Part 11

The keeper finds his game-nests with his eyes, the fox with his nose. The keeper who must preserve game and preserves foxes takes steps to overcome the scent of his birds. He sprinkles the neighbourhood of all the nests he can find with some strong-smelling fluid. But the foulest or strongest scent will not save a bird when a fox has once seen her. Fortunately he is not clever enough to know a new trap from an old one, nor a sound from a broken one, and the keeper finds at nesting-time a good use for his disused traps, placing them about birds sitting in dangerous spots. Anything in the shape of scrap-iron the fox suspects; anything unusual about a nest, such as a piece of newspaper on a bush near by, will arouse his fears, and possibly save a bird's life. But as rooks learn to treat scarecrows with contempt, so foxes learn to have no fear for harmless terrors, and the keeper rings the changes on all the fox-alarming devices which experience and ingenuity can suggest.

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Dog-Washing Days

Two or tree times a year, the gamekeeper gives all his dogs a grand washing; and his methods should be marked by other dog-owners, for there are few who understand dogs better. He knows that a dog's coat, like a woman's hair, is spoiled by too much washing, which destroys the satiny gloss imparted by the natural oils. He knows, too, that a dip in a pond or a splash in a stream only wets the surface of a coat, and does not cleanse the skin. His method is thorough, and designed not only to cleanse the hair and skin, but to rid the dogs of all the unwelcome guests they may harbour. Choosing a warm, sunny day, the keeper gets to work betimes, so that he may have his dogs washed and out to dry by midday; they must be perfectly dry before nightfall. He sets up a wooden tub on an old box, for his own convenience, and brings forth his pails and cans of water--water of just that tepid temperature which a dog likes. He wants his dogs to enjoy their bath, and knows that if he scalds or otherwise frightens them they will be shy of the wash-tub for ever afterwards. To pitch a dog unawares into a tub of water is as foolish as to throw him into a pond. He must be coaxed to his bath with words of encouragement, so that he will see there is nothing to be frightened about. Properly treated, dogs soon learn to appreciate the wash-tub, and there may be trouble in making them come out.

Having brought the dog to the tub, the next work is to put him in and thoroughly wet his skin--not an easy matter with a retriever, who may lie in water for ten minutes and yet keep his skin dry. So the keeper works in the water by hand, rubbing the hair the wrong way, and gently persuading the dog to lie down. Once comfortably settled in the tub, a happy look comes over the dog's face. This, by the way, may not be true of the face of the keeper's wife, should she come to her door to watch proceedings, and find that her good man has borrowed her new wash-tub. To make the best of a bad business, she may decide to give her pet goose a good tubbing; and this will be one of the grandest treats in the goose's life.

One old keeper of our acquaintance has a curious recipe for a dog-wash, and swears that in more than fifty years he has not found its equal. You must uproot, he will tell you, an armful of foxglove plants, and boil them in a copper of water. When the infusion is cool enough, rub it well into your dog's coat, and lather him with a little soft soap. "And I'll lay," says the old chap, "that you don't see nothing about a dog after that, and his coat will look fit to go to a wedd'n." The keeper's plan is to leave the lather in his dogs' coats for some little time after they have left the tub. Every lathery dog is tied up in turn in a sunny spot, free from draughts; then all are rinsed in the order of washing, and are taken for a long gambol in a field of grass, the keeper taking care not to let a dog free in a dusty place, for his first act is to have a good roll, regardless of a clean coat.

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Shame-faced Cocks

At harvest-time the old cock pheasants begin to show themselves in the woods again. In April one grew almost weary of the insistent, boasting crows of the vainglorious dandies. Then for months they seemed quite to drop out of woodland society. They like to take things easily through the summer, leaving all family cares to the members of their harems. And no doubt they feel out of sorts, and have no desire to be seen--for they have to pass through the strain of the moulting season.

As the last acre of the cornfield is cut, a hundred young pheasants rise, with self-important splutterings, before the binders, each bird clearly betraying its sex by the growing feathers of maturity. But the cunning old cocks seldom advertise their presence. They slink stealthily out of the field while the machines are making their first rounds, and in a couple of yards from the corn reach the shelter of the hedge. They steal away with lowered heads, as though to hide their faces behind each blade of stubble. A dissipated, dishevelled old ruffian the cock pheasant appears while moulting--with half a tail, many flight feathers missing from the wings (corresponding feathers drop out together from each wing, so that he is not deprived of power of flight), and lacking all the metallic gloss of plumage, burnished gold and bronze. To come suddenly on a moulting cock pheasant--as when he is enjoying a quiet dust-bath--is to pity him. And the way he blunders off suggests that he is heartily ashamed of himself.

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The Turtle-Dove's Summer

In May the turtle-doves were skimming low across the fields, after their arrival in this country. During the last week of August we saw them gathering into little parties of dozens or scores against the hour of their departure. The doves leave before the end of harvest--the first chillness of autumn bids them go. The pigeons remain to continue their feasts of corn. Their cooing from the recesses of the beeches suggests a well-fed laziness. Great feeders as they are, they stuff their crops to bursting-point, and nothing vegetarian or fruitarian seems to come amiss to them--whether the greens of root-crops, acorns, beech-mast, clover, the sown peas, dandelion leaves, sainfoin, anemone roots, charlock, beech buds, the seeds of bluebells, wild strawberries, oak-galls, or corn in all its stages. Turtle-doves pay little attention to corn till harvest-time; the seeds of charlock and of other noxious plants are a greater attraction. Though they fly with wood-pigeons a great deal, their diet is different, and they seem to come to ponds to drink more often than the pigeons, perhaps because some of their favourite foods, such as charlock seeds, are hot and thirst-producing. They are among the farmer's best friends.

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The Lagging Landrail

Whenever we flush a landrail we wonder that so slovenly a bird should be able to cross seas in migration. One doubts its ability to cross a wide river. Those who for the first time see a landrail rise might be excused for supposing it to be wounded--the long legs trail at full length, hardly clearing the heads of the clover which forms its favourite cover. Few birds are so slow in flight, certainly no other game-birds--if it is entitled to be classed with them, because, as for woodcock and snipe, a game licence is required before it may be taken. Beaters have surprised themselves by bagging landrails with sticks and partridge carriers, and we have known a clever retriever to catch a landrail in the air. In spite of her wide experience, the dog mistook the landrail for a wounded bird when it rose, in its heavy way, some twenty yards before her, while she quested for a partridge. As if in revenge for having been fooled, she gave furious chase, and retrieved it. Flushed in a gale of wind, a landrail will make some progress, though its flight at first is rather suggestive of a wind-driven leaf. But after a time the flight grows stronger, as though the wings had worked off some stiffness. No bird seems less willing to be seen than the landrail. Yet it will make itself heard almost continuously from the first streak of dawn until darkness. Its harsh-toned "Crake, crake, crake," seems close at hand at one moment, then far away, suggesting that the bird is swift enough on its legs, if slow in flight. It does not travel far, having arrived from its over-sea journey, haunting, as a rule, one chosen field, where it is seen only by the mower, who may accidentally wound the close-crouching bird with his scythe. Landrails seem to become more scarce every year, and this is often put down to the mowing machine, which it is claimed is more fatal to sitting birds than the scythe. But birds usually run from their nests before the approach of the noisy, whirring machines, and, if they are caught, seldom suffer more than a cut leg; whereas the scythe comes upon them almost unawares, and strikes fatally. Probably some influences bearing upon the migration of landrails have more to do with their scarcity than unnatural destruction. Hiding so closely in the grass or the corn, landrails seem to have every chance of long life in this country.

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The Truce Ends

The first day of August is the most important of the gamekeeper's minor festivals, for the close time under the Wild Birds Protection Act has come to an end; duck-shooting begins to be a legal if not a difficult pastime, and hares, which, unfortunately, may be harassed all the year round, can now be sold openly. The time has come for the cutting of the first cornfields; and this is ever an important event to the keeper, for it allows him to make a shrewd estimate of the quantity of game.

The opening of the duck-shooting season finds the early broods of wild duck strong on the wing; happily, the old practice of shooting the immature birds is dying out. In the barley-fields where the wild duck resort at dusk, the cool passing of an August day makes requital for the heat of noon. Sport, if an object, will at least be unsullied by the modern taint of wholesale slaughtering; apart from shooting, there is the quiet of the fields to be enjoyed, the cool breeze that sets the barley rippling, the perfumes of corn crops, charlock, clover, turnips, and swedes. In a duck country, barley-fields, left standing as they are until dead ripe and after wheat and oats have been harvested, may suffer severely from their nocturnal visitors.

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The Thieving Jay

At this time of year jays will make long excursions from their thickets in the heart of the woods to sample the wheat crops. They go stealthily to their stolen feasts in the early morning, so soon as the ears show signs of turning, nipping off whole ears, and carrying them to some thick hedge for leisurely consumption. If there is a case against jays, there is much in favour of these handsome birds. They do far less harm to game than rooks and other egg-stealers; they may be almost blameless in the matter of game eggs, although when a pair of jays acquire the egg-stealing habit they may clear off three or four hundred eggs in a few days. Their most useful work is the destruction of pigeons' eggs. Of course pigeons do no harm to game, except by clearing off beech-masts and acorns, and the corn sprinkled in the wood; but the damage they sometimes do in the cornfields is enormous, going far to destroy perhaps two out of ten acres of wheat. Still, one must remember that charlock buds, served up with pigeon's milk, form the pigeons' favourite food for their nestlings.

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The Oldest Writing

Day after day the keeper, going his rounds, reads stories of life and death. Here a bent leaf gives the clue: there a stray feather: the snout of a rat tells of a poaching cat that killed the rat, but left the head with its sharp front teeth and strong and long jaw-bone untouched. A shrew's body is seen, snapped up by a cat, but left uneaten on account of the bad taste. The remains of a feast are found, carelessly covered by only a few leaves; another sign of cats' work. A determined cat will kill almost anything that a fox might take; but whereas a cat leaves all the feathers of an old bird, and the skin and fur of old furred creatures, the fox swallows feathers, fur, skin, bones, and all but the wings of birds, and the stomach and clawed feet of ground game. Feathers in a circle by a field hedge tell of a hawk's killing. Feet of little pheasants, and bits of downy skin by the coops in the ride, speak of murdering rooks. A dead rabbit is seen, and four tiny holes are discovered beneath the damp, mouthed fur of the pole--a weasel has sucked the life-blood.

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Prospects

All through the long, anxious months of spring and early summer the keeper has been sifting and weighing the points of evidence upon which he will be able to base a final judgment of the season's prospects. In June there are many signs which go to make up a long story; thus, nest after nest may be found to contain egg-shells, all broken in the same way--nearer the round than the pointed end--telling of the successful hatching of partridges. Then the keeper becomes so accustomed to encountering parent partridges who threaten to bar his way, while their downy chicks magically vanish, that he grows almost indifferent to their agitation. But in July, to judge the welfare of game is extremely difficult. Hedges and woodlands are in the prime of their growth; and in midsummer days luxuriant vegetation hides nearly all birds on the ground. By chance a keeper may happen on a brood; he notes that sixteen have dwindled to ten, and wonders whether the heavy shower three weeks ago come Sunday, or the old vixen he knows too well, or the widow's tortoiseshell cat, must bear the responsibility. But most game-birds seen are old ones--birds perhaps whose nests have been destroyed too late for a second nesting, or birds whose young ones have met with an untimely fate. Wary old birds with families are specially cautious to keep well out of sight. Distressing, then, as it is continually to see barren birds, there is consolation in the knowledge that naturally they are more in evidence than parents with thriving young ones. With July the days pass that are most risky to young game--safe days lie ahead; and with the cutting of the first harvest fields the most valuable of all evidence is gained as to the numbers of birds. Later on, as fields of standing corn become fewer, birds of all sorts flock to them, and estimates of quantity are likely to be misleading. But if it can be proved that three different coveys have been seen during the cutting of a piece of forward corn, it is to err on the moderate side to reckon that there are three others, though unseen. To all interested in the numbers of game-birds these are fateful days.

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Useful Work by Game-Birds

A dry summer is bad for swedes--among other things. Many grow disfigured by wart-like excrescences about the size of a pea. Therein lurk grubs, as partridges and pheasants know. They chip off the warts, and one may see the rusty-looking hole in the centre of each one whence the grub has been taken. All round the swedes these detached warts may be seen, lying face uppermost, and proving the usefulness of game-birds, particularly partridges.

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Life of the Cornfield

All through the year the cornfield gives food and shelter to a host unnumbered--from seed-time to harvest, in the days of stubble and of fallow. To all manner of creatures in fur and feather, insects as the grain in number, grubs below ground, butterflies above, to rank weeds and flowers, the cornfield gives more freely than it yields bread to man. Seagulls come from the coast. Peewits make the field their home in the spring. There are congregations of sparrows and finches. Hosts of starlings that go to roost in the reeds. Wood-pigeons stuff their crops to bursting; turtle-doves come and go. Yellow-hammers sing in the hedges through the midsummer days. The corn-crake runs swiftly through the stems where the partridge has her young brood. Rooks follow the plough, with wagtails that run and dart over the furrows as if gliding on ice. Overhead are larks; and the corn-bunting flies heavily from field to field, his legs trailing as if broken. And birds of prey take their toll of the feeding multitudes. All through the year animal life finds sanctuary in the cornfield. Underground are the moles; the harvest mouse weaves its nest in the corn-stems; the rabbit makes a stop in the field near the hedge, and eats the green blades. To the ripening corn the fox brings her cubs to play. In the ditches are hedgehogs; everywhere are rats, mice, and shrew-mice. The hare follows secret paths, and there are stoats and weasels seeking prey, and finding it on every side. But nowadays there is little or no work for our mills, as wheat-field after wheat-field is turned into grass. The miller is only one among ten thousand sufferers.

The days spent in the cornfield must pass pleasantly for the little foxes in a fine summer. In cornfields, unlike hayfields, there is room between the stems for free movement, there is some chance to look about, there is air and light, cover and shade. Corn-stems are firm and dry, but grass-stems hold the soaking moisture of rain and dew, which saturates the skin even through fur and feather, and quite beyond the remedy of dog-like shakings. Wheat, as we have said, is the corn most favoured of all creatures--where not planted too thickly, and growing on ground not over clean, but dotted plentifully with bunches of knapweed, thistles, and bindweed, and intersected by furrows where the corn has grown poorly, and with open spaces bare to the wind and sun. Winged game, in case prompt flight is necessary, find it easier to start up into the air through the straight, stiff ears of wheat than through the ears of oats and barley. Barley that shares the ground with a rank plant of grass-seeds finds small favour among those many creatures that forsake the airless woods in summer.

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The Keeper's Hopes

Numbers of hares live all the summer in the cornfields. But while many rabbits are born in the corn, when there is a wood at hand most of them retire by day, returning to the corn to feed at night. No rabbit, in sleekness of fur, is comparable to the rabbit that has lived for a few fine weeks among the corn-stems, for the constant brushing of the stems grooms his coat to a state of wonderful fineness. At any moment rabbits in the corn may meet death from the teeth of stoats or weasels; which in turn run a risk, if a slight one, from the fox's teeth; there are plenty of mole-runs into which they may dive in times of danger. In dry weather, the hedgehogs leave the ditches for the corn; and the cornfield, in real summer weather, when there are no foxes about, is a paradise for pheasants and partridges. The gamekeeper, whatever the weather, clings to the faith that the corn hides most of his birds from his sight. There is comfort in the thought that if the birds live he will see them, but if they are killed, nothing will ever tell him the story of his losses.

Man ploughs and sows, but for every man who eats the bread of the fields a million other mouths have been fed. There is no such perfect sanctuary to wild life as a field of corn. What the corn hides nobody knows; though many would gladly know, and seek eagerly to find. The gamekeeper guesses shrewdly what the corn may hide; later he will find what has been hidden, and it is as well for his peace of mind that he can only speculate, at this season, on the game in the field, for he is powerless to interfere. The community of the cornfield is almost safe from man, while the corn stands. If any creature moves in the corn, the stems, bowing to the breeze, cover its progress.

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Finding the Fox

Many a fox family spends the entire summer in the cornfield, and no man is the wiser; but if any should discover the secret, it will be the gamekeeper. Only a giant could see, from the ground, the spot where, in a level cornfield, a family of cubs is taking shelter; the keeper's plan is to climb into a tree, so that his eyes may sweep over acre upon acre at a glance, and spy out the foxes. Even if the nearest tree be a mile or more distant from the playground and refectory of the cubs, his trusty "spy-glass" will reveal the secret--and while he keeps his place in the look-out tree he may signal to a companion, and point the way to the family's eviction. From the top of a tree on the edge of a wood we have found the secret place of a vixen in a field of rank rye; and when we came to the spot, where a large patch of the rye had been rolled flat, we could have filled a wheelbarrow with the remains of partridges, pheasants, rabbits, and hares.

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Harvest Sport

With the harvest comes the great sporting festival of the countryman, in whom alone survives the instinct to hunt for food--though the days have gone when every man killed his own game. This sport of the harvest-field is the countryman's by custom, courtesy, tolerance, favour, and not by law. It is sport for the sake of food, and not for the sake of sport. The quarry is rabbit. Only two people have a real right to rabbits, and that a concurrent right--the farmer in occupation of the land, and the holder for the time being of the sporting rights. But during the cutting of the corn few farmers or sportsmen deny their local workers the privilege and pleasure of catching rabbits. Where permission is withheld it is usually by a small farmer, who looks to the rabbits to help with the rent. The keeper is the last to make objection to the catching of the rabbits, provided that the hares and the winged game are not only spared, but given a chance to escape. He even finds it a profitable policy to help catch the rabbits, and hand over what he catches to be shared out to those who have failed in the scurry and scramble of the sport. If there is any rule or custom about possession of the spoil it is that he who kills a rabbit keeps it. This may be a good rule for those who are lucky--those whose work brings them into each field as it is cut, who excel with stick and stone, or are better runners than their fellows. But it is a bad rule for those who are unlucky; while a carter who sits on a binder from daylight to dark for a month has perhaps the best chance, another who must spend his time drilling turnips, or ploughing a distant field, will never so much as see a rabbit.

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The Luck of the Game