Part 7
Seventeen is the regulation number of pheasant eggs to be put beneath each hen, and seventeen chicks are put with each hen in the coops in the rearing-field. The most motherly hens are selected for service on the rearing-field. Less careful mothers are turned out when they have hatched the eggs, or, if they are willing, are supplied with another clutch. A hen that will hatch several clutches is too useful to be honoured with the task of bringing up a brood, and must be content to play the part of a living incubator. The keeper knows his hens through and through--and he can tell when a hen has chicks without seeing them, by the bristling of her feathers at his approach, and her instinctive clucking.
An incubator helps the keeper to cope with the whims and frailties of broody hens. It is always ready to receive those unexpected eggs which may be brought to his cottage at any moment, as when sitting birds are disturbed by sheep or cut out in the mowing grass. And it is ready to take charge of the eggs abandoned by a fowl, or the chipped eggs of a foster-mother which shows an inclination to crush the chicks as hatched. Yet it will be long before it ousts the broody barn-door hen from the rearing-field.
In the days before incubators, keepers who found themselves with more eggs than hens were forced to strange shifts. One keeper saved the situation with the help of ducks. Wild duck nested in numbers on an island in a lake, and one spring day he took six hundred pheasants' eggs to the island, exchanging them for the eggs of the sitting ducks. The ducks proved excellent sitters, but as his hens became available he would punt to the island to relieve the ducks of their charge. Pheasants were more prized in those days than wild duck. Such a sacrifice of duck for pheasants would be saved to-day by the ever-ready incubator.
While pheasant-rearing is chiefly a matter of skill, luck plays a part in success, and of course a light warm soil, a good situation, a good supply of natural food, and good weather make all the difference. If eighty eggs hatch out in a hundred this is considered good; if less than seventy hatch, this is bad. A keeper may congratulate himself if he turns a thousand pheasants into covert from fifteen hundred eggs set; anything below one bird turned into covert from two eggs is considered a poor result. Keepers believe that chicks cannot be hatched too late in May or too early in June.
After about twenty-four days the eggs hatch, and the little chicks are taken with the hens to coops placed in readiness in the rearing-field; a place so jealously guarded by the keeper as to be in his eyes sacred land. Four or five times daily the chicks must be fed--at first on eggs, to which is added later a mixture of biscuit-meal, rice, greaves, and small bird-seed, until boiled corn becomes the staple food. Every night the chicks must be shut carefully into their coops--a long and tiresome task. The danger of enteritis looms up--ten thousand chicks may be swept off in a week. When five or six weeks old, chicks, hens, and coops are carted away in waggons to the woods, where the chicks must face the dangers of vermin by night as well as by day until they learn to go to roost.
* * * * *
From Egg to Larder
For the keeper the days and nights spent in his rearing-fields pass in incessant anxiety. He never counts his pheasants before they are hatched. He may count them as morsels of fluff; when they begin to use their babyish wings; again when they fill the broad ride with a mass of seething brown--but not until the bracken is dead, and the trees are naked, and the game-cart has borne away its burden, does he count them as his own. Nor does his anxiety cease until the long tails hang safely in his larder.
* * * * *
Fine Eggs and Good Mothers
"They be a good lot of eggs," the keeper will inform you as he reveals his store, ready to be given to the quickening warmth of broody fowls. "I don't know as ever I set eyes on better," he will add, "and I don't expect you have neither." If you denied this he would not believe you. His pheasants' eggs are like the apple blossoms: each year more beautiful than ever. And the more plentiful the more beautiful. Noting the keeper, as he goes out in search of broody hens, you might mistake him for a dealer in rags and bones. He tramps all round the countryside with an old sack slung over his back--one of the light, thin kind in which dog-biscuits come; or sometimes he drives in a gig, and poultry-farmers welcome him gladly. He pays half a crown or three shillings for each hen in broody mood, and so helps to make poultry pay. His difficulty is to find broody hens at the time when he most needs them. The ideal is a healthy bird, not one with pallid comb or inclined to mope; she must be of medium size and of light weight, with short legs, small feet, and a wealth of downy feathers. Above all, she must be quiet in demeanour. The fidgety, fussy hen may have excellent intentions, but is likely to cause disaster to her eggs and chicks. A big hen with the sprawliest feet, but of gentle disposition, and slow to anger, will often prove a better foster-mother than one a model in form, feather, and feet, but in temperament a spitfire.
* * * * *
The Cub-stealing Shepherd
Illicit traffic in fox-cubs and partridge eggs is hard to stamp out. So long as men will buy fox-cubs and eggs there will be men to supply them. If there were no buyers there would be middlemen, and there would be fewer cubs which bear the label, "From Germany." Cubs, wherever they come from, fetch a good price, giving ample profit for an hour's hard digging--say ten shillings each. Cub-snatching is less risky than egg-stealing. So far as we know, even to kill cubs is not an offence against the law, and so there can hardly be a penalty for taking them alive. The worst that could happen to the culprit would be a prosecution for simple trespass and damage. A cunning, rascally cub-stealer of our acquaintance was employed by none other than the local M.F.H. He was a shepherd, and nothing pleased him better than to hear that foxes were plentiful when hounds came his way. He knew that in the spring he would reap many pounds by cub-snatching, and with small risk of rousing suspicion. But one spring morning he was caught in the very act of cub-snatching, and then he ceased to be that Master's shepherd.
* * * * *
Lures and Charms
The old-fashioned professional rat-catcher is seen as rarely as the mole-catcher, with his rude traps of wood, wire and string, actuated by a spring of green wood from the hedgerow. And with the rat-catcher have passed the secrets of his calling--how, when and where to use oils and essences to attract rats to their doom. He knew how to handle rats alive with his naked hands, and the trick of squeezing the life from their bodies. The experienced take rats by the back of the throat, but unless the grip is made in just the right way a dangerous bite may be received. The safest plan for the inexperienced is to take live rats by the tip end of their tails; then they are helpless, since their own weight keeps their heads down. Mice, treated in this way, would curl up and nip their captor's fingers in a twinkling. He was a deep character, the old rat-catcher. If there were many rats he would destroy many--but if few he would take good care to leave behind him some fine specimens for stock. No doubt the oils and preparations invented by himself, or handed down to him by his ancestors, would not only attract rats for his catching, but would attract others after he had gone, so that his trade was kept alive. Thus, perhaps, arose the old saying that if you kill one rat twelve friends will come to its funeral. Oils are still used as lures by the fish-poacher, and also by the gamekeeper. To draw rats into his traps the keeper sprinkles them with the sweet-scented oil of rhodium-wood and oil of aniseed. To attract cats he uses tincture of valerian; the essences in the root of that plant having so great a charm for cats that it will draw them from far and near. To attract stoats and weasels he uses oil of musk. To entice a fox, a dead cat is one of the best lures: many a fox, to our knowledge, has owed its death to an over-keenness in unearthing a cat that had been shot and lightly buried. We have heard that dog-stealers induce dogs to follow them by carrying a piece of wart from a horse's leg--we know a simpler plan. The keeper's woodcraft teaches him many ways to charm wild creatures to their destruction. A common trick to bring rabbits from their holes is to imitate the squeal of a rabbit in fear, by applying the lips to the back of the hand, and producing a tremulous sucking sound. Possibly the rabbits think that a brother is in distress, and come to see from curiosity.
* * * * *
The Law and the Peewit
The eggs of plovers in some parts are now receiving protection all the year round, the Board of Agriculture having given notice that peewits feed wholly to the benefit of field crops and do no injury whatever to the interests of farmers. The greedy and the thoughtless have taken plovers' eggs in unreasonable numbers, and total protection is to be welcomed. It may be argued that peewits' eggs are a rare delicacy, and wholesome food; that where they may be taken a limited number of old men may earn a few shillings; that a law superior to find-and-take would be difficult to enforce; also that taking the eggs until about the middle of April does not materially affect the numbers of peewits. What with the effects of frosts and the destruction of eggs during the tillage of fields, such as harrowing the fallows and rolling the grass and cornfields, where peewits mostly nest, the greater portion of the first layings cannot in any case survive. But those allowed to take eggs for the sake of profit will not stop at early ones, and peewits are such useful birds that thorough protection for all the eggs would be the best policy.
* * * * *
The Partridge and the Peewit
The partridge and the peewit seem to lead almost blameless lives. We could claim that the productive value of land is improved by the presence of partridges and peewits. There is no end to the good work of partridges. Even when they devour grain, they are innocent of doing harm, for they eat only such grain as is shed on the stubbles--waste grain which none could grudge them. They never seek out grain newly sown, like the rooks. When a field has been harrowed, directly the men and horses have gone, the partridges gather in numbers to feed, and though they may come after the field has been sown, they come as readily before, as it is not the grain, but the slugs, grubs, worms, and insects they are seeking; bits of weeds and their seeds, aphides, earwigs, and ants' eggs are eagerly devoured.
* * * * *
A Friend to Agriculture
The partridge is disheartened when a broad acreage is laid down to grass; insect food grows scarce, and he soon takes his departure. On arable land thrown out of cultivation the birds will thrive, because of the hosts of weeds that spring up, and give them food and shelter; insect food is found on the surface, and partridges multiply. But nothing suits them better than highly cultivated arable land. The more the soil is worked, as by harrows, the more food they are able to find--and the more good they do by destroying insects and grubs that injure delicate roots. Where land is needed for partridges there is every need also of the peasant; and partridges bring the peasant many a shilling for nests, and, when work is scarce, many a day's employment at good wages (such as wages are), with a hearty lunch into the bargain.
* * * * *
The Rats in the Stacks
No doubt one reason why farmers fail to co-operate properly with gamekeepers in keeping rats down is because they do not see the damage which rats inflict upon them. A farmer is deeply troubled if he sees a blade of corn or grass nibbled by a rabbit; he will make frantic efforts to secure that rabbit--which has a market value. But a rat does little visible damage, and when dead is worth nothing. Another cause of apathy is that the farmer knows how useless it is to deal with the rats on his own premises when the supply is promptly renewed from his neighbours'. In a single corn-stack he entertains cheerfully, perhaps, 500 rats. Assuming that each rat eats three pints of corn a week, the 500 rats in three months eat fifty pounds' worth of corn, to say nothing of the grain and straw they damage. In a day, ten rats will consume enough food to keep a man. If anything further were needed to impress a rat-cherishing farmer, we might point to the statement that a female rat may be responsible, theoretically, for between twenty and thirty thousand descendants in the course of twelve months. But it is left to the gamekeeper to be the rat-catcher of the countryside. The farmer goes cheerfully to bed, unaware that rats are enjoying themselves in his stacks to the tune of two or three pounds a day. Many keepers destroy two or three thousand rats in a year.
* * * * *
Thoughts on Rat-hunting
As a hunter of rats the gamekeeper has no equal, though he could do little without the help of his trusty ferrets and ratting terriers. He and his assistants are on terms of thorough understanding. We know an old keeper whose ferrets seem to have a strong affection for him; they are quiet to handle, and are treated as pets, but they are the best ratting ferrets in the world. The keeper does not care to use good rabbiting ferrets for ratting: they may be lost and bitten to death--a rat bite is always dangerous. Ratting ferrets need peculiar qualities, and are not necessarily the most ferocious of their kind.
The keeper's ferrets seldom nip him, for he knows how to handle them. A ferret nips, and is not to be blamed for it, when a hand suddenly makes a grab at him without warning. The keeper's way to attract a ferret's attention is by speaking before touching. "Come on, Betty," or "Come on, Jack," he says in soothing tones, as he boldly puts forward his hand. His passwords of friendship are useful for coaxing a ferret from a hole or from impenetrable bushes. The ferrets tell him if a rat is near by the action of their tails as they enter a burrow, working them after the manner of a cat about to spring on a mouse.
* * * * *
When Cats are Angered
Why should cats and ferrets at times lash their tails when approaching prey? The tail-lashing suggests suppressed excitement, also a way of gaining impetus or steadiness for a spring. But we think it should be read chiefly as a sign of hostility and ferocity. A ferret enters a burrow, discovers that there is a rat a little distance from him, is angered, grows excited at the prospect of a fight, and lashes his tail. But we have never observed a ferret to lash his tail when approaching a rabbit--comparatively a harmless prey. A cat gives the same storm-signal when annoyed, as when her fur is rubbed the wrong way, or when she is about to spring on a mouse or a rat, each capable of retaliation. But she seems to lash her tail chiefly when her prey has come suddenly to her notice without warning; when she has been lying for a long time in wait for a mouse, her tail hardly twitches, in spite of her excitement; she is cool and collected, and her spring brings certain death.
* * * * *
Hunters' Thirst
When rat-hunting, and working hard, ferrets and dogs grow excessively thirsty. One old keeper friend always takes the trouble to carry with him a small flask of water for his ferrets, offering it to them at intervals in the palm of his hand. For his dogs also he carries water and a tin dish--while he seldom goes out ratting without a gallon jar containing what he describes as "a little summat" for himself.
* * * * *
Life-in-Death
Now and again it happens that a ferret is killed accidentally while at work. And sometimes dead ferrets return to life, health, and strength in a way to put even cats to shame. We recall how a rat-hating keeper's wife, notorious for the quality of her right arm, was one day helping her husband to hunt rats in a wood-shed. On the ferret suddenly popping out his head from a wood-pile, the good woman lost her wits, and aimed a shrewd blow with her poker at the ferret's nose. In tears, she left the poor little beast still and stark. A gardener was asked to bury it, and plant a carnation over the grave. He found it in the dustbin, eating the head of a duck.
In another case, a rat-hunter knocked a ferret with a hurdle-stake from the eaves of a corn-stack far out into a field, where it was picked up apparently dead, and put into a bag. Some hours later the body was tipped from the bag into a little grave, when it startled the gravedigger by gasping for breath. In a little while the corpse celebrated its resurrection by slaughtering all the pheasants in a pen, and just as they were beginning to lay. Once we saw a ferret struck by a pellet from a gun, which went through its head, a hair's-breadth below the eyes. Both eyes were blinded; yet the ferret recovered, and lived and worked as long and well as most of its kind. Ferrets are tougher than they look. The weak spot, no doubt, is in the lungs.
* * * * *
Ideal Ratters
The present type of show fox-terrier is too big and too long in the leg for ratting in hedges. Little dogs are called for, full of sense and pluck, with wide heads, strong jaws, bully chests and short bodies on short legs, which carry them as quick as lightning almost anywhere among the thorn hedges. The keeper does not care for his ratting terriers to hunt anything but rats--and the difference in the work of a rat specialist and a general-purpose dog must be seen to be believed. He does not enter his puppies to old rats, for the puppies may be badly bitten, and perhaps their ardour and dash will be ruined, and they will never look at a rat again.
The general-purpose terrier develops grave faults. If a rabbit or a hare is started, he prefers giving chase to going on with the rat business: he attacks ferrets as well as rats, and he prevents rats from bolting by jumping about over the burrows and poking his nose into them too freely. A terrier must be taught to restrain himself until a rat has bolted. The keeper holds him down, cuffs and rates him soundly each time he tries to go too soon, but gives lavish praise if he waits until the right moment. After a time, the little terriers so well understand the necessity for allowing rats to bolt that they will crouch as motionless as statues, with their noses almost touching the edge of the hole. So crafty was one we have owned, that she would crouch in this way, with her body round the corner, out of sight.
All plans for the destruction of rats are welcomed by the keeper, because rats are the most numerous of all egg-thieves. He heartily joins the foxes, stoats, and weasels in their war on rats, though he is for ever at war with his co-operators. He believes that there are now more rats than ever, and has figures at his finger-tips to prove the growth of the rat-plague. If, he argues, there were only one rat to every acre in England and Wales, and if each rat did damage only to the extent of one farthing a day, the loss in a year would be £15,000,000. And he quotes a report which says that a single poultry-fancier in Dorsetshire lost £80 in a year through rats; that the owner of a flour-mill lost £150 in a year, through the gnawing of sacks alone; that men have attributed their bankruptcy chiefly to rats; and that the damage done by rats in this country is greater than the damage done by the cobra and tiger in India.
The gamekeeper holds that there ought to be complete, organised co-operation against rats over wide areas, and heavily blames the farmers for not giving proper assistance to keepers in their rat-war. By delaying over-long the threshing of their corn-stacks farmers certainly give rats a grand chance to increase and multiply; and when ricks are left unthreshed until April the rats leave them without let or hindrance, to spread over the countryside as the weather grows warmer, and food is to be found everywhere. The keeper argues that ricks should be threshed betimes, to allow the rats to be properly dealt with. A day or two beforehand he would have the rats which lie in out-lying burrows, in neighbouring hedges, driven into the rick; this can be effected by tainting the burrows with paraffin--a simple plan is to blow in smoke from paraffin-steeped rags with a bee-smoker. Then the keeper would have the rick surrounded by half-inch wire-netting. At the time of the threshing he would like to be summoned to the scene, and he would see to it that there were six or seven smart ratting-dogs present, and that they were constantly supplied with drinking-water. In one case where this plan was tried, six hundred rats were accounted for from one rick. Even after threshing and rat-killing on these lines, rats will be found, if sought, in hidden holes where the rick stood--packed to suffocation to the number perhaps of seventy or eighty.
* * * * *
Ratting without Ferrets
The keeper does not always take his ferrets with him when he goes ratting. Usually they are too large to enter rat-holes freely, and even the small rat-ferret has difficulty in turning round. And when a ferret has once entered a hole a rat cannot pass him, and so may be prevented from bolting and showing sport. The sport takes place underground, unless the ferret retreats while there is time. The fight ends either in severe punishment for the ferret or in the death of the rat; when the ferret proceeds to gorge himself on his victim--and to lie up.
Again, it is more difficult to find a lingering ferret in a rat's hole than in a rabbit's burrow; a line-ferret sent in to explore cannot move about in the small rat passages as in the roomy tunnels of rabbits, and so cannot locate the free ferret. To dig for a ferret in a rat's run is always risky; the diameter is so small that the spade may cut through without any warning, and also cut through the ferret. When the spade breaks through the crown of a rabbit's hole, on the floor of which is the ferret, the man with the spade naturally eases his pressure. But the ferret fills the rat-hole to the roof.
There is still another danger in ratting with ferrets; the dogs, unless very well trained, may bring about a tragedy. Even when a dog is ferret-proof the ferret may plunge teeth into the dog, who naturally retaliates. On all these accounts the keeper may prefer to go ratting with an iron bar in place of a ferret.
By using an iron bar instead of ferrets for bolting rats, all kinds of difficulties and delays are prevented; and the keeper is free to go home at any time without having to wait for loitering allies. To strike an iron bar into a rat's hole is to strike terror into the rat's heart. One might probe a rabbit's burrow with a bar for a month, and no rabbit would bolt--indeed, the more one probed the tighter would the rabbit sit. In rabbiting, a bar is used only to find holes and save digging. But thrust a bar anywhere near a rat's subterranean lair, and probably the rat will bolt, as if possessed, at the first time of asking. Such an effect does probing have on rats that they will fly before the crowbar well knowing that enemies await their appearance. Even with a dog at the hole who has grabbed at the rat more than once, the rat will fly before a shrewd thrust. The art of thrusting is to drive the bar into the hole behind the rat, not blocking the way by which it will bolt.