Part 10

Yet it is hardly fair to compare pheasants to partridges. The difference in their habits of life makes it necessary that partridges should learn to use their wings more quickly than pheasants. They will fly when no larger than starlings, but pheasants grow as big as full-grown partridges before making much use of their wings. Partridges mature the more quickly: hatched in mid-June they are nearly full grown by September, while pheasants, born in May, are still in their baby stage in October. Then the habit of the partridges to roost in coveys on the ground fosters the instinct to spring into the air and fly on the first sign of danger, all in a covey acting as one bird for mutual protection. There is some little excuse for the young pheasants that butt into wire with such foolish persistency--they are so near to the wire that their legs have no chance to launch them fairly into the air. While the desire of a pheasant, on meeting wire outside a wood, is to pass through into the covert, the idea of the partridge is to turn about, and fly back to the fields whence it came. The effect of a line of wire-netting on wild creatures seems to be that they imagine they are enclosed on all sides. A half-grown leveret cantered before us for quite two miles alongside netting to the left of him; only after covering this distance did it seem to dawn upon him that by turning to the right he might go his way to freedom.

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The Partridge June

What are the ideal conditions for partridges? First, an old-fashioned April--growing weather. Then an old-fashioned May, with blue skies and genial sunshine, to be followed by a June without a drop of rain that would hurt a fly by day, with occasional warm sprayings of rain by night, to help on the insect-supply for the chicks, and to keep the soil just as partridges like it when scratching for insects, but not wet enough to clog their feet. The ideal June--the partridge June--has warm nights and fine sunny days, without too much scorching sunshine. The fine weather must go on during the first part of July in the interests of the later-hatched chicks; and if August can behave as it should, so much the better--but the most important thing is a partridge June. Nothing can make amends to the partridges for a wet, cold June; for nothing can bring their dead chicks to life.

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Favoured Pheasants

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

It may be urged that if there are few young partridges there must be few young pheasants, and this to some extent is true. Though the breeding conditions of pheasant and partridge are very different, a bad season for one can hardly be a good season for the other. With partridges, the great trouble is that nearly all of them nest about the same time: where one brood suffers from bad weather, thousands must suffer. For ten days after hatching, partridges are at the mercy of the weather. Let one of those marble-sized drops of rain strike a newly hatched chick, and its day is done. As one sharp frost destroys all the apple-crop of a countryside, if it comes when the trees are in full bloom, so a deluge in mid-June is fatal to all young partridges. Even a day's thunder-rain, between the fifteenth and thirtieth of June, would almost excuse a partridge keeper if he committed suicide--though we have never heard of such a thing.

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

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

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A Covey of Ancients

We remember how an experienced keeper was quite at sea in his judgment of a particular covey. It had been a bad season, and after the corn had been cut he knew of only one good covey; it numbered nine birds, and fine forward birds they were. On this covey he set great store against the coming of September. It happened that he was bidden to shoot a couple of brace of young birds for dinner at "the house" on the First. With his first shot at the covey he bagged the old cock. He pursued the rest of the covey, bagged another bird, also an old cock. Disappointed but still hopeful, again he pursued the covey, again he bagged another bird, and again it was an old cock that fell to his gun. He went on until he bagged the ninth and last bird, and the ninth was no better than all the others. It was a sad keeper who went home that day with his nine old birds. Ever since he has been sceptical about coveys of forward birds. But he always says now that foxes at least show gallantry in the matter of "ladies first."

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Keepers' Woe

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

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Red-Legs

The more we see of red-legged partridges the more we appreciate their powers of running. They are wonderful birds for eluding the tactics of walking-up parties; even where the birds are plentiful it is rare to walk-up one within gunshot. The red-leg also suffers by comparison with the English birds on the table. But he is a grand bird for driving (when he is headed and forced to fly), seldom coming in coveys--so that a dozen red-legs may afford as many shots as a dozen unbroken English coveys. And they come straight, more in the style of grouse than of the brown partridges. The two types seldom intermingle, being of different species and different genera. In some places an ill-feeling is still harboured against the bigger and handsomer red-legs, and it is thought that they drive away the English birds.

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Water for Game-Birds

It is a lucky keeper whose shoot is watered by springs and brooks which never fail in time of drought, for a continuous supply of water means much to the success of game-breeding. But streams have their dangers: birds will be attracted to the banks at nesting-time, and if heavy rains follow, their nests may be destroyed by the floods. A greater danger lies in the streams which are winter water-courses only and dry up in the spring. Herbage will grow luxuriantly at the stream-side, and birds will be enticed to nest in places where, after a heavy rainfall, there will rush a raging torrent, to carry away birds, nests, eggs and all. Some say that nesting birds can foretell the weather, and choose their nesting-places accordingly--building on the banks and higher ground if the season will be wet, but in the hollows if dry. No doubt their choice is influenced only by prevailing weather, and the position of suitable cover. In a cold, late spring, grass-fields offer poor shelter, and so the birds choose the hedges and dikes, where the wild, weedy growth finds moisture for its roots and protection for its top-growth. When birds are sitting, the less they have to do with water the better for their hopes.

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

Many keepers never give their young pheasants water until they have been removed from the rearing-field to covert--but their food is made dry or moist according to the weather. This plan answers well enough until there comes a hot, dry spell which ends suddenly in rain, and then the chicks drink immoderately, and suffer the penalty. That chicks take the first chance to drink the raindrops from the herbage shows that water is good for them; and the best plan is to provide them with a continuous supply of clean water from the beginning, so that they never become thirsty and drink themselves to death.

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Ideal Coverts

A continuous supply prevents the straying of pheasants as they grow up, and feel inclined to see the world, especially when they have been weaned from food more or less pappy to a diet of hard corn. Another benefit is felt by the gamekeeper: where there is no constant supply, he must trudge many weary miles carrying heavy buckets of water, and he knows all the time that his labour is almost in vain--so much of the precious water is wasted by evaporation, and fouled by the birds washing themselves, and by the drifting of leaves. If artificial supplies are relied upon, it is always difficult to supply enough; if rain is relied upon, there is usually far too much. For game-birds, the ideal covert is one with never-failing brooks, and the ideal weather is the ideal weather of April--days of warm sunshine with occasional light, warm showers by day to supplement the dews of night.

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The Thirst of Rabbits

Nothing keeps down rabbits more thoroughly than a soaking wet summer; while heavy rains drown the partridge and pheasant broods above ground, they also drown the little rabbits in their furry nests below. Yet in times of drought, when herbage is parched and sapless, the keeper who supplies water for the rabbits to drink in arid, sandy warrens does much for the prosperity of the does and their young. Rabbits eat their young when in want of water, and a dry summer puts a check on the increase of rats, since the old ones kill the young for their blood. With rabbits, a favourite place is always a dry spot by the side of water, although the ground is likely to be favoured by stoats. Rabbits found in such places are always extra fine and fat.

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Puppies at Walk

"Please drive cautiously. Hound puppies are at walk in the village." We came upon this notice nailed to the trunk of an ash on the road outside a village in Hampshire. The inference suggested itself that so long as those who might drive furiously through the village touched no hair of a hound puppy's head nothing else mattered. Usually, it is the old-fashioned notices that bring a smile to the passer-by's face: "Beware of Man-traps," "Spring Guns," "Dog-spears set here." Walking along the River Stort we have been startled by a notice beside some of the locks, "The Punishment for Tampering with these Works is Transportation." "Trespassers will be Punished by Transportation" would be a suitable legend for a board in a strictly preserved wood, hinting that if you do not go quietly on request the keeper will carry you. Reading the new caution to drivers outside the Hampshire village, we were tempted to simplify it thus: "Beware of hound puppies." It is pleasant to see young hounds basking in the sun in the farm-yard; but when they are at walk in the charge of the village butcher they may be more than a general nuisance; they may terrorise the place. People who walk hounds do not always undertake the honour because they like it, but because they cannot well refuse. The hounds are turned out into the streets to prowl at large--they slaughter poultry, spread havoc in many a garden plot, knock down children, and roam in through open cottage doors, to steal the labourer's dinner from off his very table. A pack of hounds under the control of a firm huntsman and his whips is one thing--but hounds at walk, allowed to wander at their will, are a peril to the community. "Beware of hound puppies"--when they come up treacherously behind you.

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Schooling the Puppies

Retriever pups born about the end of January are old enough, by August or September, to begin their careers of usefulness. If given light work, during the second half of their first year they may be ready to take an important part in the next shooting season, when eighteen months old. Spring puppies are certainly easier to rear than autumn puppies--they grow faster, and are likely to become finer specimens than the others, which must endure long months of trying weather during puppyhood. But there is this in favour of autumn puppies--they come to their first shooting season at a more mature age, and intellectually are readier to learn than the six months old puppies of spring. At the age of twelve months a puppy begins to put away puppyish things.

It is only possible to gain perfection in the education of a puppy by beginning so soon as it is weaned. From that time the puppy should be taken in hand by its future master, whom alone it should know and understand. One can hardly begin too early to teach the meaning of the word "No," which, to the puppy, is that it must not do something that it had thought desirable to do--whether to chase a cat or rabbit, to be excited at the rising of a lark, or to hunt a roadside hedge. Another important early lesson is teaching the puppy its name. For stud-book and show purposes the name may be, if you please, "Beelzebub of Babylon," or any other high-flown title, but for common use it should be distinct in sound, and preferably of not more than one syllable. Puppies may be taught their names and obedience at the same time; in classes perhaps more quickly and more thoroughly than individually. It is a good plan at feeding-time to have the puppies together, and put food outside an opening in their kennel; then to call out each puppy by name, and on no account allow any other to come than the one called. In a surprisingly short time it will be possible to set open the door and call out each puppy by name, without forcibly keeping back the uninvited. In this way a good grounding might be given to the favourite fox-terriers in obedience, of which so many have not the slightest notion.

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Dogs' Noses

The power of scent varies much with different dogs: usually a slow dog makes better use of its scenting nerves than the fast galloper. It is pretty to watch a good retriever following a wounded bird over ground alive with unwounded game, yet never turning aside from the one trail. A dog could hardly distinguish one partridge from another--probably it is by the scent of blood that the one line can be followed so accurately. Sportsmen do not always give the dogs fair chances; they throw them cheese at lunch-time, or perhaps allow bagged game or themselves to taint the wind, so foiling other trails. In one case a sportsman blamed a new retriever for not finding a bird which was actually lying beneath his own boots. And even a first-rate retriever will sometimes tread on the very bird he is seeking, without finding it.

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The Thief of the World

Gamekeepers, we know, have little love for foxes--for the sufficient reason that they are at one with foxes in their love of pheasants. Keepers have also some of that craftiness and worldly wisdom so developed in foxes; they know it is not always policy to say with their lips what they believe in their hearts. There are good people who tell keepers every now and again that foxes do no harm to game. Keepers have heard stories in favour of foxes; they know the rights of them. Dark and mysterious are the ways of the fox; but darker still and more mysterious are the ways of the keeper with "the thief of the world." This alone he will admit in favour of the fox: he adds to the keeper's work an uncertainty which makes success the sweeter. The fox is a favourite of Fortune, his needs are fulfilled exactly; all things seem arranged in his favour to a nicety. Other creatures may die of starvation in time of snow; but the fox then finds his prey with greatest ease. Cubs are weaned about the middle of May, and must be fed on flesh, when a majority of pheasants are sitting. And when a sitting pheasant is scented or seen by a vixen in search of food for her cubs, that pheasant, you may say, is dead. The keeper, though his blood boils afresh at each nesting tragedy--at the sight of the strewn feathers of the hen pheasant and at the cold touch of the lifeless eggs--appreciates the deftness of the marauder's work. He reconstructs each scene of the plundering--the silent passage of the prowling fox, the pause of a moment to sniff and sniff again the scent that taints the air, the swift thrust of long jaws between bramble, brier, and bracken, the grab of gleaming teeth, the stifled cry of the dying bird, the floating of brown feathers on the wind of night, and the joy of the cubs at the sight of the dead bird and the scent of her welling blood. And then the carnival of feasting at the mouth of the earth, by the old tree of the cubs' playground, while the white owl screeches his protest as he passes overhead, and the mother fox, sitting on her haunches, licks her chops and watches. The work of a vixen among sitting birds differs from that of the dog fox. While she always carries her booty to her cubs, he kills in wanton waste, leaving the birds' bodies, often headless, near their nests. Some or all of the eggs may be eaten, or they may be left untouched, still as neatly arranged in the nest as the mother bird left them when she stole off to feed and take a bath in dust. The keeper may recognise the excuse of the mother fox's necessity, but for the wanton slaughter by her idle mate he sees no reason, and finds no forgiveness.

Only those who have seen the remains of game scattered round the earth of a litter of cubs--the cubs of an experienced mother--can realise what it costs in game to entertain foxes. Where rabbits are plentiful, pheasants and partridges suffer less from foxes than where rabbits are scarce, and the keeper may help a vixen to cater for her cubs by shooting and snaring rabbits in her favour. He leaves their bodies, but scattered at a fair distance from the earth, so that the vixen must spend some time in fetching and carrying, and has the less time for making a mixed bag of her own selection.

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The Cubs' Playground

Unseeing eyes pass blindly over the home of a litter of cubs; but the keeper's never overpass the place. Long furrows through the dog's-mercury and grasses tell their tale. Primroses are torn and crushed, the great leaves of the burdock are bruised and broken, the moss is rubbed from the underwood stumps and from the boles of trees where the cubs have been gambolling and rubbing their coats, the excavated soil near the earth is smooth from the pattering of their feet, beaten hard and polished--and in all directions there are scattered wings, feathers and bones. If the keeper calls, and sees signs of recent rollicking play and fresh-killed food, and fresh-drawn soil where the cubs amuse themselves at earth-making and enlarging the burrows of rabbits, he knows the family to be in residence. Should the soil near the entrance to the earth have a green look, he knows the family has gone away.

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A Fox's Feat

Who would believe that a full-grown fox could pass through the mesh of ordinary sheep-netting?--four-inch mesh, if memory serves. We know of one case where a vixen was actually seen to accomplish this wonderful feat. With her cubs, she had been dug out from her earth, carried to a distant part of the country, and imprisoned. The four-inch mesh must have been a tight fit for her body; but perhaps she had worried and fretted at her imprisonment, until she had worn herself to a shadow. Her cubs, which were unweaned, may have helped to weaken her strength, and reduce her waist until it could squeeze through the netting.

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