Part 13

To find out how the wild birds have fared is always difficult: one never sees them properly until the days of shooting are at hand--and not always then, when a sight of them rather under than over forty yards distant might be welcome. We may pass by a wood outside which many pheasants may be feeding, as a flock of fowls, or sitting lazily about on the fences, some perhaps indolently stretching a wing in the pleasant wallow of a dust-bath; but this does not prove that pheasants have done well--merely that there are so many pheasants at a certain place; it does not even prove that they will be there the next day. Such a spot may be a place where large numbers of pheasants are reared. One may count a hundred birds in the corner of a field--perhaps there should have been a hundred and fifty. Or perhaps the hundred to be seen means better luck than usual in the breeding season in that particular part. A man who sees pheasants where he does not know how many were bred may think a dozen a large number, or he may view with scorn the sight of several hundreds if he has been accustomed to see thousands. We know places where so many pheasants may be seen at any time as to suggest that they swarm there regardless of the season. But the birds seen casually may have been bought from a game-farm and turned down, to make up a supply that failed. However, it always delights the sportsman's eye to see many pheasants about a wood--especially if he has the shooting.

From a just standpoint, it is the comparison of what might have been with what is that settles the verdict on the pheasant season. The season cannot be judged by the birds of one preserve. Allowance must be made for many points. The number of wild broods to wild hens left to manage their own affairs, and the number of eggs set under fowls and how they hatched must be considered. Then the quality of the rearing-ground makes one district much better than another--whether heavy or light, low-lying or high, and rich or poor in natural food. The question of foxes must be weighed, and one would like to know before judging a season from any one case how many birds were turned into covert at five to seven weeks old, and how many fell victims to foxes--to say nothing of gapes.

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Weather to pray for

The keeper may control the supply of hand-reared birds: he may make up for the spoiling of an egg, or the loss of a chick, which would otherwise mean a pheasant the less; but he has no control over the season as it affects wild birds. What he prays for is a showery April, with a sun to shine between the storms. And he wants fair weather after the middle of May, the longer the better. A bright warm summer is good for all pheasants, whether it be their fate to start life beneath a fowl in a stuffy, if cosy, coop, or to be gathered beneath the breast and wings of their real mother in the wood, or among the corn. A fine summer means more to birds than to man, for to them it is a matter of life or death.

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After the Opening

Walking home through the woods on the evening of an October First, we came to a standstill before a low tree-branch on which an old cock pheasant was going to roost. We were within a yard of him; yet he sat stock-still, and stared at us fearlessly with unblinking eyes. The minutes passed, and after we had stood there for some little time, staring back at the old pheasant, it really seemed that we had established a bond of communication. And this is what we understood the old cock to be saying:

"Here I am, you see, and not afraid of you; and none the worse for an opening day that has been, I must admit, a trifle lively. And I may inform you that before I went to roost I made careful inquiries among my very numerous progeny, and not one is a feather the worse for all the banging that has been going on. All are in good condition, in fine plumage, and strong on the wing as usual, and, I may add, on the leg. By the way, I myself, in the course of the day, from a secure retreat, watched more than one sportsman critically examining the bodies of several unfortunate birds--needless to say, there was no son or daughter of mine among them. _Good_ night."

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An October Day

Here is the gamekeeper's idea of what constitutes a pleasantly flavoured October 1: The day should break with a misty dawn, grey dewy cobwebs everywhere betokening a visible if tardy sun. There should be a brace of spaniels whose occasional lapses after fur are atoned for by their untiring energy among the blind tangles of hedgerows and dells. There should be three guns whose object is to enjoy sport and to make a mixed bag, including incidentally the first pheasants--without the formality of the so-called battue. There should be a couple of experienced beaters, and a keeper whose soul is set on circumventing certain wary old cocks that are known to him as leaders astray of youthful birds. The killing of pheasants should not be the main thing; if the charm of the First of October lay only in this it would quickly fade. Next to the potting of young rooks with a shot-gun as they sit stoically near their nests, few phases of shooting call for less skill than pheasant-shooting in early October.

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Low Flight and High

Grouse, partridges, and pheasants are low-flying birds, unlike wood-pigeons and rooks; it is their habit to skim along near to earth. And pheasants might be truly described as ground birds. Only on occasions do they fly high, and then usually for one of three definite causes. Flushed on high ground they may maintain a high elevation as they cross a valley. Rising on low ground, the direction of their flight may necessitate an upward line, as when trees or hills lie before them. Forced to rise suddenly, having lain low while danger has approached, on finding men in full sight between themselves and the place they have determined to reach they then rocket instinctively. Rooks and wood-pigeons naturally fly at a height well out of gunshot; and the cynical critic of British shooting methods might observe with truth that the bagging of a dozen ordinary wood-pigeons involves a higher order of sportsmanship than the bagging of fifty ordinary pheasants.

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Wily Grouse Cocks

As with partridges, a great benefit has followed the fashion of driving grouse, instead of walking them up, with setters and pointers: for the familiar reason that the old birds come first to the guns and are the first to be shot. If not shot, these old birds would not allow the young ones to nest near them, and would drive them far afield: and another advantage is that the young birds which are spared are the most productive. Moorland keepers at the end of the season are at pains to kill off old cocks, which are such enemies to the peaceful nesting of the young birds; and many are their devices for stalking and calling them to their doom. Except when feeding, the wary old birds like to be able to look all about them, and perch on walls and hillocks, whence, holding their heads high, their eyes may sweep afar for foes. Unlike partridges, they are not content with the grain in the stubble, but will perch on the stooks at harvest-time, to attack the sheaves.

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Rewards for Cubs

Until the last field of corn is cut, cubs are spared their introduction to the joys and sorrows of hunting; but at the end of harvest their time is at hand. Few keepers look forward to the coming of hounds for cubbing. When hounds do come there is nothing more disappointing to the keeper than that they should not find the cubs, of whose dark deeds he has been complaining all the summer. Not only does he lose the prospect of a sovereign reward, but the cubs are still at large to carry on their havoc, while he may appear to have been crying wolf where there were no wolves; the loss of the sovereign is much less to him than the loss of his credit and the prospective loss of his birds. Different hunts have different methods of rewarding keepers whose cubs are found by hounds. One hunt works on the irrational plan of giving a keeper a sovereign for each litter found, and ten shillings extra if a cub is killed. This is almost as much as to ask the keeper to take steps towards handicapping the cubs when the pack presses. The keeper knows how important it is that the young entry shall taste blood at this time, and he knows that if scent fails, the best way to ensure a kill is to allow the cub to run to ground. Instead of completely stopping an earth, he arranges a slight barricade of twigs; and then he may know, by whether the cub has broken the barricade or not, if it has run to ground. He takes care to have a spade and a pick-axe close at hand. The well-intentioned reward really ends in spoiling sport.

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"Various"--the Landrail

In the bag of September partridge-shooting, the landrail is often the only bird booked under the heading "Various," save for an occasional wood-pigeon; at any rate, many look to the landrail to fill the "Various" column, if they often look in vain. On a calm day, the landrail is a weird mark, with its heavy, laboured flight, and its dangling legs; the bird hardly suggests a sporting shot. But few who have shot landrails have not also missed them. Landrails will even put to shame the sportsman who has been bagging his brace of partridges with wearisome monotony. So slow, as a rule, is the landrail in heading away, after its silent rising from sainfoin or clover, that we have seen one bagged by a thrown stick, another knocked down by a keeper's partridge-carrier, as he held it in his hand, and another caught on the wing by a dog; of course this is nothing uncommon. We have even seen a terrier point and pounce on a landrail that was crouching beneath its nose. But when a fair wind is blowing, the slow landrail becomes as difficult a mark to hit as a snipe or a woodcock. And a landrail has a disappointing habit of dropping when it comes to a hedge, for all the world like a dead bird, though very much alive.

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Sport amid the Shocks

Sportsmen may find partridge-shooting among shocks of uncarried corn more interesting than shooting over a bare expanse of barren stubble. The shocks or stooks help to mark the birds, alive or dead; and they cause them to rise to a convenient height, so that they show sharp and clear against the sky, instead of skimming away low against the baffling tints of the autumn fields. And birds seem to lie better among stooks than on bare stubble. They cannot see well or far among the stooks, and they like to linger in the dusting-places that they make in sheltered, sunny spots. Another point worth mentioning is less obvious but none the less true--the stooks help the eye in aiming. It always seems easier to hit a pheasant flying high between the tops of trees, as down an avenue open to the sky, than in the open. So in the cornfields before the harvest is garnered. And there is still another point which adds to the charm found in shooting among the corn-sheaves: when a covey bustles up, the birds spread out and scatter, for they cannot see all the party at the same time; and so they may give each gunner a mild taste of what the days of driving will bring.

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"Mark"

Some men have a special gift for marking a bird that is down, while others never know where the bird fell within half an acre. But marking is only a matter of training the eyes, and anybody may learn the trick: in time the eyes accurately note what they see almost unconsciously. The sportsman cannot be too accurate in marking the fall of a bird. The great thing is to take a good line--an imaginary line drawn from the eye to the place where the bird fell: if at a far distance, the actual spot will be nearer in reality than it seems. The accustomed eye finds points which mark the line, if not the very spot, where the bird has fallen--a spray of charlock flower, a thistle-stem, or a tinted leaf. When a bird falls at a distance it is helpful to take some prominent object in front and behind to mark the line--such as a gap and a sapling in opposite hedges.

A sportsman who is a master of the art of marking knows where to come upon each bird he shoots singly; and when he scores a brace he knows all about the second bird. Often he knows much more about the first bird than those who have nothing else to do but to mark. The usual rule is for the attendant to mark the first bird that falls and the shooter the second. With two men to mark one bird it should be quite easy to find the place. The bird will be within a yard of where the two imaginary lines intersect. A common mistake made by sportsmen is to suppose that because they have fired at a bird coming towards them it must have fallen in front of them: more probably it has fallen several yards behind, especially if it be a bird brought down by the second barrel. It is not easy to mark the place where a covey pitches. On seeing the birds suddenly lower their line of flight, a sportsman may suppose they have alighted, unless he still keeps a watchful eye on them, for birds often lower their flight when they have crossed a hollow or a valley, and then skim on low over the crest of the hill. However, when birds lower their line of flight, after flying some distance, it is a sign that they contemplate settling.

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The Keeper's Dogs

Among the many clever things that a gamekeeper's retriever learns is how to mark a partridge which flies a long way and then towers. When once he has grasped what is meant by the rising of a covey, the firing of a shot, and the sight of a bird soaring away from the rest and falling like a stone, he soon begins to watch for the bird that towers, even without the exhortation, "Mark that bird!" A clever retriever will mark the distant fall of a bird seen by no one but himself, and either will dash off for the spot or show strong symptoms of wanting to go. The well-trained dog finds the bird that he has not seen fall. On being ordered to "go on" he gallops in the direction indicated by a wave of his master's hand, and when he hears the word "Halt," or sees a hand-signal, then he begins to cast, and seldom in vain. A retriever will retrace his steps for a couple of miles or more to bring home a dead rabbit or bird which his master has left behind in mistake. One fine retriever had been trained never to give up game except to her master; and it happened that as she was picking up a dead hare another was wounded and ran away before her. She set off in pursuit, carrying the dead hare, and though every man in a long line of beaters, keepers, and guns attempted to relieve her of her burden, she refused to give it up. On catching the wounded hare, she calmly held it down with one paw and waited until her master came to her assistance. Keepers, of all men, have least doubt about the reasoning powers of their dogs.

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Woodcock Owls

Autumn brings with woodcock the woodcock owls--as the short-eared owls are called, because their flight is like a woodcock's, or because they come at the same time. We would make the strongest plea for the preservation of these most useful owls. When an unusual number appeared in parts of the South of England, they made themselves very busy among the rats that had taken lodgings in the root-fields. Yet a party of town shooters, out after partridges, gloated more over the bagging of one of these owls than over all the rest of their spoil. The owl was wounded only enough to be caught--and his wound had cost the party eleven cartridges. Perhaps if the short-eared owl bred here he might be tempted to prey on young game; but very few remain to breed in the north, and the young game is grown when the autumn migration begins. Rats and mice with occasional small birds and some beetles form the staple diet.

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Dogs that Despise Woodcock

The difference in the tastes of dogs is curious, and often strongly marked. Two terriers, boon companions at home, were taken to the Hebrides; in their home haunts they hunted the same game together--rats, rabbits, hares, partridges, and pheasants--but in the north the chief sport was among woodcock, though there were thousands of rabbits. Yet neither dog flushed a single woodcock, save by accident, nor would take the slightest interest in any but rabbit sport. They showed that marked aversion to woodcock common to many dogs not used to them. Sometimes dogs will acquire a taste for hunting and retrieving woodcock, and then make this a speciality. A curious point in the case of the two terriers was that one suddenly became very fond of the remains of cooked woodcock, whether hungry or not, while the other refused ever to look at them, even when purposely kept on short commons by way of experiment. It was a strange sight to see the appreciative dog crunch up the frame of a woodcock, winding up the performance by stowing away the head, bill and all.

The best retrievers usually refuse to pick up and carry a woodcock, unless specially schooled to carry anything from puppyhood. To train puppies to fetch and carry things objectionable alike to their sense of smell and touch, perhaps the best plan is to teach them to retrieve well-filled tobacco-pouches. They may be thrown long distances, and a dog will never bite them--at least, twice--and so acquires a perfect mouth. A retriever not trained in this way will probably refuse to touch a woodcock, in spite of every coaxing--one, induced at last to pick up a woodcock, has been known to spit it out, turning up his lip in contempt, and otherwise showing his intense scorn. Now and again a young and obedient retriever may bring in woodcock at the first trial--but with a look of anything but relish.

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Pets of Pigs

One hardly thinks of pigs as possible pets; yet those who have brought them up and acted the part of foster-mother, agree that they make charming pets, energetic and entertaining. They soon know the step of their master, and rush furiously to greet him with every sign of delight. If properly kept no pet could be more cleanly in habit.

We know a village pig-butcher who, by the irony of fate, made a pet of two little pigs, and was very proud of his black and white twins, as he called them. He reared them by hand, and nothing could be more entertaining than their way of taking their meals of milk and water; they had been trained to rest their front trotters on a box, with the idea of saving their foster-parent's garments, and would greet the sight of their bottle with joyous grunts. These piglets, at weaning-time, had cost their master in food the sum of 7_s._ 9_d._ Had he cared to sell them they would have brought him in about £4 each; or supposing he were to kill them himself and convert them into bacon, his bacon would cost him about 3-1/2_d._ a pound. That this was his intention we gathered from his remark: "I'll see as I don't pay no more 'levenpences a pound for bacon." The pigs in the first place had cost him nothing; they were the "darls" or last-born pigs of their litters, which are generally inferior to their numerous brothers and sisters, and are often given away. Clearly a darl may make a profitable pet.

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Some Deals in Dogs

The gamekeeper, as a rule, is an old hand at dog-dealing. All keepers have an eye for a dog, and are tempted to buy for a song any sort of sporting dog, in the hope of making a few shillings or pounds by a quick sale. We knew a keeper who would buy almost anything that could be described as a dog, but his stock price was "A bob and a pot"--a shilling, that is to say, with a quart of beer. When a shoot is let, and the keeper's services go with it, he often has a good chance to make money over dog-deals. Outgoing tenants commonly make him a present of a useful, general-purpose retriever, or spaniel--a dog that has done a good deal of all-round work on the shoot. A dog may be a good dog only on one shoot, or he may obey only one keeper; so when the tenant goes away he leaves his dog where it can do the most good in the world, kennel, chain, collar and all. Then a new tenant comes in, to whom the keeper offers the dog with its outfit--the whole being, as he declares, "honestly worth five pounds to the shoot." But he will take three pounds, and it is clear profit. And the new tenant makes a good bargain.

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Marked Birds

A white or a pied bird, whether rook, blackbird, starling, finch, or sparrow, never fails to hold the eye, and may become a character of public interest in a neighbourhood. Its usual fate is to be shot--the fate of any rare wild creature. The sportsman sees no special reason for sparing a pied pheasant that has come to his coverts--he shoots it at the first chance for the sake of the few seconds' pleasure given by the curious plumage before it is tossed with the rest on the game-cart. But the keeper silently mourns for the death of the pied bird. If he voices his lament, he receives a stock answer: "Well, it is too late now." Happy the keeper who succeeds in catching up a bird that he treasures, so that he may give it safe shelter until the rattle of guns is silenced.

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Colour-Changes in Feathers

"Once a pied bird always a pied bird" is the expression of a common fallacy. A pheasant may be almost white for months, then change colour, and become hardly different from other birds. A pied bird tends to become more pied as the time of moulting approaches. A homely illustration of this increasing lightness of colour is seen when a black cat is about to change its coat; then the fur turns a rusty brown. When this is shed the new growth seems blacker than ever. A black cat or dog with white marks nearly always has young with similar markings. And if you have a white or pied hen pheasant, in spite of the fact that after a moult her new feathers may come of the ordinary brown shade, you may expect, perhaps, half the chicks from her eggs to wear their mother's pretty white or pied dress. Birds that have been pied in their youth, then have put on sober apparel, again put on the showy shade of feathers in their old age, though it is a lucky pheasant that reaches anything like old age, whether pied or not.

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Nature's Healing

Nature is a kindly doctor--and though any accident to the flying or running powers of a wild creature probably means death, miraculous recoveries are to noted. Rabbits commonly suffer from broken legs, whether from gunshot, trap, or other cause; but limbs often heal and become serviceable members again. Nor is a broken wing always enough to cause the death of a game-bird. Should the bird escape its foes while the broken bone is setting, it may live to fly, if not quite as well as ever. We noticed once that one bird in a covey of partridges flew more slowly than the others; it was shot, and when picked up we found that there had been an old wing fracture, and that the broken ends had crossed and overlapped in setting. A curious case was that of a partridge which was shot in the wing, and ran when followed through the turnips by a retriever. Several times the bird sprang above the turnips, attempting, but in vain, to fly; then, when the dog seemed about to catch it, the bird gave a final spring, and this time flew straight away. But after fifty yards or so it dropped to earth, falling almost perpendicularly. The explanation seemed to be that the fractured bone-ends had joined, and kept their place accidentally, for the few moments of the flight.

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A Little Story