> Kcr

bi EN .
ie SAAN \N
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A \

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SETTING A HARE SNARE.

Experience is required to set the loop at the right
height above the ground.

It is measured by placing: the

154 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

clenched fist on the earth, and then putting the extended
thumb of the other open hand upon it, stretching it out as
in the action of spanning, when the tip of the little finger
gives the right height for the lower bend of the loop—
that is, as a rule; but clever poachers vary it slightly to
suit the conformation of the ground. A hare carries his
head much higher than might be thought ; and he is very
strong, so that the plug which holds the wire must be
driven in firmly to withstand his first convulsive struggle.
The small upright stick whose cleft suspends the wire
across the ‘run’ must not be put too near the hare’s path,
or he will see it, and it must be tolerably stiff, or his head
will push the wire aside. Just behind a ‘tussocky’ bunch
of grass is a favourite spot to set a noose ; the grass parti-
ally conceals it.

The poacher revisits his snares very early in the

morning, and if he is judicious, invariably pulls them up,

whether successful or not, because they may be seen in | ee

the day. Half the men who are fined by the magistrates
have been caught by keepers who, having observed wires,
let them remain, but keep a watch and take the offenders
red-handed. The professional poacher never leaves his.
wires set up all day, unless a sudden change of weather
and the duck’s frost previously mentioned prevent him
from approaching them, and then he abandons those
particular snares for ever. For this reason he does not
set up more than he can easily manage. If he gets three

THE POACHER’S COAT-POCKET. 155

hares a night (wholesale price 2s. 6d. each) he is well
repaid. Rabbits are also wired in great numbers. The
loop is a trifle smaller, and should be just a span from the
ground.

But the ferret is the poacher’s chief assistant in rabbit-
ing: it takes two men, one on each side of the ‘bury,’
and a ferret which will not ‘lie in’—ze. stay in the hole
and feast till overcome with sleep. Ferrets differ remark-
ably in disposition, and the poacher chooses his with care ;
otherwise, if the ferret will not come out, the keepers are
certain to find him the next day hunting on his own
account. Part of the secret is to, feed him properly, so
that he may have sufficient appetite to hunt well and yet
be quickly satisfied with a taste of blood. Skill is essential
in setting up the nets at the mouth of the holes; but
beyond the mere knack, easily acquired, there is little to
learn in ferreting.

The greatest difficulty. with any kind of game is to
get home unobserved with the bag. Keepers are quite
aware of this; and in the case of large estates, leaving
one or two assistants near the preserves, they patrol the
byways and footpaths, while the police watch the cross-
roads and lanes which lead to the villages. If a man
comes along at an exceptionally early hour with coat
pockets violently bulging, there is a prima facie case for
searching him. One advantage of wiring or netting over
the gun is here very noticeable: anything shot bleeds and

156 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. z 6

stains the pocket—a suspicious sign even when empty ;
strangulation leaves no traces. ae
Without a knowledge of the policeman’s beat and the
keeper’s post the poacher can do nothing on a large scale.
He has, however, no great trouble in ascertaining these
things; the labourers who do not themselves poach x
sympathise warmly and whisper information. There is
reason to think that men sometimes get drunk, or suffi-
ciently so to simulate intoxication very successfully, with
the express purpose of being out all night with a good (s
excuse, and so discovering the policeman’s ambuscade.
Finding a man, whom he knows to be usually sober, over-
taken with drink in a lonely road, where he injures none
but himself, the policeman goodnaturedly leads him home
with a caution only. .
The receivers of game are many and various. The
low beer-shop keepers are known to purchase large quan-
tities. Sometimes a local pork-butcher in a small way
buys and transmits it, having facilities for sending hamp-
ers, etc., unsuspected. Sometimes the carriers are the
channel of communication; and there is no doubt the if
lower class of game dealers in the provincial towns get a
good deal in this way. The London dealer, who receives” e
large consignments at once, has of course no means of —
distinguishing poached from other game. The men who |
purchase the rabbits ferreted by the keepers during the
winter in the woods and preserves, and who often buy

RAIDERS AND ‘MOUCHERS.’ 157

#100 worth or more in the season, have peculiar oppor-
tunities for conveying poached animals, carefully stowed
for them in a ditch on their route. This fact having crept
out has induced gentlemen to remove these rabbit con-
tracts from local men, and to prefer purchasers from a
distance, who must take some time to get acquainted with
the district poachers. :

The raiders, who come in gangs armed with guns and
shoot in the preserves, are usually the scum of manufac-
turing towns, led or guided by a man expelled ‘through
his own bad conduct from the village, and who has a
knowledge of the ground. These gangs display no skill ;

relying on their numbers, arms, and known desperation of

_ character to protect them from arrest, as it does in nine

cases out of ten. Keepers and policemen cannot be ex-
pected to face such brutes as these fellows ; they do some-
times, however, and get shattered with shot.

The ‘mouchers’ sneak about the hedgerows on Sun-
days with lurcher dogs, and snap up a rabbit or a hare;
they do not do much damage except near great towns,
where they are very numerous. Shepherds, also, occasion-

ally mouch—their dogs being sometimes very expert ;

and ploughmen set wires in the gateways or gaps where

they have noticed the track of a hare, but it is only for
their own eating, and is not of much consequence in com-
parison with the work of the real local professional.
These regular hands form a class which are probably more

158 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

Vy)
. fi

numerous now than ever; the reasons are—first, the high —
value of game and the immense demand for it since
poultry has become so dear, and, secondly, the ease of

transmission now that railways spread into the most out- i

lying districts and carry baskets or parcels swiftly out of

reach. Poaching, in fact, well followed is a lucrative
business. . .

Some occasional poaching is done with no aid but the
hand, especially in severe weather, which makes all wild
animals ‘dummel,’ in provincial phrase—ze. stupid, slow
to move. Even the hare is sometimes taught by hand as
he crouches in his form. It requires a practised eye, that
knows precisely where to look among the grass, to detect '
him hidden in the bunch under the dead, dry bennets.
An inexperienced person chancing to see a hare sitting

like this would naturally stop short in walking to get a

better view; whereupon the animal, feeling that he was

observed, would instantly make a rush. You must —
persuade the hare that he is unseen; and so long as he
notices no start or sign of recognition—his eye is on you

from first entering the field—he will remain still, believing

that you will pass. aad,
The poacher, having marked his game, looks steadily
in front of him, never turning his head, but insensibly

changes his course and quietly approaches sidelong. Then, | ss

in the moment of passing, he falls quick as lightning on
his knee, and seizes the hare just behind the poll. Itis —

SLEIGHT-OF-HAND POACHING. 159°

POACHING IN THE WINTER.

the only place where the sudden grasp would hold him in
his convulsive terror—he is surprisingly powerful—and
almost ere he can shriek (as he will do) the left hand has
tightened round the hind legs. Stretching him to his full
length across the knee, the right thumb, with a peculiar
twist, dislocates his neck, and he is dead in an instant.
There is something of the hangman’s knack in this, which
is the invariable way of killing rabbits when ferreted or
caught alive; and yet it is the most merciful, for death

160 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

is instantaneous. It is very easy to sprain the ne :
while learning the trick.

A poacher will sometimes place his hat gently on —
_ the ground, when first catching sight of a sitting hare, and . :
then stealthily approach on the opposite side. The hare

watches the hat, while the real enemy comes up unawares, 4 |

or, if both are seen, he is in doubt which way to dash.
On a dull, cold day hares will sit till the sportsman’s dogs

are nearly on them, almost till he has to kick them out. — 4 !

At other times in the same locality they are, on the con-
trary, too wild, Occasionally a labourer, perhaps a ‘fogger,’

crossing the meadows with slow steps, finds a rabbit sitting — |

in like manner among the grass or in a dry furrow.
Instantly he throws himself all a- -spraw] upon the ground, .
with the hope of pinning the animal to the earth. The |
manceuvre, however, frequently fails, and the rabbit slips f
away out of his very hands. 3

The poacher is never at rest ; there is no season when ,

his marauding expeditions cease for awhile: he acknow-

ledges no ‘close time’ whatever. Almost every month

has its appropriate game for him, and he can always turn _

his hand to something. In the very heat of the summer f
there are the young rabbits, for which there is always a
sale in the towns, and the leverets, which are easily picked |

up by a lurcher dog.

I have known a couple of men take a pony and trap a

for this special purpose, and make a pleasant excursion

POACHING ON WHEELS. 161

over hill and dale, through the deep country lanes, and
across the open down land, carrying with them two or
three such dogs to let loose as opportunity offers. Their
appearance as they rattle along is certainly not prepossess-
ing; the expression of their canine friends trotting under
the trap, or peering over the side, stamps them at the first
glance as ‘snappers up of unconsidered trifles ;’ but you
cannot arrest these gentlemen peacefully driving on the
‘king’s highway’ simply because they have an ugly look
about them. From the trap they get a better view than
on foot ; standing up they can see over a moderately high
hedge, and they can beat a rapid retreat if necessary, with
the aid of a wiry pony. Passing by some meadows, they
note a goodly number of rabbits feeding in the short
_ aftermath. They draw up by a gateway, and one of them
dismounts. With the dogs he creeps along behind the
hedge (the object being to get between the bunnies and
their holes), and presently sends the dogs on their mission.
The lurchers are tolerably sure of catching a couple—
young rabbits are neither so swift nor so quick at doubling
as the older ones. Before the farmer and his men, who
are carting the summer-ricks in an adjacent field, can quite
: comprehend what the unusual stir is about yonder, the
poachers are off, jogging comfortably along, with their game
hidden under an old sack or some straw.
Their next essay is among the ploughed fields, where

the corn is ripening and as yet no reapers are at work, so
M

162 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

that the coast is almost clear. Here they pick up a
leveret, and perhaps the dogs chop a weakly young
partridge, unable to fly well, in the hedge. The keeper has
just strolled through the copses bordering on the road and
has left them, as he thinks, safe. They watch his figure
slowly disappearing in the distance from a bend of the lane,
and then send the dogs among the underwood. In the
winter men will carry ferrets with them in a trap like this.

The desperate gangs who occasionally sweep the
preserves, defying the keepers in their strength of numbers

and prestige of violence, sometimes bring with them a

horse and cart, not so much for speed of escape as to- q

transport a heavy bag of game. Such a vehicle, driven

by one man, will, moreover, often excite no suspicion, —

though it may be filled with pheasants under sacks and. : |

hay. <A good deal of what may be called casual poaching
is also done on wheels. .

Some of the landlords of the low beer-houses in the /-
country often combine with the liquor trade the business
of dealing in pigs, calves, potatoes, etc., and keep a light —

cart, or similar conveyance. Now, if any one will notice

the more disreputable of these beer-houses, they will s

observe that there are generally a lot of unkempt, rough- 2

looking dogs about them. These, of course, follow their 4

master when he goes on his short journeys from place to

place; and they are quite capable of mischief. Such

men may not make a business of poaching, yet if in pass- - if

PLOVERS’ EGGS. 163

ing a preserve the dogs stray and bring back something
eatable, why, it is very easy to stow it under the seat with
the potatoes. Sometimes a man is bold enough to carry
a eun in this way—tto jump out when he sees a chance
and have a shot, and back and off before any one knows
exactly what is going on.

Somehow there always seems to be a market for game
out of season: it is ‘passed’ somewhere, just as thieves
pass stolen jewellery. So also fish, even when manifestly
unfit for table, in the midst of spawning time, commands
a ready sale if overlooked by the authorities. It is curious
that people can be found to purchase fish in such a con-
dition; but it is certain that they do. In the spring,
when one would think bird and beast might be permitted
_a breathing space, the poacher is as busy as ever after
_ eggs. Pheasant and partridge eggs are largely bought
and sold in the most nefarious manner. It is suspected
that some of the less respectable breeders who rear game
birds like poultry for sale, are not too particular of whom
they purchase eggs; and, as we have before observed,
certain keepers are to blame in this matter also.

Plovers’ eggs, again, are an article of commerce in the
Spring ; they are’ protected now by law, but it is to be
feared that the enactment is to a great extent a dead
letter. The eggs of the peewit, or lapwing, as the bird is
variously called, are sought for with great perseverance,
and accounted delicacies. These birds frequent commons

164 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

where the grass is very rough, and interspersed with
bunches of rushes, marshy places, and meadows liable to
be flooded in the winter. The nest on the ground is often
made in the depression left by a horse’s hoof in the soft

PLOVER’S NEST.

earth—any slight hole, in fact ; and it is so concealed, or
rather differs so little from the appearance of the general
sward around, as to be easily passed unnoticed. You
may actually step on it, and so smash the eggs, before you
see it.

Aware that the most careful observation may fail to

EGG-STEALER’S TRICK. 165

find what he wants, the egg-stealer adopts a simple but
effective plan by which he ensures against omitting to
examine a single foot of the field. Drop a pocket-knife

or some such object in the midst of a great meadow, and

you will find the utmost difficulty in discovering it again,
when the grass is growing tall as in spring. You may

_ think that you have traversed every inch, yet it is certain

that you have not ; the inequalities of the ground insensibly
divert your footsteps, and it is very difficult to keep a
straight line. What is required is something to fix the
eye—what a sailor would call a ‘bearing.’ This the egg-

stealer finds in a walking-stick. He thrusts the point into

the earth, and then slowly walks round and round it,
enlarging the circle.every time, and thus sweeps every inch
of the surface with his eye. When he has got so far from

the stick as to feel that his steps are becoming uncertain

_he removes it, and begins again in another spot. A

person not aware of this simple trick will search a field till

weary and declare there is nothing to be found ; another,
who knows the dodge, will go out and return in an hour
with a pocketful of eggs.

On those clear, bright winter nights when the full

moon is almost at the zenith, and the ‘definition’ of tree

and bough in the flood of light seems to equal if not to

-exceed that of the noonday, some poaching used to be

accomplished with the aid of a horsehair noose on the end

of a long slender wand. There are still some districts in

166 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

the country more or less covered with forest, and which
on account of ancient rights cannot be enclosed. Here
the art of noosing lingers; the loop being insidiously.
slipped over the bird’s head while at roost. By constant
practice a wonderful dexterity may be acquired in this
trick ; men will snare almost any bird in broad daylight.
With many birds a favourite place for a nest is in a
hollow tree, access being had by a decayed knothole, and
they are sometimes noosed as they emerge. A thin
flexible copper wire is said to be substituted for large
game. This method of capture peculiarly suits the views

of the ornithologist, with whom it is an object to avoid s

the spoiling of feathers by shot.

Every now and then a bird-catcher comes along
decoying the finches from the hedges, for sale as cage-
birds in London. Some of these men, without any
mechanical assistance, can imitate the ‘call’ note of the
bird they desire to capture so as to deceive the most
practised ear. These fellows are a great nuisance, and
will completely sweep a lane of all the birds whose song
makes them valuable. In this way some localities have
been quite cleared of goldfinches, which, used to be com-
mon. The keepers, of course, will not permit them on
private property ; but in all rural districts there are wide
waste spaces—as where two or more roads meet—broad
bands of green sward running beside the highway, and
the remnants of what in former days were commons ; and

PROTECTION OF PROPERTY. 167

here the bird-catcher plies his trade. It so happens that

these very waste places are often the most favourite resorts

_ of goldfinches, for instance, who are particularly fond of

thistledown, and thistles naturally chiefly flourish on
uncultivated land. These men and the general class of
loafers have a wholesome dread of gamekeepers, who
look on them with extreme suspicion.

The farmers and rural community at large hardly
give the gamekeeper his due as a protection against
thieves and mischievous rascals. The knowledge that he
may at any time come round the corner, even in the
middle of the night, has a decidedly salutary effect upon
the minds of those who are prowling about. Intoxicated
louts think it fine fun to unhinge gates, and let cattle and
horses stray abroad, to tear down rails, and especially to
push the coping stones off the parapets of the bridges
which span small streams. They consider it clever to
heave these over with a splash into the water, or to
throw down half a dozen yards of ‘dry wall.” In many
places fields are commonly enclosed by the roadside
with such walls, which are built of a flat stone dug just
beneath the surface, and used without mortar. There
are men who make a business of building these walls;
it requires some skill and patience to select the stones
- and fit them properly. They serve the purpose very well,
but the worst is that if once started the process of de-

struction is easy and quick. Much more serious offences

pareve poketihutaied by pone Bee ;
night and ns cannot but act as a check
this kind. y

Le oe ee ee a, een

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;
:

HIS LONG ROUNDS. 169

CHAPTER VIII.
Che Field Detectise—Fish Poaching.

THE footpaths through the plantations and across the
fields have no milestones by which the pedestrian can
calculate the distance traversed ; nor is the time occupied
a safe criterion, because of the varying nature of the soil
—now firm and now slippery—so that the pace is not
regular. But these crooked paths—no footpath is ever
straight—really represent a much greater distance than
would be supposed if the space from point to point were
measured on a map. So that the keeper as he goes his
rounds, though he does not rival the professional walker,
in the course of a year covers some thousands of miles.
He rarely does less than ten, and probably often twelve

miles a day, visiting certain points twice—ze. in the

morning and evening—and often in addition, if he has

any suspicions, making détours. It is easy to walk a mile

in a single field of no great dimensions when it is neces-

_ sary to go up and down each side of four long hedgerows,

and backwards and forwards, following the course of the
furrows.
The keeper’s eye is ever on the alert for the poacher’s

170 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

wires ; and where the grass is tall to discover these is often
a tedious task, since he may go within a few yards and
yet pass them. The ditches and the great bramble-bushes
“are carefully scanned, because in these the poacher often
conceals his gun, nets, or game, even when not under
immediate apprehension of capture. The reason is that
his cottage may perhaps be suddenly searched: if not by
authority, the policeman on some pretext or other may
unexpectedly lift the latch or peer into the outhouses, and
feathers and fur are apt to betray their presence in the
most unexpected manner. One single feather, one single
fluffy little piece of fur overlooked, is enough to ruin him,
for these are things of which it is impossible to give an
acceptable explanation. .

In dry weather the poacher often hides his implements;
especially is this the case after a more than usually venture-
some foray, when he knows that his house is tolerably
certain to be overhauled and all his motions watched. A
hollow tree is a common resource—the pollard willow
generally becomes hollow in its old age—and with a piece
of the decaying ‘touchwood’ or a strip of dead bark his
tools are ingeniously covered up. Under the eaves of sheds
and outhouses the sparrows make holes by pulling out the
thatch, and roost in these sheltered places in severe weather,

warmly protected from the frost; other small birds, as

wrens and tomtits, do the same; and the poacher avails

himself of these holes to hide his wires.

suf fhe

,

WATCHING LABOURERS. 171

A gun has been found before now concealed in a heap
of manure, such as are frequently seen in the corners of
the fields. These heaps sometimes remain for a year or
more in order that the materials may become thoroughly
decomposed, and the surface is quickly covered with a
rank growth of weeds. The poacher, choosing the side
close to the hedge, where no one would be likely to go,
excavated a place beneath these weeds, partly filled it in
with dry straw, and laid his gun on this. A rough board
placed over it shielded it from damp; and the aperture
was closed with ‘bull-polls’—that is, the rough grass of
the furrows chopped up (not unlike the gardener’s ‘ turves ’)
—and thrown on the manure-heap to decay. If the
keeper detects anything of this kind he allows it to stay
undisturbed, but sets a watch, and so surprises the owner
of the treasure.

The keeper is particularly careful to observe the
_ motions of the labourers engaged in the fields ; especially
at luncheon-time, when men with a hunch of bread
and a slice of bacon—-kept on the bread with a small
thumb-piece of crust, and carved with a pocket knife—are
apt to ramble round the hedges, of course with the most
innocent of motives, admiring the beauties of nature.
Slowly wandering like this, they cast a sidelong glance at
their wire, set up in a ‘drock’—ze. a bridge over a ditch
formed of a broad flat stone—which chances to be a
favourite highway of the rabbits. Nowadays, in this age

172 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

of draining, short barrel drains of brick or large glazed
pipes are often let through thick banks ; these are dry for
weeks together, and hares slip through them. A wire or.
trap set here is quite out of ordinary observation; and
the keeper, who knows that he cannot examine every inch
of ground, simplifies the process by quietly noting the
movements of the men. As he passes and repasses a
field where they are at work day after day, and understands
agricultural labour, he is aware that they have no necessity
to visit hedgerows and mounds a hundred yards distant,
and should he see anything of that kind the circle of his
suspicions gradually narrows till he hits the exact spot
and person.

The gateways and gaps, receive careful attention—

unusual. footmarks in the mud are looked for. Sometimes

he detects a trace of fur or feathers, or a bloodstain on —

the spars or rails, where a load of rabbits or game has

been hung for a few minutes while the bearer rested. The

rabbit-holes in the banks are noted: this becomes so much ~

a matter of habit as to be done almost unconsciously and
without effort as he walks ; and anything unusual—as the
sand much disturbed, the imprint of a boot, the bushes
broken or cut away for convenience of setting a net—is seen
in an instant. If there be any high ground—woods are often
on a slope—the keeper has here a post whence to obtain
a comprehensive survey, and he makes frequent use of this
natural observatory, concealing himself behind a tree trunk.

i sis nin itt atend Mi laine eel NE a

THE FOOTPATH DIFFICULTY. 173

A RABBIT-HOLE NETTED.

The lanes and roads and public footpaths that cross
the estate near the preserves are a constant source of un-
easiness. Many fields are traversed by a perfect network
of footpaths, half of which are of very little use, but can-
not be closed. Nothing causes so much ill-will in rural
districts as the attempt to divert or shut up a track like
this. Cottagers are most tenacious of these ‘rights,’ and
will rarely exchange them for any advantage. ‘ There
always wur a path athwert thuck mead in the ould volk’s
timé’ is their one reply endlessly reiterated ; and the
owner of the property, rather than make himself unpopular,

desists from persuasion. The danger to game from these

174 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

paths arises from the impossibility of stopping a suspicious

character at once. If he breaks through a hedge it is

different ; but the law is justly jealous of the subject’s
liberty on a public footpath, and you cannot turn him back.

Neither is it of any use to search a man whose tools,
to a moral certainty, are concealed in some hedge. With
his hands in his pockets, and a short pipe in his mouth,
he can saunter along the side of a preserve if only a path,
as is often the case, follows the edge; and by-and-by it
grows dusk,,and the keeper or keepers cannot be every-
where at once. There is nothing to prevent such fellows
as these from sneaking over an estate with a lurcher dog
at their heels—a kind of dog gifted with great sagacity,
nearly as swift as a greyhound, and much better adapted

for picking up the game when overtaken, which is the.
greyhound’s difficulty. They can be taught to obey the ~

faintest sign or sound from their owners. If the latter

imagine watchers to be about, the lurcher slinks along.

close behind, keeping strictly to the path. Presently, if
the poacher but lifts his. finger, away dashes the dog, and
will miss nothing he comes across. The lurcher has
always borne an evil repute, which of course is the due not
of the dog but of his master. If a man had to get his
living by the chase in Red Indian fashion, probably this
would be the best breed for his purpose. Many shepherds’
dogs now have a cross of the lurcher in their strain, and

are good at poaching.

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SUNDAY WORK. 175

A WICKED LURCHER AND HIS MASTER.

Sunday is the gamekeeper’s worst day ; the idle, rough
‘characters from the adjacent town pour out into the
country, and necessitate extra watchfulness. On Sunday,
the keeper, out of respect to the day, does not indeed
carry his gun, but he works yet harder than on week-days.
While the chimes are ringing to church he is on foot by
the edge of the preserves. He has to maintain a sort of

surveillance over the beer-houses in the village, which is

176 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,

done with the aid of the district policeman, for they are
not only the places where much of the game is sold, but
the rendezvous of those who are planning a raid.

If the policeman notices an unusual stir, or the arrival
of strange men without any apparent business, he acquaints
the keeper, who then takes care to double his sentinels,
and personally visit them during the night. This night-
work is very trying after his long walks by day. A great
object is to be about early in the morning—just before the
dawn ; that is the time when the poachers return to exa-
mine their wires. By day he often varies his rounds so as
to appear upon the scene when least expected; and has
regular trysting places, where his assistants meet him with

their reports.

The gipsies, who travel the road in caravans, give him.

endless trouble; they are adepts at poaching, and each
‘van is usually accompanied by a couple of dogs. The
movements of these people are so irregular that it is im-
possible to be always ready for them. They are suspected
of being recipients of poached game, purchasing it from
the local professionals. Under pretence of cutting skewer-
wood, often called dogwood, which they split and sharpen
for the butchers, they wander across the open downs
where it grows, camping in wild, unfrequented places, and
finding plenty of opportunities for poaching. Down land
is most difficult to watch.

Then the men who come out from the towns, ostensibly —

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OCCASIONAL POACHING, 177

to gather primroses in the early spring, or ferns, which
_ they hawk from door to door; and the watercress men,

who are about the meadows and brooks twice a year, in
spring and autumn, require constant supervision. An

innocent-looking basket or small sack-bag of mushrooms

_ has before now, when turned upside down, been discovered

to contain a couple of rabbits or a fine young leveret.

This detective work is, in fact, never finished. There is no

end to the tricks and subterfuges practised, and with all his

experience and care the gamekeeper is frequently outwitted.
The relations between the agricultural labourers and
the keeper are not of the most cordial character ; in fact,

there is a ceaseless distrust upon the one hand and in-

‘cessant attempts at over-reaching upon the other. The

ploughmen, the carters, shepherds, and foggers, have so

Many opportunities as they go about the fields, and they

never miss the chance of a good dinner or half-a-crown
when presented to them. Higher wages have not in the

slightest degree diminished poaching, regular or occasional ;

on the contrary, from whatever cause, there is good reason

to believe it on the increase. If a labourer crossing a

field sees a hare or rabbit crouching in his form, what is

to prevent him from thrusting his prong like a spear
_ suddenly through the animal and pinning him to the turf?

There are plenty of ways of hiding dead game, under

eee el ee ee ee

straw or hay, in the thick beds of nettles which usually

_ spring up outside or at the back of a cowshed.

N

178 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

Why does the keeper take such a benevolent interest
in the progress of spade-husbandry, as exemplified in
allotment gardens near the village, which allotments are

THE GENTLEMAN IN VELVETEEN.

generally in a field set apart by the principal landowner
for the purpose? In person or by proxy the keeper is very
frequently seen looking over the close-cropped hedge which

GAME IN ALLOTMENT GARDENS. 179

unds the spot, and now and then he takes a walk up
down the narrow paths between the plots. His dog
; about among the heaps of rubbish or under the
o-vines. The men at work are remarkably civil and
eous to the gentleman in the velveteen jacket, who -
his side, is equally chatty with them ; but both in their
rts know very well the why and wherefore of this in-
est in agriculture. Almost ‘all kinds of game are
: acted by gardens, presupposing, of course, that they
situated at a distance from houses, as these allotments
There is a supply of fresh, succulent food of various
ds: often too, after a large plot has been worked for
den produce, the tenant will sow it for barley or beans
- oats, on the principle of rotation ; and these small areas
grain have a singular fascination for pheasants, and hares
ager in them.

Rabbits, if undisturbed, are particularly fond of garden
e ables. In spring and early summer they will make
se ‘short holes in which they bring forth their young
under the potato-vines, finding the soil easy to work, dry,
the spot sheltered by the thick green stems and leaves.
rabbits and hares do considerable damage if they are
itted the run of the place unchecked. The tenants
the allotments, however, instead of driving them off, are
ious that they should come sniffing and limping over
e plots in the gloaming, and are strongly suspected of
owing crops specially pleasing to game to remain in the

180 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

ground till the very latest period in order that they may

snare it.

Much kindly talk has been uttered over allotments, —

and undoubtedly they are a great encouragement to the
labourer ; yet even this advantage is commonly abused.
The tenants have no ground of complaint as to damage to
their crops, because the keeper, at a word from them, would
lose not a moment of time in killing or driving away the
intruder; and as an acknowledgment of honesty and in
- reparation of the mischief, if any, a couple of rabbits
would be presented to the man who carried the complaint.
But the labourer, if he spies the tracks of a hare running

into his plot of corn, or suspects that a pheasant is hiding. —

there, carefully keeps that knowledge to himself. He
knows that a pheasant, if you can get close enough to it

before it rises, is a clumsy bird, and large enough to offer

a fair mark, and may be brought down with a stout stick

’ dexterously thrown. As very probably the pheasant is —

a young one and (not yet having undergone its baptism of
fire) only recently regularly fed, it is almost tame and may

be approached without difficulty. This is why the keeper —

just looks round the allotment gardens now and then, and
lets his dogs run about; for their noses are much more
clever at discovering hidden fur or feathers than his eyes.

In winter if the weather be severe, hares and rabbits

are very bold, and will enter gardens though attached to_

dwelling-houses. Sometimes when a vast double-mound —

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ext

TRESPASSING DOGS. 181

hedge is grubbed, the ditches each side are left, and the

.

interior space is ultimately converted into an osier-bed,
_osiers being rather profitable at present. But before these

are introduced it is necessary that the ground be well dug
up, for it is full of roots and the seeds of weeds, which
SB cichaps have lain dormant for years, but now spring up in

_ wonderful profusion. In consideration of cleansing the
_ soil, and working it by digging, burning the weeds and
i rubbish, etc., the farmer allows one or two of his labourers
F ‘to use it as a garden for the growth of potatoes, free of
s ‘rent, for say a couple of years. Potatoes are a crop which.
~ flourish in fresh-turned soil, and so they do very well over
the arrangement. But unfortunately as they dig and
weed, etc., in the evenings after regular work, they have an
~ excuse for their presence in the fields, and perhaps near
_ preserves at a tempting period of the twenty-four hours.
a _The keeper, in short, is quite aware that some sly poaching
_ goes on in this way.

q Another cause of unpleasantness between him and the
_ cottagers arises from the dogs they maintain; generally curs,
it is true, and not to all appearance capable of harm. But
in the early summer a mongrel cur can do as much mis-
_ chief as a thoroughbred dog. Young rabbits are easily
q overtaken when not much larger than rats, and at other
. seasons, when the game has grown better able to take care
- of itself, any kind of dog rambling loose in the woods and
a copses frightens it and unsettles it to an annoying degree.

182 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

Consequently, when a dog once begins to trespass, it is
pretty sure to disappear for good—it is not necessary to
indicate how—and though no actual evidence can be got
against the keeper, he is accused of the destruction of the
ugly, ill-bred ‘pet.’ Ifa dog commences to hunt on his
own account he can only be broken off the habit by the %

utmost severity ; and so it sometimes happens that other

dogs besides those of the cottagers come to an untimely i
end by shot and gin. a
The keeper, being a man with some true sense of sport,
dislikes shooting dogs, though compelled to do so occa-
sionally ; he never fires at his own, and candidly admits | g
that he hates to see a sportsman give way to anger in that
manner. The custom of ‘ peppering’ with shot a dog for
disobedience or wildness, which was once very common in
the field, has however gone a great deal into disuse. |
Shepherds, who often have to visit their flocks in the
-night—as at this season of the year, while lambing is in
progress—who, in fact, sometimes sleep in the fields in a
little wooden house on wheels built for the purpose, are
strongly suspected of tampering with the hares scampering :
over the turnips by moonlight. At harvest-time many
strange men come into the district for the extra wages of — +
reaping. They rarely take lodgings—which, indeed, they —
might find some difficulty in obtaining—but in the warm
summer weather sleep in the outhouses and sheds, with the

permission of the owner. Others camp in the open in the —

FERRETING. 183

of a meadow, where the angle made by meeting
protects them from the wind, crouching round the
rs of the fire which boils the pot and kettle. This
: of strangers is not without its attendant anxiety to
keeper, who looks round now and then to’see what is
Despite the ill-will in their hearts, the labourers are
sularly civil to the keeper; he is, in fact, a consider-
- employer of labour—not on his own account—but in
“woods and preserves. He can often give men a job
e dead of winter, when farm work is scarce and the
s paid for it are less ; such as hedge-cutting, mending
gaps in the fences, cleaning out ditches or the water-
through the wood.
Then there is an immense amount of ferreting to be
one, and there is such an instinctive love of sport in every
man’s breast, that to assist in this work is almost an ambi-
; besides which, no doubt the chances afforded of an
ccasional private ‘bag* form a secret attraction. One

iid imagine that there could be but little pleasure in
hing all day in a ditch, perhaps ankle-deep in ice-cold
ater, with flakes of snow driving in the face, and fingers
bed by the biting wind as it rushes through the bare
horn bushes, just to watch a rabbit jump out of a hole
to a net, and to break his neck afterwards. Yet so it is ;
nd some men become so enamoured of this slow sport as
do nothing else the winter through ; and as of course

184 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,

their employment depends entirely upon the will of the
keeper, they are anxious to conciliate him.

Despite therefore of missing cur dogs and straying cats
which never return, the keeper is treated with marked
deference by the cottagers. He is, nevertheless, fully
aware of the concealed ill-will towards him ; and perhaps
this knowledge has contributed to render him more morose,
and sharper of temper, and more suspicious of human
nature than he would otherwise have been; for it never
improves a man’s character to have to be constantly watch-
ing his fellows.

The streams are no more sacred from marauders than
the woods and preserves. The brooks and upper waters
are not so full of fish as formerly, the canal into which

they fall being netted so much ; and another cause of the

diminution is the prevalence of fish-poaching, especially for

jack, during the spawning season and afterwards. Though
the keepers can check this within their own boundaries, it
is not of much use.

Fish-poaching is simple and yet clever in its way. In
the spawning time jack fish, which at other periods are
apparently of a solitary disposition, go in pairs, and some-
times in trios, and are more tame than usual. <A long
slender ash stick is selected, slender enough to lie light in
the hand and strong enough to bear a sudden weight. A
loop and running noose are formed of a piece of thin copper
wire, the other end of which is twisted round and firmly

4
Me) fe! > Site

WIRING FISH, 185

to the smaller end of the stick. The loop is
to the size of the fish—it should not be very
larger, else it will not draw up quick enough, nor
small, else it may touch and disturb the jack. It
s not take much practice to hit the happy medium.
roaching the bank of the brook quietly, so as not to
the ground, to the vibrations of which fish are
iarly sensitive, the poacher tries if possible to avoid
g his ea fall across the water.

or the rotting pieces of wood which lie at the bottom.
‘ripple of the breeze, the eddy at the curve, or the
rkle of the sunshine cannot deceive them ; while others,
_ by far the greater number, are dazzled and see no-
ing. It is astonishing how few persons seem to have the
ft of sight when in the field.

The poacher, meving | marked his prey in the shallow

‘portant. Gradually the wire swims down with the cur-
rent, just as if it were any ordinary twig or root carried

186 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

- "
along, such as the jack is accustomed to see, and he there-

fore feels no alarm. By degrees the loop comes closer to
the fish, till with steady hand the poacher slips it over the
head, past the long vicious jaws and gills, past the first
fins, and pauses when it has reached a place corresponding
to about one-third of the length of the fish, reckoning from
the head. That end of the jack is heavier than the other,
and the ‘lines’ of the body are there nearly straight.
Thus the poacher gets a firm hold—for a fish, of course,
is slippery—and a good balance. If the operation is per-
formed gently the jack will remain quite still, though the
wire rubs against his side: silence and stillness have such
a power over all living creatures. The poacher now clears
his arm and, with a sudden jerk, lifts the fish right out of
the stream and lands him on the sward.

So sharp is the grasp of the wire that it frequently
cuts its way through the scales, leaving a mark plainly
visible when the jack is offered for sale. The suddenness
and violence of the compression seem to disperse the
muscular forces, and the fish appears dead for the moment:
Very often, indeed, it really is killed by the jerk. This
happens when the loop either has not passed far enough
along the body or has slipped and seized the creature just
at the gills. It then garottes the fish. If, on the other
hand, the wire has been passed too far towards the tail, it
slips off that way, the jack falling back into the water

with a broad white band where the wire has scraped the

ena a oa Ne gern ee Pn i P = ar
ee a ee a ec i reenter Fe I oa, ANTS gt ane ad as gine oee

_ JACK TAUGHT BY EXPERIENCE. 187

%

é Fish thus marked may not unfrequently be seen
in the stream. The jack, from its shape, is specially liable
to capture in this manner ; long and well balanced, the
e has every chance of holding it. This poaching is
ys going on; the implement is so easily obtained
d concealed. The wire can be carried in the pocket,
‘the stick may be cut from an adjacent copse.

_The poachers observe that after a fish has once escaped
from an attempt of the kind it is ever after far more
difficult of capture. The first time the jack was still and
took no notice of the insidious approach of the wire glid-
ing along towards it ; but the next—unless a long interval
elapses before a second trial—the moment it comes near
hhe is away. At each succeeding attempt, whether hurt or
‘not, he grows more and more suspicious, till at last to
merely stand still or stop while walking on the bank is
‘sufficient for him ; he is off with a swish of the tail to the
deeper water, leaving behind him a cloud, so to say, of
. ud swept up from the bottom to conceal the direction of
is flight. For it would almost seem as if the jack throws
p this mud on purpose ; if much disturbed he will quite
iscolour the brook. The wire does a good deal to
-depopulate the stream, and is altogether a deadly imple-

: out a wire, and with no better instrument than a willow
stick cut from the nearest osier-bed. The willow, or

188 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

withy as it is usually called, is remarkably pliant, and can
be twisted into any shape. Selecting a long slender wand,
the poacher strips it of leaves, gives the smaller end a
couple of twists, making a noose and running knot of the
stick itself. The mode of using it is precisely similar to
that followed with a wire, but it requires a little more
dexterity, because, of course, the wood, flexible as it is,
does not draw up so quickly or so closely as the metal,
neither does it take so firm a grip. A fish once caught
by a wire can be slung about almost anyhow, it holds so
tightly. The withy noose must be jerked up the instant
it passes under that part of the jack where the weight of
the fish is balanced—the centre of gravity ; if there is an
error in this respect it should be towards the head, rather
than towards the tail. Directly the jack is thrown out
upon the sward he must be seized, or he will slip from the
noose, and possibly find his way back again into the
water. With a wire there is little risk of that; but then
the withy does not cut its way into the fish.

This trick is often accomplished with the common
withy—not that which grows on pollard trees, but in osier-
beds ; that on the trees is brittle. But a special kind is
sought for the purpose, and for any other requiring ex-
treme flexibility. It is, I think, locally called the stone
osier, and it does not grow so tall as the common sorts,
It will tie like string. Being so short, for poaching fish it
has to be fastened to a thicker and longer stick, which is

JACK CAUGHT WITH A WITHY NOOSE. 189

easily done ; and some prefer it to wire because it looks
more natural in the water and doesnot alarm the fish,
while, should the keeper be about, it is easily cut up in
several pieces and thrown away. I have heard of rabbits,
and even hares, being caught with a noose of this kind of
withy, which is as ‘tough as wire ;’ and yet it seems hardly
possible, as it is so much thicker and would be seen.
Still, both hares and rabbits, when playing and scampering
about at night, are sometimes curiously heedless, and
foolish enough to run their necks into anything.

With such a rude implement as this some fish-poachers
will speedily land a good basket of pike. During the
spawning season, as was observed previously, jack go in
pairs, and now and then in trios, and of this the poacher
avails himself to take more than one at a haul. The fish
lie so close together—-side by side just at that time—that
it is quite practicable, with care and judgment, to slip a
wire over two at once. When near the bank two may
even be captured with a good withy noose: with a wire a
clever hand will make a certainty of it. The keeper says
that on one occasion he watched a man operating just
without his jurisdiction, who actually succeeded in wiring
three jacks at once and safely landed them on the grass,
They were small fish, about a pound to a pound anda
half each, and the man was but a few minutes in accom-
plishing the feat. It sometimes happens that after a heavy
flood, when the brook has been thick with suspended mud

190 ' THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

. for several days, so soon as it has gone down fish are more
than usually plentiful, as if the flood had brought them
up-stream: poachers are then particularly busy.

Fresh fish—that is, those who are new to that par-
ticular part of the brook—are, the poachers say, much
more easily captured than those who have made it their
home for some time. They are, in fact, more easily dis-
covered ; they have not yet found out all the nooks and
corners, the projecting roots and the hollows under the
banks, the dark places where a black shadow falls from
overhanging trees and is with difficulty pierced even by a
practised eye. They expose themselves in open places,
and meet an untimely fate.

Besides pike, tench are occasionally wired, and now
and then even a large roach; the tench, though a bottom
fish, in the shallow brooks may be sometimes detected by
the eye, and is not a difficult fish to capture. Every one
has heard of tickling trout: the tench is almost equally
amenable to titillation. Lying at full length on the sward,
with his hat off lest it should fall into the water, the
poacher peers down into the hole where he has reason to
think tench may be found. This fish is so dark in colour
when viewed from above that for a minute or two, till the
sight adapts itself to the dull light of the water, the poacher
cannot distinguish what he is searching for. Presently,
having made out the position of the tench, he slips his
bared arm in slowly, and without splash, and finds little or

FISHING BY HAND. 191

no trouble as a rule in getting his hand close to the fish
without alarming it: tench, indeed, seem rather sluggish.
He then passes his fingers under the belly and gently rubs
it. Now it would appear that he has the fish in his power,
and has only to graspit. But grasping is not so easy ; or

TICKLING TROUT.

rather it is not so easy to pull a fish up through two feet
of superincumbent water which opposes the quick passage
of the arm. The gentle rubbing in the first place seems
to soothe the fish, so that it becomes perfectly quiescent,
except that it slowly rises up in the water, and thus enables
the hand to get into proper position for the final .seizure.

192 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

When it has risen up towards the surface sufficiently far—
the tench must not be driven too near the surface, for it
does not like light and will glide away—the poacher
suddenly snaps as it were; his thumb and fingers, if he

possibly can manage it, closing on the gills. The body —

is so slimy and slippery that there alone a firm hold can
be got, though the poacher will often flick the fish out of
water in an instant so soon as it is near the surface.
Poachers evidently feel as much pleasure in practising
these tricks as the most enthusiastic angler using the im-
plements of legitimate sport.

No advantage is thought too unfair to be taken of fish :
nothing too brutally unsportsmanlike. I have seen a pike
killed with a prong as he lay basking in the sun at the top
of the water. A labourer stealthily approached, and
suddenly speared him with one of the sharp points of the
prong or hayfork he carried: the pike was a good-sized
one too.

The stream, where not strictly preserved, is frequently
netted without the slightest regard to season. The net is
stretched from bank to bank, and watched by one man,
while the other walks up the brook thirty or forty yards,
and drives the fish down the current into the bag. With
a long pole he thrashes the water, making a good deal of
splash, and rousing up the mud, which fish dislike and
avoid. The pole is thrust into every hiding-place, and
pokes everything out. The watcher by the net knows by

4
~
i

BALING FOR FISH. 193

the bobbing under of the corks when a shoal of roach and
_ perch, or a heavy pike, has darted into it, and instantly
draws the string and makes his haul. In this way, by
sections at a time, the brook, perhaps for half a- mile, is
quite cleared out. Jack, however, sometimes escape ; they
seem remarkably shrewd and quick to learn. If the string
is not immediately drawn when they touch the net, they are
out of it without a moment’s delay: they will double back
up stream through all the splashing and mud, and some
_ will even slide as it were between the net and the bank if
_ it does not quite touch in any place, and so get away.

In its downward course the brook irrigates many
water meadows, and to drive the stream out upon them
_ there are great wooden hatches. Sometimes a gang of
men, discovering that there is a quantity of fish thereabouts,
will force down a hatch, which at once shuts off or greatly
_ diminishes the volume of water flowing down the brook,
and then rapidly construct a dam across the current
below it with the mud of-the shore. Above this dam they
_ thrash the water with poles and drive all the fish towards
4s it, and then make a second dam above the first so as to
5 enclose them in a short space. In the making of these
_dams speed is an object, or the water will accumulate and
flow over the hatch; so hurdles are used, as they afford a
a support to the mud hastily thrown up. Then with buckets,
bowls, and ‘scoops, they bale out the water between the

4 two dams, and quickly reduce their prey to wriggling help-
O

194 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

lessness. In this way whole baskets full of fish have been
taken, together with eels; and nothing so enclosed can
escape.

The mere or lake by the wood is protected by sharp
stakes set at the bottom, which would tear poachers’ nets ;
and the keeper does not think any attempt to sweep

it has been made of late years, it is too well watched.

SETTING A NIGHT LINE.

But he believes that night lines are frequently laid: a
footpath runs along one shore for some distance, and gives
easy access, and such lines may be overlooked. He is
certain that eels are taken in that way despite his vigilance.

Trespassing for crayfish, too, causes much annoyance.

I have known men to get bodily up to the waist into the

RAKING OUT FISH.

few of which yet remain, after carp. These

situate can take them by hand if they can come
upon them. It is said that now and then fish

are

haymaking) when lying on the mud in winter.

196 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

CHAPIER TX.
. Guerilla Warfare—Gun Accivents—Black Sheep.

SCARCELY a keeper can be found who has not got one or
more tales to tell of encounters with poachers, sometimes
of a desperate character. There is a general similarity in
most of the accounts, which exhibit a mixture of ferocity
and cowardice on the side of the intruders. The following
case, which occurred some years since, brings these con-
tradictory features into relief. The narrator was not the
owner of the man-trap described previously.

There had been a great deal of poaching before the
affray took place, and finally it grew to horse-stealing: one

night two valuable horses were taken from the home park.

This naturally roused the indignation of the owner of the

estate, who resolved to put a stop to it. Orders were
given that if shots were heard in the woods the news
should be at once transmitted to head-quarters, no matter
at what hour of the night.

One brilliant moonlight night, frosty and clear, the
gang came again. A messenger went to the house, and,

as previously arranged, two separate parties set out to in-

tercept the rascals. The head keeper had one detachment,

pe

Fg aC laa atcen era

A DESPERATE GANG. 197

whose object it was to secure the main outlet from the
wood towards the adjacent town—to cut off retreat. The
young squire had charge of the other, which, with the

under keeper as guide, was to work its way through the

GOING FOR THE POACHERS,

wood and drive the gang into the ambuscade. In the last
party were six men and a mastiff dog; four of the men
had guns, the gentleman only a stout cudgel.

They came upon the gang—or rather a part of it, for

the poachers were somewhat scattered—in a ‘drive’ which

198 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

ran between tall firs, and was deep in shadow. With a

shout the four or five men in the ‘drive, or green lane, —

slipped back behind the trees, and two fired, killing the
mastiff dog on the spot and ‘stinging’ one man in the
legs. Quick as they were, the under keeper, to use his
own words, ‘got a squint of one fellow as I knowed ; and
I lets drive both barrels in among the firs. But, bless
you! it were all over in such a minute that I can’t hardly
tell ’ee how it were. Our squire ran straight at ’em; but
our men hung back, though they had their guns and he
had nothing but a stick. I just seen him, as the smoke
rose, hitting at a fellow; and then, before I could step, I
hears a crack, and the squire he was down on the sward.
One of them beggars had come up behind, and swung his
gun round, and fetched him a purler on the back of his
head. I picked him up, but he was as good as dead, to
look at;’ and in the confusion the poachers escaped.
They had probably been put up to the ambuscade by one
of the underlings, as they did not pass that way, but
seemed to separate and get off by various paths. The
‘young squire’ had to be carried home, and was ill for
months, but ultimately recovered.

Not one of the gang was ever captured, notwithstand-
ing that a member of it was recognised. Next day an
examination of the spot resulted in the discovery of a trail
of blood upon the grass and dead leaves, which proved
that one of them had been wounded at the first discharge.

ea

A POCKET-GUN. 199

It was traced for a short distance and then lost. Not till
the excitement had subsided did the under keeper find
that he had been hit; one pellet had scored his cheek
under the eye, and left a groove still visible.

Some time afterwards a gun was picked up in the
ferns, all rusty from exposure, which had doubtless been
dropped in the flight. The barrel was very short—not
more than eighteen inches in length—having been filed off
for convenience of taking to pieces, so as to be carried in
a pocket made on purpose in the lining of the coat. Now
with a barrel so short as that, sport, in the proper sense of
the term, would be impossible ; the shot would scatter so
quickly after leaving the muzzle that the sportsman would
never be able to approach near enough. The use of this
gun was clearly to shoot pheasants at roost.

The particular keeper in whose shed the man-trap still
lies among the lumber thinks that the class of poachers
who come in gangs are as desperate now as ever, and as
ready with their weapons. Breech-loading guns have
rendered such affrays extremely dangerous on account of
the rapidity of fire. Increased severity of punishment
may deter a man from entering a wood; but once he is
there and compromised, the dread of a heavy sentence is
likely to make him fight savagely.

The keeper himself is not altogether averse to a little
fisticuffing, in a straightforward kind of way, putting
powder and shot on one side. He rather relishes what he

200 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

calls ‘leathering’ a poacher with a good tough ground-ash
stick. He gets the opportunity now and then, coming
unexpectedly on a couple of fellows rabbiting in a ditch,
and he recounts the ‘leathering’ he has frequently ad-

MAN-TRAP,

ministered with great gusto. He will even honestly admit
that on one occasion—just one, not more—he got himself
most thoroughly thrashed by a pair of hulking fellows.

‘Some keepers, he says, ‘are always summoning

:
7
:
j

A GOOD GROUND-ASH STICK. 201

people, but it don’t do no good. What's the use of sum-
moning a chap for sneaking about with a cur dog and a
wire in his pocket? His mates in the village clubs to-
gether and pays his fine, and he laughs at you. Why,
down in the town there them mechanic chaps have got a
regular society to pay these here fines for trespass, and the
bench they claps it on strong on purpose. But it ain’t no
good ; they forks out the tin, and then goes and haves a
spree at a public. Besides which, if I can help it, I don’t

much care to send a man to gaol—this, of course, is

between you and me—unless he uses his gun. If he uses
his gun there ain’t nothing too bad for him. But these
here prisons—every man as ever I knowed go to gaol
always went twice, and kept on going. There ain’t
nothing in the world like a good ground-ash stick. When
you gives a chap a sound dressing with that there article,
he never shows his face in your wood no more. There’s
fields about here where them mechanics goes as regular as
Saturday comes to try their dogs, as they calls it—and a
precious lot of dogs they keeps among ’em. But they
never does it on this estate: they knows my habits, you
see. There’s less summonses goes up from this property
than any other for miles, and it’s all owing to this here
stick. A bit of ash is the best physic for poaching as I
knows on.’

I suspect that he is a little mistaken in his belief that

3 _it is the dread of his personal prowess which keeps tres-

202 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

passers away—it is rather due to his known vigilance and :
watchfulness.. His rather hasty notions of taking the law
into his own hands are hardly in accord with the spirit of
the times; but some allowance must be made for the
circumstances of his life, and it is my object to picture the
man as he is.

There are other dangers from guns beside these. A
brown gaiter indistinctly seen moving some distance off in
in the tall dry grass or fern—the wearer hidden by the
bushes—has not unfrequently been mistaken for game in
the haste and excitement of shooting, and received a salute
of leaden hail. This is a danger to which sportsman and
keeper are both liable, especially when large parties are
engaged in rapid firing; sometimes a particular corner
gets very ‘hot,’ being enfiladed for the moment by several
guns. Yet, when the great number of men who shoot is
considered, the percentage of serious accidents is small
indeed ; more fatal accidents probably happen through
unskilled persons thoughtlessly playing with guns supposed ~
not to be loaded, or pointing them in joke, than ever occur
in the field. The ease with which the breech-loader can be
unloaded or reloaded again prevents most persons from
carrying it indoors charged ; and this in itself is a gain on
the side of safety, for perhaps half the fatal accidents. take
place within doors.

In farmsteads where the owner had the right of shoot-

ing, the muzzle-loader was—and still is, when not converted

eee te ee Ste os

UA a anal dd as

STARLINGS QUICK TO LEARN. ~— 203

—kept loaded on the rack. _ The starlings, perhaps, are
making havoc of the thatch, tearing out straw by straw,
and working the holes in which they form their nests right
through, till in the upper story daylight is visible. When

_ the whistling and calling of the birds tell him they are

busy above, the owner slips quickly out with his gun, and
brings down three or four at once as they perch in a row
on the roof-tree. Or a labourer leaves a message that
there is a hare up in the meadow or some wild ducks have
settled in the brook. But men who have a gun always in
their hands rarely meet with a mishap. The starlings, by-
the-bye, soon learn the trick, and are cunning enough
to notice which door their enemy generally comes out at,
where he can get the best shot; and the moment the
handle of that particular door is turned, off they go.

The village blacksmith will tell you of more than one
narrow escape he has had with guns, and especially muzzle-

loaders, brought to him to repair. Perhaps a charge could

not be ignited through the foulness of the nipple, and the

breech had to be unscrewed in the vice ; now and then

_ the breech-piece was so tightly jammed that it could not

be turned. Once, being positively assured that there was

nothing but some dirt in the barrel and no powder, he

was induced to place it in the forge fire; when—bang! a
charge of shot smashed the window, and the burning coals
flew about in a fiery shower. In one instance a black-
smith essayed to clear out a barrel which had become

204 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

choked with a long iron rod made red-hot: the explosion
which followed drove the rod through his hand and into
the wooden wall of the shed. Smiths seem to have a
particular fondness for meddling with guns, and generally
have one stowed away somewhere.

It was not wonderful that accidents happened with
the muzzle-loaders, considering the manner in which they
were handled by ignorant persons. The keeper declares
that many of the cottagers, who have an old _ single-barrel,
ostensibly to frighten the birds from their gardens, do not
think it properly loaded until the ramrod jumps out of

the barrel. They ram the charge, and especially the _

powder, with such force that the rebound sends the rod
right out, and he has seen those who were not cottagers
follow the same practice. <A close-fitting wad, too tight
for the barrel, will sometimes cause the rod to spring high
above the muzzle: as it is pushed quickly down it com-
presses the air in the tube, which expands with a sharp
report and drives the rod out.

Loading with paper, again, has often resulted in
mischief: sometimes a smouldering fragment remains in
the barrel after the discharge, and on pouring in powder
from the flask it catches and runs like a train up to the
flask, which may burst in the hand. For this reason to
this day some of the old farmers, clinging to ancient
custom, always load with a clay tobacco pipe-bowl, snapped
off from the stem for the purpose. It is supposed to hold

Fs
&s
te,
Pes
ral
ae
.
r
re
{

OLD FOLKS AND THEIR FIRELOCKS. 205

: just the proper charge, and as it is detached from the
horn or flask there is no danger of fire being communicated
to the magazine; so that an explosion, if it happened,
_ would do no serious injury, being confined to the loose
ae powder of the charge itself, Paper used as wads will
sometimes continue burning for a short time after being
blown out of the gun, and may set fire to straw, or even
dry grass,

The old folk, therefore, when it was necessary to shoot
the starlings on the thatch, or the sparrows and chaffinches
which congregate in the rickyards in such extraordinary
4 ; numbers—in short, to fire off a gun anywhere near in-
flammable materials—made it a rule to load with green
leaves, which would not burn and could do no harm.
The ivy leaf was a special favourite for the purpose—the
broad-leaved ivy which grows against houses and in
gardens—because itis stout, about the right size to double
up and fold into a wad, and is available in winter, being an
evergreen, when most other leaves are gone. I have seen
% guns loaded with ivy leaves many times. When a gun
gets foul the ramrod is apt to stick tight if paper is used
g after pushing it home, and unless a vice be handy no
power will draw it out. In this dilemma the old plan
used to be to fire it into a hayrick, standing at a short
distance ; the hay, yielding slightly, prevented the rod
_ from breaking to pieces when it struck,

Most men who have had much to do with guns have

206 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

burst one or more. The keeper in the course of years
has had several accidents of the kind ; but none since the
breech-loader has come into general use, the reason of
course being that two charges cannot be inadvertently
inserted one above the other, as frequently occurred in the
old guns.

I had a muzzle-loading gun burst in my hands some
time since: the breech-piece split, and the nipple, hammer,
* and part of the barrel there blew out. Fortunately no
injury was done; and I should not note it except for the
curious effect upon the tympanum of the ear. The first
sense was that of a stunning blow on the head; on
recovering from which the distinction: between one sound
and another seemed quite lost. The ear could not separate
or define them, and whether it was a person speaking, a
whistle, the slamming of a door, or the neigh of a horse, it

was all the same. Tone, pitch, variation there was none.

Though perfectly, and in fact painfully, audible, all sounds

were converted into a miserable jangling noise, exactly
like that made when a wire in a piano has come loose
and jingles. This annoying state of things lasted three
days, after which it gradually went off, and in a week had
entirely disappeared. Probably the sound of the explosion
had been much increased by the cheek slightly touching
the stock in the moment of firing, the jar of the wood
adding to the vibration. This gun belonged to another
person, and was caught up, already loaded, to take

22 aie

s%
E
HM

A LONG-BARRELLED GUN. 207

advantage of a favourable chance; it is noticeable that
half the accidents happen with a strange gun.

Shot plays curious freaks sometimes: I know a case
in which a gun was accidentally discharged in a dairy
paved as most dairies are with stone flags. The muzzle
was pointed downwards at the time—the shot struck the
smooth stone floor, glanced off and up, and hit another
person standing almost at right angles, causing a painful
wound. It is a marvel that more bird-keepers do not get
injured by the bursting of the worn-out firelocks used to
frighten birds from the seed. Some of these are not only
rusty, but so thin at the muzzle as almost to cut the hand
if it accidentally comes into contact with any force.

A collection of curious old guns might be made in the
villages ; the flint-locks are nearly all gone, but there are
plenty of single-barrels in existence and use which were
converted from that ancient system. In the farmhouses
here and there may be found such a weapon, half a century
old or more, with a barrel not quite equal in length to the
punt-gun, but so long that, when carried under the arm of
a tall man, the muzzle touches the ground where it is
irregular in level. It is slung up to the beam across the
ceiling with leathern thongs—one loop for the barrel and
the other for the stock. It is still serviceable, having been
kept dry ; and the owner will tell you that he has brought
down pigeons with it at seventy yards,

Every man believes that his particular gun is the best

208 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,

in the locality to kill. The owner of this cumbrous
weapon, if you exhibit an interest in its history, will take
you into the fields and point out a spot where forty years
ago he or his immediate ancestor shot four or five wild
geese at once, resting the barrel on the branch of a tree
in the hedge and sending a quarter of a pound of lead
whistling among the flock. The spot the wild geese used
to visit in the winter is still remembered, though they come
there no more; drains and cultivation having driven them
away from that southern district. In the course of the
winter, perhaps, a small flock may be seen at a great height
passing over, but they do not alight, and in some years are
not observed at all.

There is a trick sometimes practised by poachers which
enables them to make rabbits bolt from their holes without
the assistance of a ferret. It is a chemical substance
emitting a peculiar odour, and, if placed in the burrows
drives the rabbits out. Chemical science, indeed, has been
called to the aid of poaching in more ways than one: fish,
for instance, are sometimes poisoned, or killed by an ex-
plosion of dynamite. These latter practises have, however,
not yet come into general use, being principally employed
by those only who have had some experience of mining or
quarrying.

There is a saying that an old poacher makes the best
gamekeeper, on the principle of setting a thief to catch a
thief: a maxim however, of doubtful value, since no other

THE BLACKLEG KEEPER. 209

“person could so thoroughly appreciate the tempting oppor-
tunities which must arise day after day. That keepers
_ themselves are sometimes the worst of depredators must
be admitted. Hitherto I have chiefly described the course
_ of action followed by honest and conscientious men, truly
£ anxious for their employers’ interests, and taking a personal
y pride in a successful shooting season, But there exists a
class of keepers of a very different order, who have done
much to bring sport itself into unmerited odium.
The blackleg keeper is often a man of some natural
@ ability—a plausible, obsequious rascal, quick in detecting
a the weak points of his employer’s character, and in practis-
e ing upon and distorting what were originally generous
_ impulses. His game mainly depends upon gaining the
a entire confidence of his master; and, not being embar-
_ fassed by considerations of self-esteem, he is not choice
_ in the use of means to that end, He knows that if he
a. can thoroughly worm himself into his employer’s good
_ opinion, the unfavourable reports which may be set afloat
against him will be regarded as the mere tittle-tattle of
di envy; for it is often an amiable weakness on the part
q of masters who are really attached to their servants to
_ maintain a kind of partisanship on behalf of those whom
c they have once trusted, 3
q Such a servant finds plentiful occasions for dexterously
__ gratifying the love of admiration innate in us all. The
manliest athlete and frankest amateur—who would blush
3 .

210 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

at the praise of social equals—finds it hard to resist the
apparently bluff outspoken applause of his inferiors be-
stowed on his prowess in field sports, whether rowing or
riding, with rod or gun. Of course it frequently happens
that the sportsman really does excel as a shot; but that
in no degree lessens the insidious effect of the praise which
seems extorted in the excitement of the moment, and to
come forth with unpremeditated energy.

The next step is to establish a common ground of
indignation ; for it is to be observed that those who unite

in abuse of a third person have a stronger bond of

sympathy than those who mutually admire another. If by |

accident some unfortunate contretemps should cause a
passing irritation between his master and the owner of a
neighbouring estate, the keeper loses no opportunity of
heaping coals upon the fire. He brings daily reports of
trespass. “Now the other party’s keepers have been beat-
ing a field beyond their boundaries; now they have
ferreted a bank to which they have no right. Another
time they have prevented straying pheasants from return-
ing to the covers by intercepting their retreat ; and a score
of similar tricks. Or perhaps it is the master of a pack
of hounds against whom insinuations are directed: cubs
are not destroyed sufficiently, and the pheasants are eaten
daily. .

Sometimes it is a tenant-farmer with a long lease,

who cannot be quickly ejected, who has to bear the brunt

“italien gists

— |< ee
‘

MYSTERIOUS SCARCITY OF GAME. 211

of these attacks. He is accused of trapping hares and
rabbits: he sets the traps so close to the preserves that
the pheasants are frequently caught and mortally injured ;
he is suspected of laying poisoned grain about. Not con-
tent with this he carries his malice so far as to cause the

grass or other crops in which outlying nests or young

- broods are sheltered to be cut before it is ripe, with the

object of destroying or driving them away; and he

, presents the mowers whose scythes mutilate game with a

quart of beer as reward, or furnishes his shepherds with
lurchers for poaching. He encourages the gipsies to
encamp in the neighbourhood and carry on _ nightly
expeditions by allowing them the use of a field in which
to put their vans and horses. With such accounts as these,
supported by what looks like evidence, the blackleg keeper
gradually works his employer into a state of intense
irritation, meantime reaping the reward of the incorruptible
guardian and shrewd upright servitor.

At the same time,'in the haze of suspicion he has
created, the rascal finds a cloak for his own misdeeds,
These poachers, trespassers, gipsies, foxes, and refractory
tenants afford a useful excuse to account for the compara-
tive scarcity of game. ‘What on earth has become of the
birds, and where the dickens are the hares ?’ asks the angry
proprietor. In the spring he recollects being shown by
the keeper, with modest pride, some hundreds of young
pheasants, flourishing exceedingly. Now he finds the

212, THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

broods have strangely dwindled, and he is informed that
these enemies against whom all along he has been warned
have made short work of them. If this explanation seems
scarcely sufficient, there is always some inexplicable disease
to bear the blame: the birds had been going on famously
when suddenly they were seized by a mysterious epidemic
which decimated their numbers. .

All this is doubly annoying, because, in addition to
the loss of anticipated sport, there has been an exorbitant
expenditure. The larger the number of young broods of
pheasants early in the year the better for the dishonest
keeper, who has more chances of increasing his own profit,
both directly and indirectly. In the first place, there is the
little business of buying eggs, not without commissions.
More profit is found in the supply of food for the birds:
extras and petty disbursements afford further room for
pickings.

Then, when the game has been spirited away, the

keeper’s object is to induce his employer to purchase full-—

grown pheasants—another chance of secret gratuities—
and to turn them out for the battue. That institution
is much approved of by keepers of this character, for, the
pheasants being confined to a small area, there is less
personal exertion than is involved in walking over several
thousand acres to look after hares and partridges.

By poisoning his master’s mind against some one he
not only covers these proceedings but secures himself from

a ie

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.~

FEMININE POACHERS. 213

the explanation which, if listened to, might set matters
right. The accused, attempting to explain, finds a strong
prejudice against him, and turns away in dudgeon. Such
underhand tricks sometimes cause mischief in a whole
district. An unscrupulous keeper may set people of all
ranks at discord with each other.

In these malpractices, and in the disposal of game
which is bulky, he is occasionally assisted by other keepers
of congenial character engaged upon adjacent estates.
Gentlemen on intimate terms naturally imagine that their
‘keepers mutually assist each other in the detection of
poaching—meeting by appointment, for instance, at night,
as the police do, to confer upon their beats. When two
or three are thus in league it is not difficult for them
to dispose of booty; they quickly get into communica-
tion with professional receivers ; and instances have been
known in which petticoats have formed a cover for a
steady if small illegal transport of dead game over the
frontier.

For his own profit a keeper of this kind may indeed
be trusted to prevent poaching on the part of other per-
sons, whose gains would be his loss, since there would
remain less for him to smuggle. Very probably it may
‘come to be acknowledged on all sides that he is watchful
and always about: an admission that naturally tends to
raise him in the esteem of his employer.

Those who could tell tales—his subordinate assistants

214 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,

—are all more or less implicated, as in return for their
silence they are permitted to get pickings: a dozen
rabbits now and then, good pay for little work, and plenty
of beer. If one of them lets out strange facts in his cups,
it signifies nothing: no one takes any heed of a labourer’s
beerhouse talk. The steward or bailiff has strong sus-
picions, perhaps, but his motions are known, and _ his
prying eyes defeated. As for the tenants, they groan and

bear it.

It is to be regretted that now and then the rural
policeman becomes an accomplice in these nefarious
practices. His position of necessity brings him much into
contact with the keepers of the district within his charge,
If they are a ‘shady’ lot, what with plenty of drink, good
fellowship, presents of game, and insidious suggestions of —
profit, it is not surprising that a man whose pay is not
the most liberal should gradually fall away from the path
of duty. The keeper can place a great temptation in his —
way—z.e. occasional participation in shooting when certain
persons are absent: there are few indeed who can resist
the opportunity of enjoying sport. The rural constable
often has a beat of very wide area, thinly populated: it
is difficult to tell where he may be; he has a reasonable
pretext for being about at all hours, and it is impossible
that he should be under much supervision. Perhaps he
may have a taste for dogs, and breed them for sale, if not
openly, on the sly. Now the keeper can try these animals

PETTY TYRANNY. 215

or even break them in in a friendly way ; and when once
he has committed himself, and winked at what is going
on, the constable feels that he may as well join and share
altogether. At outlying wayside ‘publics’ the keeper
and the constable may carouse to the top of their bent:
the landlord is only too glad to be on good terms with
them ; his own little deviations pass unnoticed, and if by
accident they are discovered he has a friend at court to
give him a good character.

The worthy pair have an engine of oppression in their
hands which effectually overawes the cottagers: they can
accuse them of poaching; and if not proceeding to the
ultimatum of a summons, which might not suit their con-
venience, can lay them under suspicion, which may result
in notice to quit their cottages, or to give up their allot-
ment gardens ; and a garden is almost as important to a
cottager as his weekly wages. In this way a landlord
whose real disposition may be most generous may be
made to appear a perfect tyrant, and be disliked by the
whole locality. It is to the interest of the keeper and the
constable to obtain a conviction now and then; it gives
them the character of vigilance.

Sometimes a blackleg keeper, not satisfied with the
plunder of the estate under his guardianship must needs
encroach on the lands of neighbouring farmers occupying
under small owners ; and so further ill-will is caused. In

the end an exposure takes place, and the employer finds

216 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.

to his extreme mortification how deeply he has been
deceived ; but the discovery may not be made for years.

Of course all keepers of this character are not systemati-

cally vicious: many are only guilty occasionally, when a
peculiarly favourable opportunity offers.

Another class of keeper is rather passively than
actively bad. ‘This is the idle man, whose pipe is ever
in his mouth and whose hands are always in his pockets.
He is often what is called a good-natured fellow—-soft-
spoken, respectful, and willing; liked by everybody; a
capital comrade in his own class, and, in fact, with too
many friends of a certain set.

Gamekeeping is an occupation peculiarly favourable
to loafing if a man is inclined that way. He can sit on
the rails and gates, lounge about the preserves, go to sleep
on the sward in the shade; call at. the roadside inn, and,
leaning his gun against the tree from which the sign
hangs, quaff his quart in indolent dignity. By degrees

he easily falls into bad habits, takes too much liquor, finds —

his hands unsteady, becomes too lazy to repress poaching
(which is a weed that must be constantly pulled up, or it
will grow with amazing rapidity), and finally is corrupted,
and shares the proceeds of bolder rascals. His assistants
do as they please. He has no control over them: they
know too. much about him.

It is a curious fact that there are poaching villages and

non-poaching villages. Out of a dozen or more parishes

pitti

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POACHING VILLAGES. 217

A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING KEEPER,

forming a petty sessional district one or two will become
notorious for this propensity. The bench never meet
without a case from them, either for actual poaching or
some cognate offence. The drinking, fighting, dishonesty,
low gambling, seem ceaseless—like breeding like—till the
place becomes a nest of rascality. Men hang about the
public-houses all day, betting on horses, loitering; a
blight seems to fall upon them, and a bad repute clings
to the spot for years after the evil itself has been

eradicated.
Q

218 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,

If a weak keeper gets among such a set as this he
succumbs ; and the same cause hastens the moral decay
of the constable. The latter has a most difficult part to
maintain, If he is disposed to carry out the strict letter
of his instructions, that does not do—there is a prejudice
against too much severity, English feeling is anti-
Draconian ; and even the respectable inhabitants would
rather endure some little rowdyism than witness an
over interference with liberty. If the constable is good-
natured, and loth to take strong measures, he either
becomes a semi-accomplice or sinks to a nonentity. It
is difficult to find a man capable of controlling such a
class; it requires tact, and something of the gift of
governing men.

By.contact with bad characters a weak keeper may be
contaminated without volition of his own at first: for we
know the truthful saying about touching pitch. The
misfortune is that the guilty when at last exposed
become notorious; and their infamy spreads abroad,
smirching the whole class to which they belong. The
honest conscientious men remain in obscurity and get
no public credit, though they may far outnumber the
evil-disposed, |

To make a good keeper it requires not only honesty
and skill, but a considerable amount of ‘backbone’ in the
character to resist temptation and to control subordinates.
The keeper who has gone to the bad becomes one of the

A VALUABLE SERVANT, 219

most mischievous members of the community : the faithful
and upright keeper is not only a valuable servant but a

protection to all kinds of property.

THE END,

Printed by R. & R. Crarx, Edinburgh,

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