SUMMER
A Keeper Chorister
The gamekeeper has a way of putting things to surprising and ingenious uses. Usually he carries a dog-lead concealed somewhere about his person—a yard or two of string attached to a simple spring clip; and this lead serves a hundred purposes apart from restraining dogs. One case we remember well, where a dog-lead saved a situation. The vocal services of a keeper had been impressed for a festival of choirs; but when he arrived, just before the procession was timed to start, it was found that the one cassock which would encircle his figure was so long that he could walk in it only with danger of falling. Of course there was no string anywhere to be found, except in the shape of the dog-lead. The dog-lead saved the day, and the robed procession started off, lustily singing. It chanced that the keeper was one of the two leading choirmen, and when he noticed that his companion was rather headstrong in taking a corner, "Heel, will yer," he was heard to mutter, absent-mindedly, as he flicked his friend with the snap of his dog-lead from a besurpliced arm-hole; "heel, sir, heel."
Velveteens
There was something pleasing about the old familiar name for the gamekeeper—"Velveteens": but it has been dropped almost completely, because no longer appropriate. In the old times all gamekeepers were clad in ample coats of velveteen. To-day, for one in velveteen you may see a hundred in tweeds. And it is only the Cockney who calls the keeper "Velveteens" to his face—thereby putting him on his dignity at the least, if not insulting him. The old-time coat was pleasant to the eye, so long as it was kept unspotted by rain. But its bloom departed after a few minutes' exposure to a generous shower, and no amount of drying or brushing would bring it back. Moreover, the shirt of the man beneath the coat would probably suffer also from the wetting. The best of velveteen was its thorn-resisting qualities. Tweeds resist rain besides the thorns—the thick, heavy, closely-woven tweeds of the neutral brown tint that are now the fashion for keepers' clothes. It is a long time before they can be thoroughly wetted—and the keeper's wife will tell you it is as long before they can be thoroughly dried. They have two drawbacks—if made to fit closely and well they are uncomfortable for shooting until almost worn out; and they are too hot and heavy for summer wear. Employers would be investing profitably if they allowed their keepers, instead of the one suit a year, a summer and a winter suit. Comfort in dress makes a wonderful difference in the keeper's work; hence the keeper's affection for his oldest things and his scorn of appearances. His old breeches and gaiters become part of himself. A keeper who always donned trousers on Sunday invariably wore the old gaiters beneath them so that his legs might feel properly encased.
Owls and Hawks
Small birds, like men, misunderstand the owl—and it is always a curious sight to watch the mobbing of a night-bird by other smaller birds. Presumably the angered birds mistake the owl for a hawk. At any rate, they know him for a stranger, and no proven friend. When the swallows are alarmed by the appearance of an owl in day-time, they perform wonderful feats of flight, as they dart at the great bird from every angle, and swerve about him in every degree of curve. We have counted fourteen swallows' nests built in a shed against a pigeon loft wherein a pair of barn-owls were rearing their three young ones; we wondered how far the swallows were aware of the owls' presence, and what they thought about it. If they mobbed a parent owl by day there could be little real cause for their wrath—as little as when a missel-thrush or a jay joins in the outcry raised in the wood against the brown owl.
Enlightened keepers leave all hawks unmolested, except perhaps on the rare occasions when they catch one in the act of gamecide. Beyond question, hawks as a rule do far more good to game interests than harm; and the kestrel, if he ever does any harm, pays for it a hundred-fold by his tireless industry in keeping down mice and voles. Once we carefully watched for several weeks the nests of three pairs of sparrow-hawks; and among the remains of their feasts the legs of only one young pheasant were discovered.
The Bold Sparrow-Hawk
It is time, and high time, that sparrow-hawks were placed under the protecting wing of the law. Generations of gamekeepers have persecuted them relentlessly: it says much for their courage, strength, and craftiness that any should remain to offer a target for the keeper's gun. But they grow scarce; they are seen far less commonly than kestrels, whose usefulness and innocence of gamecide is beginning to be a little understood. If sportsmen would consider the evidence for and against sparrow-hawks as despoilers of game—if they would rely no longer on prejudice and crass ignorance—we feel sure they would take steps to stay the wanton slaughter by their gamekeepers of these handsome, useful birds. Keepers ought to be forbidden to destroy any sparrow-hawks, except those which clearly prove themselves guilty of killing game as a habit. How thoughtless, ruthless, and mistaken is the keeper's zeal in killing them, we could show by a hundred instances. To take one: It chanced that part of a patch of buckwheat had been left unharvested, so that the pheasants might help themselves to the grain. Thousands of small birds flocked to feed on the choice feast. A gamekeeper noticed that sparrow-hawks found this patch of buckwheat a fine hunting-ground, and would perch in a clump of tall trees near by. He therefore hid himself in the trees, with a gun, and bagged four hen sparrow-hawks, which had been well employed in thinning the ranks of the small birds.
Countrymen will speak of the cock sparrow-hawk as the little blue hawk, as though it were a separate variety: not knowing that the cock bird is about half the size of his mate. Blue hawks, pigeon hawks, and five-barred hawks are among the sparrow-hawk's local names, arising from the blue-grey colour of the upper parts of their plumage, from their occasional habit of attacking wood-pigeons, and from the five striking bars of brownish black on their tails. Less common than kestrels, sparrow-hawks are far less conspicuous: while the kestrel hovers high in the air on the look-out for prey (whether a mouse or a grasshopper), the sparrow-hawk's way is to glide low over the fields and along the hedges, swooping suddenly through gaps to pounce on unsuspecting small birds. The size and shape of the wings, and therefore the flights of the two birds, are very different. The sparrow-hawk's wings are inclined to be rounded and short; the kestrel's are long and pointed. While the young of the two birds have a great deal in common, the fledged young may be distinguished readily by the white spot on the lower part of the back of the sparrow-hawk's head. Each bird has a fatal way of coming to investigate the sound of a gunshot. If a shot is fired in the direction of a hawk flying far out of range, say a hundred yards distant, it will instantly dart down and towards the gunner, nearly always within easy range. We have seen this happen many times.
Nest and Young
Like the kestrel, the sparrow-hawk is content with a slovenly nest, which it builds of dead twigs on the ruins of other nests—usually those of magpies, crows, or pigeons. Or it uses a squirrel's drey as a foundation, or comes year after year to its own old home. Usually the chosen site is not very high in a tree—larches and oaks are favourites—and the nest will be found near the trunk: in short oaks it may be in the cup formed where several branches spread away. We have found a nest within ten feet of the ground. The nest, when you climb to it, is much larger than it appears from below, and only a man with long arms could encircle it. There may be five eggs, pale white, blotched with dark chestnut-brown, the markings of eggs in one clutch sometimes showing a beautiful variation, while the markings of the clutches of different birds differ considerably. The shells, like those of the kestrel's eggs, are very thick—even the hawk's sharp claws would hardly puncture them without intentional effort.
Should you hear a soft whistling in a wood—not unlike the whistling of the farmer's wife when she calls her chickens to meals, but much subdued—you may know there is a sparrow-hawk's nest not far away. A glimpse of the whistler gives rise to a general alarm-cry among blackbirds. If the whistling leads to the discovery of young hawks, on your approach they will assume attitudes suggestive of disgust and resentment. In their poses and markings there is something owl-like about young hawks: and, as with young owls, there is a good deal of difference in the size of the fledglings, and in the state of their feathering. The strongest young one has the pick of the food, and quickly outgrows his brothers and sisters. Should the mother bird be killed, the cock will rear the family unaided on the small birds on which they thrive. The preservation of woods has meant a steady increase in the hosts of small birds, and hawks in consequence are under no necessity to prey on game-birds. Some sparrow-hawks will acquire the game-feeding habit: others will pounce by chance on a small game-bird; but sparrow-hawks are in no way dependent on game, living for the most part on finches and the like, thereby helping to preserve the balance of scales of which the gamekeeper and his master take little heed.
The Keeper Outwitted
One evening we were passing through a large, old-fashioned wood, when we came upon a keeper feeding his pheasants—many hundreds of them: and the talk went round to the question of sparrow-hawks and game. We suggested that it was a wise keeper who spared the sparrow-hawk—that this hawk did not kill game for a tithe of its food—and that the time only came to kill it after it had been proved to attack game as a habit. But the keeper would not hear of this; and he thanked his stars, he said, that not a sparrow-hawk remained alive in his woods. Just as he said these words we chanced to see before us on the ride, in the middle of the long rank of pheasant coops, a dead blackbird. The feathers lay scattered about the bird in a circle; there was every sign of a sparrow-hawk's work. We called the keeper's attention to that blackbird's body. He agreed that a hawk had killed it, and then we drew from him the confession that he had not lost a single pheasant from a sparrow- or any other hawk. The keeper told us a story of how a brood of sparrow-hawks had been reared in a tree at the back of the very hut in which the pheasants' food was mixed. Though the hut was also a sort of watch-tower, yet the man who spent his days thereabouts had failed to notice the hawks until the young birds left the nest. This is not to say that the powerful old hen sparrow-hawk did not raid the pheasants; but it is certain that she outwitted the under-keeper who worked daily at the hut, and it proves that an under-keeper may not know all that is to be known about sparrow-hawks and their ways.
A Jackdaw Nursery
Among the birds not loved by keepers are jackdaws. One old keeper friend of ours has brought hundreds of jackdaws to a bad end. One evening, years ago, when walking through a park, his keen eyes noticed a hole high up in the stem of an ash-tree; and as he looked, out flew a jackdaw—never to return. Passing that way again, another jackdaw flew out, and paid the penalty of living in that keeper's preserves. He found the hole to be a favourite place for these birds, for it made an excellent nursery for the young. Season after season, the keeper kept his eye on the hole. As he went by, he would make a peculiar squeaking noise, which would call out any birds that might be at home. The stem of the tree about the hole became riddled with shot with such curious effect that when the tree fell the keeper cut out the section containing the hole; and it may be seen in his parlour, among other treasures, to this day.
Detective Work
The gamekeeper is a trained detective. He is for ever setting a trap to catch a poacher. Across a ride where poachers may come at night, he will stretch a piece of invisible twine or wire, and he is at pains to place it just so far from a sharp stump that any one tripping will probably break a nose. Anxious for a good night's rest, he keeps a light burning in one of his cottage windows, so that the poachers may think he is out and about; or when he goes out he pulls down a blind in his bedroom, as if he were sleeping within. Meeting workmen in the lanes near his preserves, he sends his dog for a sniff at their dinner-baskets—the dog soon tells him if there is game inside where should be bread and cheese.
Cattle in the Woods
A dreadful idea to the keeper is the thought of cattle in his coverts. The worst that a mad bull could do in a china shop would make a faint picture of destruction beside the havoc wrought by cattle in well-stocked preserves. Happy the keeper whose coverts are guarded by good fences in the days when flies torture cattle, and colts are most mischievous. If in hot weather a breach has once been made in a fence by cattle or horses, they will persist in trying to find their way into the woods. One can only pity the pheasant who sits on her eggs, on some sunny bank of a covert fence, while a herd of unbroken cart-colts go lumbering round the field, each shouldering each in an ill-judged swerve from the fence. Even in their calm moments colts are inquisitive, and leave nothing alone that is living and within their reach. We remember a case where a pheasant nested on the outside bank of a wood, and the colts in the field, pushing into the living fence, actually nosed her from her nest, and there was good evidence that they then chawed every one of her eggs. Most difficult of all creatures to keep out of woods are roaming swine. The strongest of live fences offers only a temporary check to their boring ability. And pigs have good noses, and few rabbit-stops and nests of eggs on the ground escape them. If a keeper's woods are infested by pigs he can scarcely be blamed for shooting his own bacon.
The keeper has an eye for the trim and pleasing appearance of his woods. He takes a genuine pleasure in their beauty. Jealous of the untrodden appearance of his secret paths, his annoyance is ill-concealed when the hunt cuts up his green rides. He would cheerfully forego the reward for the finding of a fox if he could preserve his rabbit-shorn sward—green and as smooth as velvet. And in his soul is a secret hatred of the traffic of the woodmen's waggons. Their great wheels crush and destroy the promising young underwood; woodmen, removing tree-trunks, ruthlessly plough up lawn-like turf; they have no care and no eye for the young growths of hazel, ash, maple, thorn or brier, to say nothing of bramble and bracken; and their waggons, carts and horses' hoofs spread a desolation which brings curses to the keeper's lips.
A Tragedy of the Woodlands
We know a wood near the Hampshire Highlands that was once famous for its ash, and would be as famous now if the wood's owner had his keeper's fine feeling. The keeper's heart was cut if frost blackened the leaves; this was a grim tragedy. And there were larches of gun-barrel straightness. An order was given that the wood should be laid low. The woodmen came with saw and axe, beetle and wedges, they cut all the trees, and sent them to the guillotine of the travelling steam-saw, which spoiled as fair a meadow as any in Hampshire. Next the woodland was thrown open to cattle, horses, and sheep. Then the keeper was dismissed: and glad he was to go.
Fox and Partridge
When shooting parties begin again strange stories are repeated about pheasants and partridges. We remember hearing a learned disquisition on the subject of the fox and the hen partridge; the argument was that the fox is only occasionally successful when he makes a grab at a hen partridge sitting on her eggs, and that the hen, after fluttering from the jaws of death, will return unconcernedly to her duties. Further, even if the fox were so lucky as to capture the hen, the cock partridge would most obligingly take up the sitting and hatch the eggs. But no case was cited where a fox had been known to attempt to catch a sitting cock partridge—from which the inference might be drawn that the fox has a special aversion to the sitting cock.
Much nonsense of this sort is swallowed with good faith by those not closely in touch with foxes and game. We have an old book called "The Life of a Fox: Written by Himself." In this we read that a sitting bird acquires a thinness and flavour which are abhorrent to the taste of a fox; nonsense guised as sense could hardly go further. It would be grossly disparaging to the fox's skill to say that he fails once in a hundred times when making a grab at a sitting bird; and we are sure that a cock partridge does not take up the duties of his wife as often even as a fox fails to bring off a catch. We have never known a cock partridge to take the place of his murdered mate on the nest, but every gamekeeper knows he will rear the brood when the hen is killed after hatching.
A Study in Perseverance
We have a pretty story to tell ourselves about the perseverance of partridges. In a district where few were found, a pair had left the fields and nested within a stone's-throw of the keeper's cottage. It stood in a green glade, sheltered on all sides by rambling old woods. For four successive seasons this partridge pair nested within a few yards of the same spot: and year after year something upset their plans, and spoiled all prospects of their hope of a covey—a hedgehog, rooks, inquisitive children, but, luckily, not a fox. The fifth season found the persevering birds trying again; their nest contained seventeen eggs. The site was an obvious one, but now the birds' luck turned. Just when it seemed that nothing could keep the nest from the eyes of any curious passers-by, a fine plant of hemlock sprang up to provide a screen and shelter. Every egg was then hatched, and every chick was reared to the flying stage. True, by September the young birds had been reduced until only nine were left. But as the keeper said, that was better than that a fox should have killed the old hen on her nest; and a family of nine was very creditable to a pair of five-year-old birds.
The Hut in the Woods
Your gamekeeper is a skilled cook, and his open-air kitchen is a place of curious interest. For the first five or six weeks of their lives young pheasants are regaled several times daily with meals of hard-boiled eggs, custard, biscuit-meal, oatmeal, canary-seed, greaves and rice—seasoned with spices. Look into the keeper's hut in the woods, and you will see quite a collection of sacks filled with choice foods—cracked maize, dari-seed, groats, rice, preparations of dried meat, and finely dressed meals of wheat and barley. When the birds have learned to go to roost only one meal a day is provided. In his kitchen the keeper prepares a thin meat soup, sometimes of sheeps' heads; this is boiled, then cooled, chopped lettuce and onion, and barley and other meals are added, and then the rations of the pudding-like mass are rolled into small pellets. Over the keeper's kitchen the keeper's wife has no jurisdiction. In some sheltered corner from which he can keep an eye on his birds he builds himself a fireplace of two parallel rows of bricks open at each end, so that he may burn long sticks and save himself the labour of chopping wood if pressed for time. Sometimes he will get the village blacksmith to fashion a sort of iron gallows from which to hang his great cooking-pots, each containing eight or nine gallons, and of no small weight. By November many keepers have cooked the last meal for their pheasants—others may be preparing a final supper, whistling till their jaws ache to call the birds to the meal—on the morrow to do their utmost to send the long-tails to destruction.
Pheasant Chicks
"Mothering" is the factor which makes all the difference between a moderately good and a very good season for young pheasants. A hen pheasant, when her chicks are quite small, can easily give warmth and shelter to a dozen or more; after the first week or so some have to go without, and unless the weather is fine and warm, they perish before they are covered by body feathers. Weather conditions that have had a bad effect on partridges may have little effect on pheasants. Many suppose that if partridges have suffered from drought, pheasants, especially wild ones, must have suffered also. But wild pheasants have an advantage in several ways. The period during which they lay and hatch their eggs and rear their young is much longer than with partridges. If the last ten days of June be days of cold, heavy, ceaseless rain, they may practically annihilate the partridge chicks. But at that time a great number of young pheasants are old enough to withstand a considerable rainfall. Nor are the pheasants of tender age—only a section of the pheasant crop—so much at the mercy of bad weather as are tender partridges, for their haunts are chiefly in and about the woods and hedgerows, which afford shelter from cold and wet. In times of drought, the pheasants have the best chance of finding, among the shaded herbage, and beneath the masses of decaying leaves, enough moist insect food to carry them over to better days. It is on account of the better insect-supply in moist places that in very thin partridge seasons, where birds have suffered heavily from drought in open places, a few fine coveys may often be found on the fringes of woods. And in very wet seasons, the shelter and warmth of underwood also explain the survival of strong coveys. The end of September marks the time of the breaking-up of the pheasant broods. The young birds no longer remain with their mothers; the young cocks begin to feel self-conscious and gallant in their fine feathers, growing richer daily, and duels are fought as by way of practice for the fierce struggles of their first spring. You may hear at the roosting-time of the birds the crude efforts of the young cocks to say "cock-up" instead of "peep-peep." Their utterances are an inharmonious blending of treble and bass; indeed old pheasant cocks and the birds of the year are as different in voice as grown men and choir-boys, old rooks and young.
The Roosting Habit
If one thing annoys a keeper more than another, it is to have foxes turned down on his beat without warning. It is bad enough that foxes should be turned down at all—especially before the young pheasants have learned the trick of going into the trees to roost. Most of the pheasants living in and about the woods should go to roost by the middle of August, and only late birds may be excused if they have not acquired the roosting habit by the First. In the past the keeper was relieved of a load of anxiety if all his hand-reared birds went to tree by the First—for with the long days spent in the partridge fields he was unable to watch over his pheasants at night. But in these days, when there is so little partridge shooting in early September, the keeper has more time to give to his pheasants, and his anxieties are less, though he is always glad when his birds take to roosting out of the reach of vermin, especially of foxes—tame or wild.
Given a fair chance young pheasants soon learn to go to a perch to sleep. Where one sets a good example, others quickly follow. We remember a partridge that was reared with pheasants, and learned to go with them regularly to roost. Five-weeks-old pheasants will flutter up to roost on the first night after removal to covert. It is less difficult to induce them to seek a perch than to break them of the habit of sleeping on the ground. Pheasants have an eye rather for comfortable sleeping quarters than safe ones. Many a keeper has suffered heavy loss from putting his birds in a covert with a thick grassy undergrowth, or within reach of a field of rough grass, or a young plantation with a thick growth of rank herbage and attractive weeds. There the fox is most likely to come.
Ideal quarters for the birds, when the time comes to shift them from the rearing-field to the coverts, is ground bare of brambles, fern, and grass, where oak saplings throw out horizontal branches—not too thick—a few feet from the ground. With his young birds in such a place, the keeper may lie on his bed in peace and thankfulness—to dream of the harvest of his toil, a harvest which needs but a fine November day and straight powder to be garnered in abundance. Where the ground is unfavourable the keeper will try to teach his birds the roosting habit; one plan is to put the hen and her coop on a raised platform. This lessens any risk the hen may have to run from vermin, and encourages her brood to fly to the roost.
The Badger's Stealth
A badger may come to a neighbourhood and stay for a long while unnoticed. He prowls at night, unseen and unsuspected, and people may suppose there is no badger within miles. In the same way otters are at home in many a stream where nobody dreams there is an otter in the neighbourhood. But let the badger's presence be discovered, and he will be persecuted to the end. The wise badger shifts his tent at once if a human nose is poked into it; all badgers would profit if they went to the fox for a few wrinkles. The foxes have a maxim: Never be at home to callers who may come again. A visiting-card, in the shape of a particle of scent, is more than enough acquaintance for a fox with a human being.
Even the gamekeeper often harbours a badger unknowingly. What he does not suspect he does not look for. And if he were to look for a month for signs of a badger he might never find one. Again and again he might pass within sight of a badger's holt, and think it to be the retreat of a fox. But by chance he might come upon a clear imprint of a badger's tracks, and after that it would not take him long to discover the badger's lair. While not a friend of the badger, he has no such bitter resentment against him as he feels for the fox. If it were not that the badger every now and then commits an outrage that brings disgrace on himself and all his kith and kin, the record of his life might be written down as fairly harmless. In these days the badger can make small claim as a provider of sport, which might mitigate the sentence most keepers pass upon him.
We knew of a badger who lived in peace, his presence unsuspected, for many long months. Then a series of mysterious poultry massacres began to disturb the district, and sometimes a dozen chickens and ducklings would be slain in one night. Some said fox, others dog; strange stories of ghosts spread abroad; it was even hinted that a wolf had been imported by mistake with foreign foxes. But one day tracks were seen that were not the tracks of fox, dog, or wolf, and a trail of feathers led to the discovery of a hidden draw-out. The badger was evicted and summarily shot.
To Attract Bullfinches
The bullfinch is not always made welcome when he comes to gardens at the time of fruit-buds. And there are seasons and places in which he would be welcomed—but comes not. We know a way to attract bullfinches, even to gardens in towns. You should take from a hedge-side a few plants of the wild geranium, and set them in your town garden—bullfinches are wonderfully fond of their seeds. We have known the birds to find out the geranium plants in a town garden where bullfinches had never been seen before. To this garden they would come regularly, but always in the early morning. They are cheerful feeders—they live on insects and larvæ, as well as on many kinds of seeds and berries, in the spring feeding their young on seeds which have been carefully softened.
Bird Warnings
Prominent among the birds that mob the barn-owl when he flies forth by day are jays and blackbirds. They are the noisiest, and to the gamekeeper the most useful of all the sentinels of the wood. A sudden hubbub from blackbirds and jays always has a meaning. If the birds are flying high it is a sign that the barn-owl is on the move—if low, the gamekeeper's thoughts fly to a poaching cat. A cat can hardly move a yard in a wood without a blackbird crying the alarm. His excited notes, suggesting the sound of the words "Flint, flint," are taken up by all the blackbirds within call, and soon the cat is besieged by a throng, and so closely that the keeper can follow pussy's direction, though she remains unseen. And the blackbirds give warning of the movements of stoats and weasels. The wren, too, is a lively and vigilant sentinel, and from its movements one may determine within a yard where the stoat is lurking. Jays, by their screams, give prompt warning that a fox is on the prowl, and no human trespasser, in pursuit of game or otherwise, can hope to escape their attentions. A lively reception awaits the fox moving in a wood by day, and his progress may be marked through the length of a big covert by the agitated way in which the cock pheasants mount the trees, with warning "cock-up." In the open the peewits will gather to swoop and swerve in anger and defiance above the fox's head.
A Rabbit's Fates
There was a small rabbit in our woods who might have congratulated himself on two wonderful escapes from death. We first made his acquaintance in a quiet by-lane, and just in time to drive away a stoat that was loping swiftly along on his trail. A little rabbit is pathetic in fear, and instinctively one is angered against the stoat which would take its life—though the stoat's teeth represent the natural weapon of rabbit destruction. The rabbit fled on his way—directly towards a motor-car coming at speed round a corner. He darted to one side, escaping the wheels by the fur of his tail, then foolishly turned across the road, and again escaped the wheels by a miracle. We wondered whether the fate thus avoided would have been easier than the one delayed—no doubt soon after the stoat's teeth bit home in the tender neck.
Game-Birds and Motors
We have seen a motor-car drive right over a covey of young partridges as they dusted themselves on a road, leaving half a dozen victims behind it. But motors are not entirely opposed to game interests. The dust they scatter on roadside hedges greatly helps the hiding nests. Then the frequent passing of cars along country roads is certainly a deterrent to the poacher; the shooting man in his car takes note of doubtful-looking tramps and gipsies, and can spread a swift warning to keepers or police. Even the smells of the car are a disguised blessing, overpowering the scent of the sitting bird, and so, no doubt, often preventing a dog from finding a roadside nest. The motor has sent up the value of many inaccessible shooting properties by eliminating distance. It may be useful to a shooting party when cartridges have come to an end, or at the close of a day for transporting game speedily to the station, or at any time for bringing a doctor when the bag has been enriched by the addition of a gamekeeper.
Mysteries of the Nightjar
On a midsummer night, in an old wood, the crooning of the nightjar, with its whirring, vibrant, monotonous notes, now rising, now falling in key, seems the ideal of lullaby. The beautiful night-flying swallow suffers for an evil reputation. It is a bird of mystery.
The nightjar is the last of our summer visitors, coming about the middle of May to stay until September. It is known almost the world over, but few understand its ways; birds of the night suggest evil doings and inspire superstition. The plumage has the rich, quiet beauty of the woodcock and the hen pheasant, and the feathers have the softness of the owl's. In build the bird comes between a large swift and a small hawk, and is suggestive of swift or swallow when seen close at hand, with its miniature, hawk-like bill and a mouth surprisingly capacious when open. The eggs, like the swift's, are rounded at the ends.
It is commonly called night-hawk, or dor-hawk, because it preys on dor-beetles, and it is fern-owl, because it haunts the bracken fern. It is night-crow, because when on the wing it cries a crowing note, "crow-ic," and it is jar-owl, because of its owl-like love of night and its jarring or churring song. Wheel-bird is a name derived from the wheeling flight. Other names are churn-owl, eve-churr, and night-churr; but the oldest and one of the most familiar names is goat-sucker, derived from the legend that the bird sucks milk from goats, thereby poisoning them and causing blindness. Probably some one saw the bird near a goat, did not know what it was, or anything about it, and invented the goat-sucking myth.
The Razor-grinder
Another bit of folk-lore about the nightjar is that it gave calves a disease called puckeridge; and on this account country folk still call this innocent but unfortunate bird the puckeridge. The disease, in fact, was caused by an insect which laid eggs on the backs of cattle, whence emerged grubs to cause the skin to pucker. The nightjar may often be seen wheeling about cattle, for the reason, no doubt, that the animals attract insects and disturb moths. Possibly for the same reason the nightjar, instead of flying away from human beings, will flit near about, keeping just in front of a walking man. Among other curious names is "razor-grinder." We met a countryman who only knew the nightjar by this name, derived from the noise made by itinerant razor-grinders at work.
A Ventriloquist
Perched lengthwise on a low branch or rail, the nightjar gives to its churring a ventriloquial effect by turning its head while it croons. Though the crooning is monotonous, it varies in key, loudness, and duration; while the occasional cry, "crow-ic, crow-ic," reminds one of the cry of moorhens and tawny owls. As the bird flies, the snapping of the beak may be heard as a sharp click, whether it is snapped over a moth, or by way of showing resentment at one's presence—young wood-pigeons and doves snap in the same way if disturbed in the nest. The bird has marvellous control of its flight, and has a way of poising itself in the air with the wings meeting above the back, like the wings of the dove in a Scripture-book picture. The serrated claw on the middle toe is probably used for catching prey, and for clearing away fragments that cling round the gaping mouth; while the long bristles that grow from the jaws entangle moths as in a net, as the bird flies with mouth wide open. It finds good hunting among oak-trees, and is especially fond of several of the many insects that chiefly haunt the oaks.
The nightjar is among the nestless birds, and is content to lay its two eggs on the ground. When hatched the young are covered with down like young peewits, and they grow at an amazing rate. An old nightjar, when disturbed from its young, will go through a despairing performance, flitting to a low branch near by, and flapping or wringing its wings in a disconsolate manner, as though to say, "Please go away—please do go away!" The old bird seems to know how helpless is the position of the young ones if once discovered by a foe. But it is never easy to pick out the young birds from their surroundings, while the mother bird on her nest is as good as invisible.
The Cock and the Hen
Not all familiar with partridges know how to distinguish the cocks from the hens by the few minute differences in plumage. In flight the birds are so alike in size that it is impossible to tell them apart—unless, perhaps, they are in pairs, and one goes away ahead of the other on being put up, when the cock may be the hindmost bird. The usual test of sex is the chestnut horseshoe of the breast. The cocks display a fine bright horseshoe badge, while the hens have a few chestnut spots on a whitish ground. However, some insist that this test is not always infallible. One to be trusted absolutely, so far as we know, is the striking difference in the lesser and median wing coverts. In each case there is a light buff stripe down the shaft; but the cock's feathers have a chestnut stain which is lacking in the hen's feathers, while the hen's feathers have zigzag buff cross-bars (of the same hue as the shaft stripe), which are lacking in the cock's feathers. There are other differences which the experienced eye sees at once; and there are differences also in the neck feathers. In the adult cock they are grey, with no shaft stripe; in the hen they are brown, with a light shaft stripe. The age of birds is to be determined to a certain extent quite simply. Those with bright yellow legs are birds of the year. Those with their first pen-feathers rounded are more than a year old, for in the young birds these feathers are pointed at the tip.
On Finding Feathers
To be able to name the different sorts of feathers to be picked up on any woodland walk is an interest like that of the knowledge of flowers, which allows one to give each wayside blossom its name. The gamekeeper may put by the more beautiful feathers he finds for presents to his friends. The jay is killed for an egg-thief, but his blue and black wing is borne afterwards to church on the hat of a village maiden. The keeper has an appreciative eye for the burnished metallic hues of the feathers of cock pheasants of every kind. What greatly pleases him is to point out to the ignorant the existence of those two peculiar feathers in the wings of woodcock—the tiny, stiff, pointed feathers, growing close against the base of the first flight feather's shaft in each wing. These he could pick out in the dark by sense of touch. They are to be found in snipe's wings—in which they are lighter in colour, and even more minute—and in other birds, but it would be difficult to say what particular purpose they serve beyond a finish or covering for the exposed edge of the first flight feather. An unwritten law entitles the shooter of a woodcock to these particular feathers, and formerly the etiquette of sport allowed him to wear them in reasonable numbers in his hat. To-day one may sometimes see them in the hard hat of the poulterer. Painters in olden times appreciated the stiff points of the feathers for delicate work. And there was an agent on a Scotch shoot whereon woodcock are plentiful who maintained the national reputation for thrift by using the feathers as nibs for writing. But we suspect he did more woodcock shooting than quill-driving.
When the Dog's Asleep
Rats are marvellously cunning, they never fail to seize an opportunity and make the best of it. They are as bold as cunning, and take desperate risks; but no doubt they know their own powers. The cunning and the boldness of rats are made evident when one is seen eating the crumbs of a biscuit beside a sleeping dog. Rats soon find out that where there is a dog in a kennel there will be food—not crumbs only, but an assortment of bones, and many a tit-bit, despised by a fastidious dog, from that comprehensive dish, household scraps. It is strange to watch a rat stealing a feast within a few inches of a sleeping terrier—the very rat for whose blood the terrier has wearied himself by scratching at a hole for the greater part of the day. Should the dog wake up and dash for his enemy, the rat coolly darts beneath the kennel. It is a thousand to one against the dog catching the thief.
A Story of Rats
Keepers as a class have no love for rats; but there is one keeper who regards all rats with the deadliest loathing, on account of a little experience. He had taken a new berth, and arrived at the cottage which was to be his home some days in advance of his wife, taking bread, a ten-pound cheese, and a cask of beer, on which to subsist until the more luxurious days of his wife's coming. Having found that the outgoing keeper had carried off the front-door key, he brought his most valuable possessions into his bedroom, including the bread, cheese, and beer. Thoroughly tired with his journey and his unpacking, he slept so well through the first night that some mysterious sounds, as in a dream, failed to rouse him. On awakening, he discovered that rats had paid a call, and had eaten every particle of the bread and of the ten-pound cheese. They had even assaulted the bung of the beer-barrel, happily for them and for the keeper without success. During the first three months of his residence this keeper killed no fewer than 600 rats in and about his old-fashioned cottage.
Thinking of the rats who assaulted the beer-barrel reminds us of the story of a clever rat that drank from a wine-bottle by first inserting, then licking, his tail. Rats are so cunning that one can believe almost anything told of them. They suffer, at times, terribly from thirst. There is no doubt that a dry breeding season means a small crop of rats, which seems to support the theory that when hard pressed by thirst larger rats kill the little ones for the sake of their blood. When feeding on corn, in ricks or barns, a spell of rainless weather means much suffering, even if dews compensate in some measure for the absence of water. If you would see rats at their merriest, watch a corn-stack on a summer evening when a shower has come after scorching days. In a little while a rustling will be heard, and the rats steal out to gulp the raindrops on the thatch and the herbage near by. We have seen a rat so thirsty that in spite of being driven back to his hole each time he appeared, every half-minute he would again attempt to reach a farm-yard puddle. A farmer who shot at one rat killed no fewer than seven, which had crowded to drink from a wayside pool.