Part 26

In the foregoing chapter it has been shown to what point the greatest bag of partridges in a day has arrived in England. But more than double the number of these birds has been killed in one day in Bohemia. The biggest bag there has been 4000 in one day. The method of preserving adopted there is to make an outlying estate serve as an assistance to an inner preserved portion. But it is not, as has been thought, to catch up birds and bring them in for a day’s shooting, as was done by Baron Hirsch in Hungary. The birds may be caught up and brought in to breed, or the eggs from outlying ground may be brought in to fill up nests. In either case that is merely the English plan; but the author is assured that where the biggest bags are made no removal of coveys in the shooting season has occurred. The birds are fed in the winter, and herein lies the principal difference between our own and the Continental system of preservation. The snow there lies for weeks, and to keep the birds alive wheat is given to them; but the Hungarian and Bohemian preserves conclusively upset one notion that has got firm hold in this country. They beat us very easily in partridge productiveness, and they do it without driving. Of course Baron Hirsch’s big bags were made by driving, but his was a system foreign to the country, and has been fairly beaten by different methods that are generally employed. The big bags are mostly made by a system of walking up the partridges in the corn. The author, then, is constrained to look for other than driving reasons for the increase of partridges, and he wholly agrees with Mr. Charles Alington in saying that the reason driving increases partridges is because preservers who drive the birds are not satisfied with the stocks of partridges that previously did satisfy them. They cannot have any shooting at all unless there are enough birds to give a day to half a dozen friends; whereas before one covey gave sport, and would be followed all day by a couple of guns, until only its remnant was left to stock a farm or an estate. The author also agrees with Mr. Alington in saying that it is not because old birds are killed by driving that this system succeeds. Even where driving is practised, the keepers on some estates net the birds after the shooting season in order to break the necks of the old cocks and let off the young birds, which is quite enough proof that driving is not an automatic selection of old cocks. The latter should be killed, for the reason, that they occupy for themselves five or ten times the ground that will satisfy a young pair of birds. On one of these netting expeditions, Coggins, the clever head keeper at Acton Reynold, caught a woodcock, so that even a night bird may make a mistake in its most wakeful hours.

Mr. Alington described how one pair of very old partridges took sole possession of a fence and made their nest, which, by him, old birds are supposed to make earlier than young ones. He had these two birds destroyed, and then there were ten nests made in that fence. This partridge shooter also believes that no partridge lays before 10.30 a.m., and that she lays every day, and an hour or so later in the day with every egg. Probably this is not a fixed rule. It would involve a midnight egg, or a day missed, when there was a full nest to be laid.

Then it has been said that it is the “packing,” after driving, that does the good, of course by initiating cross breeding; but for forty years at least gamekeepers have been changing eggs from nest to nest and from estate to estate, so that packing would be merely re-mixing those that had already been separated by the gamekeepers.

The greatest assistance given by driving is probably the greater freedom from wounds of the driven bird. The old bad days, when we killed all the birds that would lie, and shot at all the others, were bad, because there was no other way of getting a bag of wild birds; but probably if nobody had ever tried to do so there would have been plenty of partridges. In other words, it was bad shooting that destroyed the stock. But more than this, partridge driving is liked; it has caused much greater attention to be paid to the partridge than ever before, because it is so much better sport than turnip-trotting, and so much more bag-filling than shooting over the majority of show-bred or show-dog crossed pointers and setters. It takes a very good dog indeed to please in a turnip-field and to render it unnecessary to form line to beat up the partridges. Besides that, driving is a social amusement, whereas shooting over dogs is only good when there are but two guns or less. The popularity of the big day extends to beaters, farm hands, and farmers, whereas for the old method these people were merely tolerated. Toleration did not assist preserving; popularity does so.

Although a swerving covey of English birds will present a task fit for a king, there are very many very easy driven birds, including the majority of straight-coming Frenchmen. Besides this, the position of the shooter makes them easy or difficult as the case may be. Put too close under a high fence, the birds are difficult; put farther back, they swerve, or turn back over the beaters. When standing up to quite low fences, the chances are very easy, and when the sun is in one’s eyes they are too difficult for sport. The most beautiful shooting is when some birds come over, and some between, a row of high elm trees such as one frequently sees in the Midlands, but less often in the Eastern Counties.

There is no more beautiful sport than shooting partridges over good dogs, and it is easy to get them good enough for the work in wild country, where they are almost exclusively employed, but it takes brains as well as nose and pace for a dog to be a help to the two guns in turnips a couple of feet high, and such as contain a hundred thrushes, blackbirds, leverets, rabbits, and pheasant poults to every covey of partridges. It is true that if shooters in line, for sentimental reasons, have a pointer running loose, they may call it shooting over dogs, and any sort of animal will do for that, even if he is a dog show Champion; but that is not what the author means by shooting over dogs.

If you have a line of guns to tread up the game, dogs are superfluous. If you have dogs that can find everything, then a line of beaters is superfluous, and besides in the way, too, for it makes birds wild.

Noise is often said to make partridges wild, but this is only partially true. Noise in any one direction, such as talking, generally makes them fly, but any noises heard from all directions simultaneously makes them lie like stones.

No country is so difficult to drive as one with small fields and high hedges, especially if it is also hilly. It is almost impossible to make the partridges know that there is a line of beaters outside of their own little field, and they are very likely to go out at the flanks and swing back behind the beaters in the next field.

That the fox is the worst partridge poacher in the nesting season is not questioned by those who know; but the plan described in the previous chapter is a very good and the only way of securing many partridges in a fox country. Nevertheless, this plan has been written down in the press, obviously by interested people, who appear in all sorts of disguises in the interests of game-food makers, who are aware that if the Euston plan of pheasant preserving and the Stetchworth plan of partridge preserving were to be commonly practised, it would be all over with game-food manufacturers. The author first described the Stetchworth plan some time before Mr. Alington’s book appeared, in which he related Mr. Pearson Gregory’s wonderful success with partridges in the middle of the Belvoir country, where foxes abound. In place of this safeguard against foxes, futile attempts have put forward evil-smelling mixtures to protect the nests; but, as Mr. Alington and Mr. Holland Hibbert have shown, when foxes take one doctored nest they then hunt _for_ the smell, and in the experience of Mr. Alington the mixture was successful the first year, but in the next all the dressed nests were taken and the others left. That a large number of keepers may approve of evil-smell systems, and disapprove of the Stetchworth partridge, and the Euston pheasant, systems, has no weight with those who know that there are wheels within wheels, which can be specified if necessary.

That there are smells which destroy or negative others, the author is sure, but he has no belief in drowning one by the strength of another. No retriever can find a dead bird if a man stands close to leeward of the latter and to windward of the dog’s nose. Out of politeness to our race, we may consider this negatives the partridge scent and does not merely drown it, but then the deer do not support that view, and can smell a man much farther off than a foxhound can smell a fox. The question arises, What is a strong smell to a fox, a dog, or a deer?

A gamekeeper can (because he has done it at Harlaxton, in Lincolnshire) look after 1500 acres of partridge ground and get hatched off by the Stetchworth plan 1200 eggs, and do it single-handed, so that the expense that the interested critics of this system talk of does not exist.

The fox has just been condemned as a poacher, but all the same he is a great friend of partridge preservers, if they would only look ahead. The fox is the only influence in this country that prevents half of it becoming poultry runs. He takes his toll, and deserves it. Land will not afford more than a certain amount of insect life, and young partridges cannot live without it. If it were not for the foxes, nearly every farm and field would be a chicken run, and consequently wild bred partridges would be impossible.

On the other hand, if it were not for the game preserver, hunting would also be impossible in provincial countries and where money is scarce. No foxes could live if the fields were devoted to poultry. The farmer’s charges in the absence of game would cause three-parts of the hunts to be abandoned in face of enormous poultry bills. Half the quarrelling over game and foxes is exaggerated in the telling, and the rest is caused by a misunderstanding of mutual interests. Outside the Shires, and perhaps Cheshire and Warwickshire, hunting could not exist without the game preserver; and outside East Anglia and the grouse moors game could not exist without foxes, more especially partridges could not, at least not for long.

It is quite a mistake to suppose that grey partridges are interfered with by the red legs; of course, where dogs are used, red legs are not a blessing, but everywhere else they appear to greatly increase the sport. The two varieties often nest side by side, but the grey partridge cock would not tolerate any such proximity from his own species, so that the simplest plan of making two partridges grow on one acre is to have both sorts.

Straying away, in the winter and the spring, from cold or high ground, is a great and objectionable habit of partridges. On some estates nothing seems able to prevent it. In such cases the French penning system described in the previous chapter seems to be made on purpose.

The driving of partridges in flat country is very much more easy than grouse driving, on account of the hedges. They hide the beaters and the guns from view as both go to their places for short drives. But these same hedges often prevent proper flanking for long drives, and there are a thousand pitfalls ready for the inexperienced driver of partridges to fall into. Of course the chief factor in all driving plans is the wind, if there is any. Success generally comes to those whose minds and plans are the most flexible; for a plan that would be best one day would almost certainly be the worst upon another.

In a short chapter on partridges in general it would be obviously impossible to go into the minute details of driving, or to specify as many of the pitfalls as have come to the author’s notice. Broad principles briefly stated are all he has space for, and really almost everything else alters with the locality. First it is necessary to drive the birds with a view to their concentration. That is to say, every drive should be arranged in such a manner as to make the next drive to it as perfect as possible. The guns, then, will be posted where they can do least harm to the next drive—not necessarily where they can do most execution in the one under consideration. Consequently, the choice of stands for any one drive must be regulated by the distance the birds at the particular time of year are likely to fly after passing and being scared by the line of guns. This distance will grow longer each week of the shooting season. In September birds that would be likely to drop in roots three fields behind the guns, might easily go six, seven, or eight fields in November.

It is impossible to drive partridges very far directly up wind, and it is almost impossible to turn them very much when going fast and high down wind. Roots are even more important to big driving bags than they are to “walking up.” At least, without roots most of the birds will come together, and shooting will be quickly over in each drive, whereas, when partridges can be first driven into a turnip-field, and secondly induced to run, they then become scattered, rise in small lots, and give shooters and loaders a chance.

The nearer the guns can be placed to the rise of the partridges, the less distant the latter will fly. In a high fenced country noise is often essential to prevent the birds in one field going back over the heads of beaters in the next. The partridges generally decide where they are going before rising, or as soon as they are up, and consequently the flanks of your line or semicircle of beaters will be useless unless the birds know of them either before they rise or the instant they are on the wing.

Another point to be considered is, that partridges will not drive backwards and forwards over the same fence many times, and if it can be done, a fresh one should be lined for every drive. Often the nature of the ground and the disposition of the hedges will not admit of this. Ideal driving possibly only exists in the imagination, but if it can be arranged that for every drive there is a turnip-field to drive out of near to the guns, and another to drive into at the distance of the birds’ flight behind the guns, then particularly heavy killing ought to be possible in proportion to numbers of partridges present.

When there is no great amount of wind, backwards and forwards drives, with the guns shifted up or down the fence slightly each time, are very deadly with two sets of beaters. With one set only, on the contrary, the plan of taking the birds all round the beat in four or more drives, according to its size, is a good one, because it prevents either beaters or “guns” having long waits or unequal distances to walk. Excellent driving results have been obtained on an estate as small as 500 acres, but this would not be possible without big root fields.

The best sanctuaries for partridges, and those of greatest assistance to driving, are newly planted larch and fir coverts. Where estate planting is wanted, then by extending it over a series of years, instead of doing it all at once, it adds to the encouragement and to safe nesting-ground of partridges and pheasants too, but the necessity of wire fencing it against rabbits renders it of no use for ground game, which is all the better for both its true purposes. In a grass country partridges will remain and breed wonderfully well if about 5 acres of wheat are cultivated to every 200 acres of grass land. On just such land the author has killed two-thirds of a bird to the acre within twelve miles of Charing Cross on the north side.

Some of the Hungarian and Bohemian bags have been as follows:—In 10 days’ shooting 10 guns killed 10,000 partridges at Tot-Megyr, in Hungary, and the same season the first five of the ten days yielded 7020 partridges. This was on the estate of Count Karolyi. No birds were brought in from elsewhere, and the method adopted was _walking up_. But it was in Bohemia, at Prince Auersperg’s place, where 4000 birds were killed in one day, which leaves Baron Hirsch’s records, and all those of England, in the shade.

VARIETIES AND SPECIES OF THE PHEASANT

There are 21 so-called species of the true pheasant. Of these, 17 are only varieties, with practically no differences except in colour and size. Naturalists are not consistent in their classifications. If the 17 pheasants that include the common and the ring-necked variety are species, then all our fancy pigeons are species also, just as our numberless varieties of dogs are. The pouter and the fantail pigeons have more differences by far than any of these 17 kinds of pheasants, and the St. Bernard and the Japanese spaniel and Italian greyhound would all have been received as new species had their discoverers been naturalists. Indeed, the St. Bernard has structural differences from the others about which in any other class of animal naturalists would not hesitate for a moment. They would make a species of him for his extra toe—that is, for his double dew claw. But it does not in the least matter whether differences are marked in the index to nature as species or as varieties, since the former term has lost its original meaning, and no longer suggests a specific act of creation in the origin of things.

What matters is that the 17 varieties of pheasants are supposed to be capable of breeding together fertile offspring, no matter how they are mixed up.

But although crossing always increases size in the first few generations, and notwithstanding that every first cross amongst these 17 varieties of pheasants has been glorified in description, it is not to be expected that the cross breds maintain their glory in later generations. Unfortunately, they do not revert to one type or the other, but set up intermediate coloration.

There is no reason to suppose that the cock pheasant differs very much from the hen in the pigments within the feathers. The difference we observe is one of disposition of those pigments. In the hen the reds, the greens, the gold and purples are mixed; in the cock they are separated. In the 17 varieties of pheasants there are to be found cock birds which at every point of the feathering have the complementary colour to that which is in the same position in some other species. Even the dark edging of the feathers is in some races green and in the others purple. The backs are in some green, in others red; the breasts in some species golden, and in others green. One cannot object to the introduction of any of these 17 species so long as they are kept distinct. But we do not want our pheasants to look as variegated as a race of mongrels. The Mongolian pheasant is said to be more hardy than our own cross bred, and in that case it would probably suit us better as a bird of the coverts, but it drives away the other birds from the food, which is a good reason as well as its white wing coverts for not wishing to have it mixed with the home stock.

For some time it was believed that the Reeves pheasant would not produce fertile offspring from any of the 17 sorts typical of the common pheasant, but that is probably a mistake. Nevertheless, if it is true that the hybrids breed in the third season, any such deferred productiveness would not be likely to have the smallest effect on our pheasant stock, and consequently the Reeves pheasant can safely be turned out in the coverts without fear of changing the character of our good sporting birds. The same is true of the copper pheasant, which, in nature and Japan, exists side by side with the green-breasted versicolor, and does not inter-breed with it. As the versicolor breeds freely with our birds, and is but a variety in fact and only a species by courtesy of naturalists to each other, it is pretty certain that this copper pheasant, like the Reeves pheasant, can be safely turned loose in our coverts. But the Reeves pheasant is a great runner, and it is said that when he once does get started upon the wing he is apt not to recognise the boundary fence, and may go 20 miles on end. If this is not an exaggeration, and probably it is, the Reeves pheasant would be a most objectionable bird. But in wild countries like Wales and Scotland, where there are hills and hill coverts, there seems to be no doubt that the Reeves would beat the English bird, not only in hardihood and self-reproduction, but also in flying to the guns both faster and higher than the common pheasant. It is a bird that prefers to run _up_ hill, in contradistinction to the instinct of preservation that induces the type race of bird to run _down_ hill. The Hon. Walter Rothschild has spent more time and money on the pheasant family than anyone else, and probably he is the very best judge of what would acclimatise with advantage and what would not. With the reservation, then, that the author does not believe in still further mongrelising the half bred of our coverts, it is proposed to summarise Mr. Rothschild’s opinion.

The pheasants form but one section of the family Phasianidæ, the second of the four families of the Gallinæ. The limitations of natural history are set forth by Mr. Rothschild when he says that structurally it is impossible to separate the partridges and the pheasants, and that the spurfowls (_Galloperdix_) and the bamboo partridges (_Bambusicola_) form connecting links. How true this is may be gathered from the fact that Mr. Harting described a bamboo partridge in the _Field_ recently as a cross between a pheasant and partridge. These birds have spurs, but then the author has seen a common partridge with spurs on both legs. The legs were sent to _Country Life_ at the time, and the spurs upon them were sharp like a two-year-old pheasant’s. Of the pheasants there are 60 species according to naturalists, divided into 12 genera. Of these, _Phasianus_ with 21 species is the largest, and the only one which concerns sportsmen in this country. There are 17 of the varieties of the type pheasant, including the new species called after Mr. Hagenbach. There are 11 other birds called pheasants which properly belong to the peafowl. These include 7 peacock pheasants and 4 Argus pheasants, which, like many others amongst the 60 pheasants, do not fly well, and have no place in shooting. The true pheasants are distinguished by their long wedge-shaped tails and by the absence of a crest, but these have to be subdivided into the type birds that are really only varieties, and the four that are really as well as nominally different species.