Part 38

Unfortunately, he had experienced a bad fall whilst in Canada, which told upon his health and constitution ever afterwards. Indeed, this would have been the cause of banishing many less ardent sportsmen altogether from the hunting field, yet with the subject of our memoir it was not so. There were times when I have witnessed with admiration the pluck with which he seemed to triumph over his constitutional weakness. It was then a treat to see him go to hounds; such a superb seat, hands, and judgment as his made him conspicuous even in a large hard-riding field like the Bramham, and demonstrated his superb talents as a sportsman. It may well be said of Dick Lane Fox that from old Eton days, when I first enjoyed his friendship, down to the sad event of last month, that he never made an enemy but cemented many a friendship. He had above all a natural aversion to obtrusiveness, which prevented him often from doing himself justice; yet the shrewd, true-hearted Yorkshiremen knew him too well not to appreciate him as a country gentleman as well as a sportsman. He lived to see his eldest son George take his place in the hunting field in a way that he could not fail to be proud of; the veritable likeness of his grandfather; and beyond this, in spite of one defeat, he rejoiced to see him elected as M.P. for the Barkston Division of Yorkshire, after as big a fight as ever aroused the political feelings of that district.

Mrs. Lane Fox was a Milmay, of excellent sporting blood, and a devoted wife, who survives him, so that on both sides of the family the present inheritor of Bramham (one of the finest estates in broad Yorkshire) combines the makings of all that is best in the life of a country gentleman and a sportsman.

Personally I mourn, in conjunction with innumerable others, over the loss of a life-long friend, yet our sadness is tempered by the glad reflection that such an unsullied name, such a bright example, and such an ennobling compeer, should have gone to his rest so peaceably, and have left behind him a splendid well cared-for estate, and a descendant in every way worthy of upholding the fame of Bramham and its famous “25 couple,” and likely to fill yet another niche in the temple of fame amongst Yorkshire worthies.

BORDERER.

Spring Trout and Spring Weather.

Surely the spring trout-fisher is the most hopeful of all the sanguine and long-suffering brotherhood! How many bitter disappointments and how much bitter weather is required to convince one spring fly-fisher that he had better defer his attempts at sport till the blizzards are over?

Last spring was no worse than usual, but the feel of that cutting east wind still haunts my dreams, and, worse than all, the trout taken were both fewer and smaller than in the previous July on the same water.

Two days only out of six were really good, and even then the trout, though numerous and lively, averaged but little over the quarter of a pound. Certainly they took the blue upright with a will, and did not require much stalking, and now and then a nice half-pounder gave a really satisfactory bit of sport.

I see by my diary that the “coch y bondu” was almost as successful as the “blue upright,” and that dry-fly fishing was nearly useless so early in the season, though fish could often be seen rising on the smooth glides. Sometimes not a fin could be stirred for hours, so that one had plenty of leisure to note the exceptional beauty of the budding woods, and to listen to all the love-notes of the birds. When sport is lively all these things are only dimly felt, as heightening enjoyment. When trout are sulky, then we feel the difference between the silence and comparative gloom of late summer woods, and the joyous choruses of early spring; and nowhere is this more marked than among the lovely sylvan scenes on the banks of Somerset streams.

Among other advantages, water is generally plentiful and not too clear. In the wild uplands on the borders of the moor the bushes and brambles which line the streams are not yet developed into the impenetrable thickets that bar one’s progress in the summer, and many a spot then unfishable, even with the aid of waders, can now be reached at small cost of scratches.

I must confess that these inner sanctuaries did not yield me many victims, my basket on the day I went up the hills being the lightest of the week, and the fish the smallest.

Nevertheless, I think the Horner Woods stream, near Porlock, a charming spot, and worth another trial; for adverse winds may have been responsible for the poor sport. It is easy, I believe, for the fly-fisher to get leave on this water, and it is within a mile or two of Porlock. I cycled from Washford, the other side of Minehead, and found it a delightful ride. I think all anglers will find a cycle convenient in this district, as roads are fairly good, and distances from stream to stream often considerable. It is rather monotonous to fish one stream continually, and the change of scene and novel exercise heighten one’s pleasure. It also enables the angler to choose more comfortable quarters than might always be obtainable close to the fishing; for a run of a mile or two is of hardly any consequence, and it is not always that such rooms as were secured for us (within the precincts of Cleve Abbey) can be had.

This old ruin is close to the stream, and can be examined by the wandering angler at very little cost either of time or money. It is well worth a visit. Washford is the station, but it is within an easy ride of Minehead, where comfortable rooms and good attendance can always be had, and from whence excursions, by coach and boat, are continually going on to many of the loveliest parts of Somerset and Devon.

One disappointment experienced during this spring visit was perhaps not due to the time of year. A large and deep pool, formed by the stream right down on the seashore, had sometimes yielded capital sport in July, fish being large and plentiful, though very shy. Some shifting of the sands had now greatly reduced its depth, and the trout had almost deserted it, only two half-pounders falling to my flies. Last year several of the fish taken here were ¾ lb. or more, and the novelty of landing good trout (and not sea-trout) on the sands added to the charm. I have only done so once before, and that was hundreds of miles away, at the mouth of Crocket’s celebrated “Skyreburn,” in the north.

As it is possible that this sea-pool may have improved again this spring, I advise any angler who finds himself near to give it a careful trial, especially if there is a strong wind blowing; for this greatly increases one’s chances. Curiously enough, a little black gnat is the best fly here, but it is worth while to try larger flies if weather is rough. I think that many of the mouths of trout-streams might be fished carefully with good effect, the trout being often larger and better fed than those in the stream itself. Probably they often go a little way out to sea, and get shrimps, &c., in certain states of the tide. At the worst it is a pleasant change to cast a long line over broad water, after being somewhat cramped and hampered in a narrow and much bushed stream. It must be remembered that permission is required from the local landowners for these parts of the streams, as well as for the upper waters.

J. PAUL TAYLOR.

The Towered Bird.

For upwards of twenty years it has been asserted that no towered bird has been hit only in the head. It has become quite an article of faith with some people that every towered bird is stifled by wounds or blood in the organs of respiration. Quite lately it has been stated that it has often been said that towering has been caused by a shot on the head, but that this is never the case.

The writer has often fallen into this supposed error himself, and has gone very fully into the subject. It is not only a very interesting question in itself, but one that sportsmen should not be misled about. At the last retriever trials there was reported to be a “towered bird,” and upon the dog being sent for it a field away he found it quickly, but the towered bird rose again and flew away, followed by the keeper’s remark, that it was “a very lively dead bird.”

This shows that not all keepers are aware that towerers are not always dead birds when they fall; for this keeper was surprised when the towerer rose again; but I noticed that the judges were quite satisfied that the escaped partridge was identical with “the towerer.” They did not set the dog to hunt again, but turned their backs on the scene of action, and credited the dog (which happened to win the stake) with the find.

That bird had been hit in the head, not in the lungs, and he towered in consequence. If he had been also wounded in the lungs he would have died at the apex of his flight—they always do. It may be asked how I know this, and my reply must be that I know it from the examination of many towered birds of different kinds. Of course, I make no claim to be telling experienced sportsmen anything they do not know already. I am well aware that very many do know it, because I have gone out of my way to ask them; but I think there is occasion for dealing fully with a subject that has been misunderstood for twenty years.

This being so, I propose to glance, briefly, at the varying behaviour of game when struck in different parts of the body; and this seems to be all the more necessary, as wrong information is sure to cause many a fruitless search, much loss of time, and perhaps some muttered thunder directed against the supposed Ananias who saw the bird tower.

Young shooters are often confident that a towered bird is dead, and can be picked up if looked for long enough. Probably they have read it, and have confirmed the statement with a few observations of their own. The partridge that is struck in the head usually falls at once, whether the shot has actually pierced the brain or not, but this is by no means invariable, as I have suggested above.

The several kinds of towerers behave as follows: A rap on the head from a glancing shot may or may not damage the sight, but if it does not completely stun the bird he will rise up and tower from the place where the shot struck him; his is usually a very strong flight, and he is likely to fly a good way, towering all the time, until the loss of strength forces him to come down; he will not collapse at the apex of his flight, but as he falls continue to beat his wings, more or less slowly, nearly or quite to the ground. When he reaches the earth he may die, or he may sit muffled up in a dazed condition. Generally he can be approached and killed with a stick, but sometimes he will have a blind side and a wideawake one; and it is not difficult to approach him by selecting his dark side. In no case is such a bird likely to fly until his enemy is within a yard or two of him. Often he makes no attempt to save his own life, and many times I have allowed a retriever to pick up such a bird, having the gun ready in case of his blunder. On several occasions, probably not more than three, the towered bird on being disturbed has _towered again_; but generally if he is able to fly at all he is able to see where he is going to and to get away. Many birds of this kind have no shot in them whatever, as I have proved by _post-mortem_ examination; others have proved the same thing by being as lively as ever upon being approached. Once, a few years ago, when a controversy on this subject raged, X-ray photographs of three towerers were published, but shot pellets could only be traced in two of them, and consequently both sides claimed the victory. It is very likely that laboratory examination never will find a shot pellet in the head of a towerer, but that only proves that when a shot _enters_ the head it is generally enough to bring the bird down at once. It is quite another matter when a shot pellet strikes the head and does not _enter_. Then the state of towering is frequently instantly produced.

This kind of wound, then, may be recognised by the towering of the bird from the instant it was struck, also by some movement in its wings in descent, and lastly, by its attitude of squatting when found upon the ground.

A bird struck in the lungs or stifled by blood in the windpipe behaves very differently. On receiving the shot it generally, but not always, drops its legs as if they were broken; that will generally prove not to have been the case. Then it flies on, from fifty to five hundred yards, with nothing apparently the matter, except the dropped legs, then it suddenly begins to rise or tower. This towering appears from the shooter’s position in the rear, and far behind, to be straight up, but that is optical deception, caused by the position of the shooter directly in the rear. The angle of elevation is really about the same as that of the head-struck bird, although, as the latter rises from only forty or fifty yards away, his angle of elevation looks more oblique than that of the bird a quarter of a mile away.

The stifled bird rises in spite of the fact that his head does not point upwards like that of a pheasant rising to top the trees. The partridge rises without any appearance of change of angle in his body, and when he reaches the apex he does not turn over backwards, as has been said of him, but starts to fall from the position of ordinary horizontal flight. You will generally find him dead upon his back, but the reason of this is that the resistance of his outstretched wings in falling turns him over, and they cease to resist the air when he is on his back. It is a case of movement in the direction of least resistance.

A bird which is brought down instantly by a shot in the head generally jumps about or flaps his wings when on the ground; one would think that he could not do this if he was entirely unconscious, but if he has any degree of consciousness the head-struck towerer must have very much more, just as the stifling bird has, so there must be many degrees of semiconsciousness in wounded partridges.

It very often happens that the most experienced will mistake the dead bird’s fall for that of a runner, and a runner’s for that of a dead bird, but the latter is less frequent. The runner generally flaps a wing as he falls, shows the white of the other one and holds his head up; but all these signs taken together do not prove him to be a runner, because he may have had a lung shot as well, and then he will die upon the ground. Again, a runner may deceive in the other way, he will sometimes fall as if unconscious and then recover and run away. The runner which is just wing-tipped and can fly a long way, sinking slightly until he touches the ground, will not fly again, but generally proves to be a very strong pedestrian indeed.

Several different kinds of hits cause birds to drop their legs instantly, and I fancy that when this happens they are always found where they fall, near or far. The most common of these is the lung-shot bird, then there is the back-broken bird, which does the same, and may also be known by the wobble of his flight—an up-and-down movement, like a boat in a heavy sea. Then there is the leg-broken bird which is likely enough to fly again, but not to run, that day at least. A broken-legged bird generally only has one leg down, whereas a dead bird generally drops both, no matter how far he is to fly before he dies. I think a bird very seldom bleeds to death from a shot wound in the neck vein, but probably this must happen sometimes. I am inclined to think that when the only wound is in the blood-vessels of the neck the bird would fly so far, losing blood all the way; that when he was picked up the cause of death would not be recognised, and I think this is the reason why this kind of wound is so seldom seen. It does not follow that it infrequently occurs.

A shot which breaks the spinal cord is as instantaneous in effect as one which enters the brain, and brings the bird down at once, but not with what is called a broken neck, for I never saw a broken neck in grouse, partridge, or pheasant, unless the keepers had wilfully done it in order to kill a wounded bird. It is a very bad plan to kill any game this way, and especially grouse, for without the bone of the neck to suspend them on the stick the weight often causes the body to drop and be lost in the heather. The skin alone is not strong enough to carry, at any rate, the young birds, especially when boys drag their feet and bodies through the tall heather.

It has been said that the reason partridges “tower” is that they are obliged to lift their heads upwards in order to get their breath, and that their bodies follow where their heads point. This can hardly be the reason, because we have two kinds of “towerers” to deal with, and besides, many a blackcock on taking wing and going away horizontally, nevertheless holds up his head and looks at his disturber over his back, but he does not go upwards in consequence. I do not believe that the upward flight is caused either by any rudder-like action of the tail, although that is, perhaps, possible.

Probably the wings are so set by Nature that their beats not only counteract gravity, but something more than this, and it possibly requires the will of the bird in steering to make him keep a horizontal course. The concave undersurface offers more resistance to the air than the upper convex surface. Hitherto I have considered that this arrangement was meant to negative gravity when the bird was urging its forward course, but when one remembers that young birds with half the power of flight of the old ones nevertheless can rise quite easily, and seem to maintain a horizontal course quite comfortably—that is, their inferior wings in ordinary up-and-down beats are equal to the resistance of gravity—consequently, it appears almost certain that the ordinary beats of better wings are much more than equal to the resisting of gravity. Or, in other words, if partridges in a state of health did not wilfully hug the ground they would rise up like “towered” birds.

I wonder whether this is the reason that day birds (which appear to migrate in their sleep, and certainly cannot travel by night at any other time than when the instinct is upon them) migrate at great altitudes. That is to say, whether they go up because they cannot help it. If so, there would be a certain altitude for each kind of bird where the wing beats influence, on the more rarified air, in sending the bird up, and the lessened power of gravity, would become equal, and at that altitude the bird would travel forward without the will being called into request to keep a horizontal course. Balloonists tell us that at great heights birds thrown out fall like stones, so that there must be an altitude where ordinary wing action ceases to overcome gravity. In any case the partridge goes upward, whether either head or lungs deprive him of part of his senses, probably of all the sense of direction except that one of keel downwards, that no bird ever seems to lose as long as he is alive.

Another reason for believing that the natural up-and-down wing beats would take any healthy bird upwards as well as forwards is to be found in the necessity of the moult. If the full wing beats only kept the horizontal course then it would probably happen that the loss of a single flight feather would have the effect that gravity would gradually overcome the horizontal tendency and pull the bird downwards; but that does not appear to be true, and this is additional reason for believing that the up-and-down wing beats with a horizontal keel much more than overcome gravity, and that consequently when a bird cannot direct its own course it goes upwards, because it is built to do so, and to overcome the downward drag of gravity by the mere up-and-down wing action and a level “keel.”

G. T. TEASDALE BUCKELL.

Hunt “Runners.” IV. BUTLER OF THE NORTH COTSWOLD.

There are few more picturesque hunting scenes than the country around the Cotswold Hills in the fair county of Worcestershire, which is hunted by Mr. Charles McNeill and his famous pack of Belvoir-bred bitches. This Eden of foxhunting is a much sought after possession, wild and rugged with variety of scene on hill and dale, pasture and woodland. It has often been said that farmers are the backbone of foxhunting, and these Worcestershire sportsmen, bred and born to it, are a community whose fame for staunchness to sport is known far and wide. The majority of them, or their sons, ride to hounds, and wire is practically unknown in their country, whilst foxes are preserved as they ought to be, the best of good feeling prevailing between sport and agriculture. All the same, we did not expect to find a farmer in the capacity of runner to the hunt.

Many countries are going begging for a master, but not so the North Cotswold, which has been so successfully presided over by Mr. Charles McNeill for the past five seasons, the announcement of whose retirement was received with universal regret. When it became known there was a vacancy for next season, twenty-two applicants for the mastership came before the Hunt Committee; showing how hunting men appreciated a community of farmers who plump solid for sport. Sir John Hume Campbell is to be congratulated that he has been chosen to succeed Mr. McNeill.

Butler, the runner to the Hunt, wearing the cap and scarlet coat of office, is a typical Worcestershire dairy farmer. Born in the Heythrop country close by, he has followed the hounds on foot for the past twenty years, which occupies the reign of three masterships—Mr. Algernon Rushout, Captain Cyril Stacey and Mr. Charles McNeill. Before that time he had five years in the saddle making young horses, “hunting oftener than his master did,” as he put it, and a coachman’s place for six months in the heart of Birmingham was the last straw that compelled him to give up domestic service, and take to the wild, free life of a runner, with farming as a mainstay. On a hunting morning Butler is up before daybreak to get his cows milked, pigs and poultry attended to, so that the institution of a bicycle to ride the long distances to and from covert has been a great saving of time and exertion.