Blood and Water
We have a cat which, when thirsty, sometimes drinks from an open tub, balancing herself on the edge. When the water is too low for lapping she will dip a front paw and lick off the water in delicate and dainty fashion. Bloodthirsty creatures require deep drinks: stoats and weasels go often to water. But creatures which feed on green-stuffs seldom drink water directly, but in the shape of dew, or the moisture of their food. Sheep, when feeding off root-crops in autumn and winter, have little need of water, and rabbits and hares are not great drinkers. Partridges are among many birds that may drink only of raindrops or dew, or quench their thirst with juicy seeds or insects. Dry summers always mean plenty of partridges—yet one hears, each dry summer, that partridges are dying in numbers from drought. It is rather the absence of moisture-supplying insects that is fatal to the birds.
The Untimely Opening
Midsummer Day might be marked as the partridge's birthday, since the majority of birds are hatched about that time—a month later than the majority of pheasants break their shells. People are sometimes puzzled when they realise that pheasants are preserved for two months longer than partridges. The reason, of course, is that pheasants mature slowly, and partridges quickly. But are partridges given fair grace? We think not—and would advocate a later opening day for partridge-shooting. Not a partridge of the year is matured on September 1, in size, or strength of flight, or endurance. The young birds are still in the drab-feather stage; their legs are bright yellow, an infallible token of youthfulness; and it is rare, before October, to find one with the horseshoe chestnut feathers on its breast, or with rufous head—the signs of maturity. The heavy toll taken on small shoots during the first fortnight of September is not only unfair, but unwise, and often fatal to the good prospects of future seasons. Another mistake commonly made is the shooting of too many hares in September. Many of the does are still suckling leverets; and does, that breed for the most part in the fields, form a large proportion of the hares met with in September partridge shooting.
LONDON. EDWARD ARNOLD.
'Ware Wire
Wire netting is the cause of many a tragedy to young pheasants. One may see it stretching for miles on the fringe of woods as a fence against rabbits. Suppose a hen pheasant, with her brood, has been making an excursion to the fields. She comes to the wire and finds her return passage barred. Seeing that most of her little ones have wriggled through the meshes, the mother flies over, and goes on. But as often as not she leaves behind her one or two chicks, and these the flower of her flock—for they are the ones so well grown as to be just too large to pass through the meshes. Sooner or later, after fluttering to find a loophole, the little necks become caught, and after a few frantic struggles the chicks hang themselves. Or night comes on, and some prowling vermin saves them from a slow death by exhaustion through their vain efforts.
Witless Pheasants
Pheasants, beside partridges, are stupid mothers: nor have young pheasants anything like the common sense of young partridges. The mother partridge is the most careful mother, and by example soon teaches her young ones to use their wings. One hears the old partridges calling all through the day to their young; but the little pheasants must fight their own battles with less encouragement, and look after themselves. One may see a hen pheasant leading her brood towards a dike, over which it is obvious they are not strong enough to pass. But without a look to see if they follow her or not, she flits across; then, finding that a few are with her, having managed the passage, she hurries on, as if she had not a thought for those left behind. They do their best to follow, only to fall into the water, in which they are drowned, or, if the dike is dry, to become exhausted in their vain efforts to scale the steep sides.
Nature's Laws
Yet it is hardly fair to compare pheasants to partridges. The difference in their habits of life makes it necessary that partridges should learn to use their wings more quickly than pheasants. They will fly when no larger than starlings, but pheasants grow as big as full-grown partridges before making much use of their wings. Partridges mature the more quickly: hatched in mid-June they are nearly full grown by September, while pheasants, born in May, are still in their baby stage in October. Then the habit of the partridges to roost in coveys on the ground fosters the instinct to spring into the air and fly on the first sign of danger, all in a covey acting as one bird for mutual protection. There is some little excuse for the young pheasants that butt into wire with such foolish persistency—they are so near to the wire that their legs have no chance to launch them fairly into the air. While the desire of a pheasant, on meeting wire outside a wood, is to pass through into the covert, the idea of the partridge is to turn about, and fly back to the fields whence it came. The effect of a line of wire-netting on wild creatures seems to be that they imagine they are enclosed on all sides. A half-grown leveret cantered before us for quite two miles alongside netting to the left of him; only after covering this distance did it seem to dawn upon him that by turning to the right he might go his way to freedom.
The Partridge June
What are the ideal conditions for partridges? First, an old-fashioned April—growing weather. Then an old-fashioned May, with blue skies and genial sunshine, to be followed by a June without a drop of rain that would hurt a fly by day, with occasional warm sprayings of rain by night, to help on the insect-supply for the chicks, and to keep the soil just as partridges like it when scratching for insects, but not wet enough to clog their feet. The ideal June—the partridge June—has warm nights and fine sunny days, without too much scorching sunshine. The fine weather must go on during the first part of July in the interests of the later-hatched chicks; and if August can behave as it should, so much the better—but the most important thing is a partridge June. Nothing can make amends to the partridges for a wet, cold June; for nothing can bring their dead chicks to life.
Favoured Pheasants
We need not think of the effect of frost on partridge eggs, for the birds cover their eggs when they leave them, until they are well on their way to hatching, with wonderful care, regularity, and thoroughness; and here they have the advantage of pheasants, which rarely cover their eggs when off the nest. Another advantage of the partridge is the hen's faithful mate—to help to shelter the brood from the weather and keep them warm. One bird might be able to manage this for fifteen little ones during their first week of life; but afterwards she could not possibly give the vital warmth to more than half her offspring. To the chicks of the pheasant hen a risky time is between the shedding of the soft fluffy down of infancy and the growth of feathers proof against cold and wet. Where pheasants have the advantage is that their hatching-time is spread over many weeks; so that whereas partridges may have their hopes ruined by a week or by a few days, or even a few hours of bad weather, the pheasants' hopes are never blighted while summer lasts.
It may be urged that if there are few young partridges there must be few young pheasants, and this to some extent is true. Though the breeding conditions of pheasant and partridge are very different, a bad season for one can hardly be a good season for the other. With partridges, the great trouble is that nearly all of them nest about the same time: where one brood suffers from bad weather, thousands must suffer. For ten days after hatching, partridges are at the mercy of the weather. Let one of those marble-sized drops of rain strike a newly hatched chick, and its day is done. As one sharp frost destroys all the apple-crop of a countryside, if it comes when the trees are in full bloom, so a deluge in mid-June is fatal to all young partridges. Even a day's thunder-rain, between the fifteenth and thirtieth of June, would almost excuse a partridge keeper if he committed suicide—though we have never heard of such a thing.
Heavy warm rain is bad enough—heavy cold rain is simply disastrous when it falls day after day, for weeks, from the time when most partridge eggs begin to hatch, until all except the second clutches are hatched—or flooded out. It is hardly worth considering whether the wet or the cold claims most victims: enough that if wet fails to bring about a tragedy, cold finishes the work. The sunless days, the everlasting rain, the drenching herbage, and the sodden soil wipe out most broods to a bird. It is not, as many suppose, a question of a good hatch that controls the supply for September, but it is simply a question of the weather for the first fortnight after hatching. Usually, if any eggs in a nest hatch, all the eggs hatch; but we may say that if only half the eggs in each nest hatched, and a fine fortnight followed, more birds would be reared than if every egg in each nest produced two chicks, and a drenching fortnight then set in.
In a wretched hatching season, the best luck is often with the intermediate early broods. They fare least badly. As to second nests, it never makes much difference to September's sport whether they prosper or not. A covey of a dozen, in a September following a wet June, is a good covey. The most general coveys are coveys of old birds—or coveys consisting of one young bird! There is no more reliable sign of a poor partridge crop than a good year for roots.
A Covey of Ancients
We remember how an experienced keeper was quite at sea in his judgment of a particular covey. It had been a bad season, and after the corn had been cut he knew of only one good covey; it numbered nine birds, and fine forward birds they were. On this covey he set great store against the coming of September. It happened that he was bidden to shoot a couple of brace of young birds for dinner at "the house" on the First. With his first shot at the covey he bagged the old cock. He pursued the rest of the covey, bagged another bird, also an old cock. Disappointed but still hopeful, again he pursued the covey, again he bagged another bird, and again it was an old cock that fell to his gun. He went on until he bagged the ninth and last bird, and the ninth was no better than all the others. It was a sad keeper who went home that day with his nine old birds. Ever since he has been sceptical about coveys of forward birds. But he always says now that foxes at least show gallantry in the matter of "ladies first."
Keepers' Woe
If June proves wet, despair reigns in the partridge keeper's breast. With hopeless eyes he looks forward to the coming season. One keeper of our acquaintance, one wet midsummer, a time when, in a promising season, he would have had no moment to spare from the care of his young birds, married, and went for a honeymoon. "Lor' love ye," said another, weary of June rain, "I might just as well 've bin in bed for a month past." A common remark made by keepers in a rainy June is the mournful plaint, "Ye don't see no feetmarks on the roads, but old un's."
Red-Legs
The more we see of red-legged partridges the more we appreciate their powers of running. They are wonderful birds for eluding the tactics of walking-up parties; even where the birds are plentiful it is rare to walk-up one within gunshot. The red-leg also suffers by comparison with the English birds on the table. But he is a grand bird for driving (when he is headed and forced to fly), seldom coming in coveys—so that a dozen red-legs may afford as many shots as a dozen unbroken English coveys. And they come straight, more in the style of grouse than of the brown partridges. The two types seldom intermingle, being of different species and different genera. In some places an ill-feeling is still harboured against the bigger and handsomer red-legs, and it is thought that they drive away the English birds.
Water for Game-Birds
It is a lucky keeper whose shoot is watered by springs and brooks which never fail in time of drought, for a continuous supply of water means much to the success of game-breeding. But streams have their dangers: birds will be attracted to the banks at nesting-time, and if heavy rains follow, their nests may be destroyed by the floods. A greater danger lies in the streams which are winter water-courses only and dry up in the spring. Herbage will grow luxuriantly at the stream-side, and birds will be enticed to nest in places where, after a heavy rainfall, there will rush a raging torrent, to carry away birds, nests, eggs and all. Some say that nesting birds can foretell the weather, and choose their nesting-places accordingly—building on the banks and higher ground if the season will be wet, but in the hollows if dry. No doubt their choice is influenced only by prevailing weather, and the position of suitable cover. In a cold, late spring, grass-fields offer poor shelter, and so the birds choose the hedges and dikes, where the wild, weedy growth finds moisture for its roots and protection for its top-growth. When birds are sitting, the less they have to do with water the better for their hopes.
Perhaps it is better for birds to be drowned than to suffer from drought. A long spell of hot weather is not in itself harmful to the broods, for sunshine is the essence of life in their early days; but while drought does not cause suffering through lack of water, it means lack of juicy food, and that is fatal. Succulent weed-seeds and grubs and insects are not to be found; the milkiness is dried out of the seeds, and grubs and worms go deeply into the soil, beyond scratching distance. But food enough of sorts could be found during the severest drought if a little water were also available. Ponds are useful only to a small proportion of the broods, and become waterless when drought is long enough to threaten serious loss. Heavy thunder-rain after drought completes the work of destruction. If it comes within a fortnight of Midsummer Day, it means calamity to hosts of young partridges, who may be overwhelmed before they can reach their parents, or, gaining that shelter, are drowned when the ground is swamped.
Many keepers never give their young pheasants water until they have been removed from the rearing-field to covert—but their food is made dry or moist according to the weather. This plan answers well enough until there comes a hot, dry spell which ends suddenly in rain, and then the chicks drink immoderately, and suffer the penalty. That chicks take the first chance to drink the raindrops from the herbage shows that water is good for them; and the best plan is to provide them with a continuous supply of clean water from the beginning, so that they never become thirsty and drink themselves to death.
Ideal Coverts
A continuous supply prevents the straying of pheasants as they grow up, and feel inclined to see the world, especially when they have been weaned from food more or less pappy to a diet of hard corn. Another benefit is felt by the gamekeeper: where there is no constant supply, he must trudge many weary miles carrying heavy buckets of water, and he knows all the time that his labour is almost in vain—so much of the precious water is wasted by evaporation, and fouled by the birds washing themselves, and by the drifting of leaves. If artificial supplies are relied upon, it is always difficult to supply enough; if rain is relied upon, there is usually far too much. For game-birds, the ideal covert is one with never-failing brooks, and the ideal weather is the ideal weather of April—days of warm sunshine with occasional light, warm showers by day to supplement the dews of night.
The Thirst of Rabbits
Nothing keeps down rabbits more thoroughly than a soaking wet summer; while heavy rains drown the partridge and pheasant broods above ground, they also drown the little rabbits in their furry nests below. Yet in times of drought, when herbage is parched and sapless, the keeper who supplies water for the rabbits to drink in arid, sandy warrens does much for the prosperity of the does and their young. Rabbits eat their young when in want of water, and a dry summer puts a check on the increase of rats, since the old ones kill the young for their blood. With rabbits, a favourite place is always a dry spot by the side of water, although the ground is likely to be favoured by stoats. Rabbits found in such places are always extra fine and fat.
Puppies at Walk
"Please drive cautiously. Hound puppies are at walk in the village." We came upon this notice nailed to the trunk of an ash on the road outside a village in Hampshire. The inference suggested itself that so long as those who might drive furiously through the village touched no hair of a hound puppy's head nothing else mattered. Usually, it is the old-fashioned notices that bring a smile to the passer-by's face: "Beware of Man-traps," "Spring Guns," "Dog-spears set here." Walking along the River Stort we have been startled by a notice beside some of the locks, "The Punishment for Tampering with these Works is Transportation." "Trespassers will be Punished by Transportation" would be a suitable legend for a board in a strictly preserved wood, hinting that if you do not go quietly on request the keeper will carry you. Reading the new caution to drivers outside the Hampshire village, we were tempted to simplify it thus: "Beware of hound puppies." It is pleasant to see young hounds basking in the sun in the farm-yard; but when they are at walk in the charge of the village butcher they may be more than a general nuisance; they may terrorise the place. People who walk hounds do not always undertake the honour because they like it, but because they cannot well refuse. The hounds are turned out into the streets to prowl at large—they slaughter poultry, spread havoc in many a garden plot, knock down children, and roam in through open cottage doors, to steal the labourer's dinner from off his very table. A pack of hounds under the control of a firm huntsman and his whips is one thing—but hounds at walk, allowed to wander at their will, are a peril to the community. "Beware of hound puppies"—when they come up treacherously behind you.
Schooling the Puppies
Retriever pups born about the end of January are old enough, by August or September, to begin their careers of usefulness. If given light work, during the second half of their first year they may be ready to take an important part in the next shooting season, when eighteen months old. Spring puppies are certainly easier to rear than autumn puppies—they grow faster, and are likely to become finer specimens than the others, which must endure long months of trying weather during puppyhood. But there is this in favour of autumn puppies—they come to their first shooting season at a more mature age, and intellectually are readier to learn than the six months old puppies of spring. At the age of twelve months a puppy begins to put away puppyish things.
It is only possible to gain perfection in the education of a puppy by beginning so soon as it is weaned. From that time the puppy should be taken in hand by its future master, whom alone it should know and understand. One can hardly begin too early to teach the meaning of the word "No," which, to the puppy, is that it must not do something that it had thought desirable to do—whether to chase a cat or rabbit, to be excited at the rising of a lark, or to hunt a roadside hedge. Another important early lesson is teaching the puppy its name. For stud-book and show purposes the name may be, if you please, "Beelzebub of Babylon," or any other high-flown title, but for common use it should be distinct in sound, and preferably of not more than one syllable. Puppies may be taught their names and obedience at the same time; in classes perhaps more quickly and more thoroughly than individually. It is a good plan at feeding-time to have the puppies together, and put food outside an opening in their kennel; then to call out each puppy by name, and on no account allow any other to come than the one called. In a surprisingly short time it will be possible to set open the door and call out each puppy by name, without forcibly keeping back the uninvited. In this way a good grounding might be given to the favourite fox-terriers in obedience, of which so many have not the slightest notion.
Dogs' Noses
The power of scent varies much with different dogs: usually a slow dog makes better use of its scenting nerves than the fast galloper. It is pretty to watch a good retriever following a wounded bird over ground alive with unwounded game, yet never turning aside from the one trail. A dog could hardly distinguish one partridge from another—probably it is by the scent of blood that the one line can be followed so accurately. Sportsmen do not always give the dogs fair chances; they throw them cheese at lunch-time, or perhaps allow bagged game or themselves to taint the wind, so foiling other trails. In one case a sportsman blamed a new retriever for not finding a bird which was actually lying beneath his own boots. And even a first-rate retriever will sometimes tread on the very bird he is seeking, without finding it.
The Thief of the World
Gamekeepers, we know, have little love for foxes—for the sufficient reason that they are at one with foxes in their love of pheasants. Keepers have also some of that craftiness and worldly wisdom so developed in foxes; they know it is not always policy to say with their lips what they believe in their hearts. There are good people who tell keepers every now and again that foxes do no harm to game. Keepers have heard stories in favour of foxes; they know the rights of them. Dark and mysterious are the ways of the fox; but darker still and more mysterious are the ways of the keeper with "the thief of the world." This alone he will admit in favour of the fox: he adds to the keeper's work an uncertainty which makes success the sweeter. The fox is a favourite of Fortune, his needs are fulfilled exactly; all things seem arranged in his favour to a nicety. Other creatures may die of starvation in time of snow; but the fox then finds his prey with greatest ease. Cubs are weaned about the middle of May, and must be fed on flesh, when a majority of pheasants are sitting. And when a sitting pheasant is scented or seen by a vixen in search of food for her cubs, that pheasant, you may say, is dead. The keeper, though his blood boils afresh at each nesting tragedy—at the sight of the strewn feathers of the hen pheasant and at the cold touch of the lifeless eggs—appreciates the deftness of the marauder's work. He reconstructs each scene of the plundering—the silent passage of the prowling fox, the pause of a moment to sniff and sniff again the scent that taints the air, the swift thrust of long jaws between bramble, brier, and bracken, the grab of gleaming teeth, the stifled cry of the dying bird, the floating of brown feathers on the wind of night, and the joy of the cubs at the sight of the dead bird and the scent of her welling blood. And then the carnival of feasting at the mouth of the earth, by the old tree of the cubs' playground, while the white owl screeches his protest as he passes overhead, and the mother fox, sitting on her haunches, licks her chops and watches. The work of a vixen among sitting birds differs from that of the dog fox. While she always carries her booty to her cubs, he kills in wanton waste, leaving the birds' bodies, often headless, near their nests. Some or all of the eggs may be eaten, or they may be left untouched, still as neatly arranged in the nest as the mother bird left them when she stole off to feed and take a bath in dust. The keeper may recognise the excuse of the mother fox's necessity, but for the wanton slaughter by her idle mate he sees no reason, and finds no forgiveness.
Only those who have seen the remains of game scattered round the earth of a litter of cubs—the cubs of an experienced mother—can realise what it costs in game to entertain foxes. Where rabbits are plentiful, pheasants and partridges suffer less from foxes than where rabbits are scarce, and the keeper may help a vixen to cater for her cubs by shooting and snaring rabbits in her favour. He leaves their bodies, but scattered at a fair distance from the earth, so that the vixen must spend some time in fetching and carrying, and has the less time for making a mixed bag of her own selection.
The Cubs' Playground
Unseeing eyes pass blindly over the home of a litter of cubs; but the keeper's never overpass the place. Long furrows through the dog's-mercury and grasses tell their tale. Primroses are torn and crushed, the great leaves of the burdock are bruised and broken, the moss is rubbed from the underwood stumps and from the boles of trees where the cubs have been gambolling and rubbing their coats, the excavated soil near the earth is smooth from the pattering of their feet, beaten hard and polished—and in all directions there are scattered wings, feathers and bones. If the keeper calls, and sees signs of recent rollicking play and fresh-killed food, and fresh-drawn soil where the cubs amuse themselves at earth-making and enlarging the burrows of rabbits, he knows the family to be in residence. Should the soil near the entrance to the earth have a green look, he knows the family has gone away.
A Fox's Feat
Who would believe that a full-grown fox could pass through the mesh of ordinary sheep-netting?—four-inch mesh, if memory serves. We know of one case where a vixen was actually seen to accomplish this wonderful feat. With her cubs, she had been dug out from her earth, carried to a distant part of the country, and imprisoned. The four-inch mesh must have been a tight fit for her body; but perhaps she had worried and fretted at her imprisonment, until she had worn herself to a shadow. Her cubs, which were unweaned, may have helped to weaken her strength, and reduce her waist until it could squeeze through the netting.
The story has a sequel. A town doctor saw the vixen a few moments after her escape; and happened to find himself sitting next to a M.F.H. at dinner. The doctor remarked, with a well-meant attempt at affability, "Foxes seem to be plentiful in your neighbourhood this year." "What makes you think so?" asked the M.F.H., with encouraging eagerness. "Why, only the other day, passing your place about noon, I saw a vixen with cubs trotting across your lawn." The doctor swiftly perceived that he had let the fox out of the bag, so black was the look that came over the Master's face. But it was months before he solved the full riddle of the black look, when he learned that the fox he had seen on the lawn in broad daylight had only just escaped from her wire-net prison, so saving herself from the ignominy of being turned down with her cubs.
The keeper finds his game-nests with his eyes, the fox with his nose. The keeper who must preserve game and preserves foxes takes steps to overcome the scent of his birds. He sprinkles the neighbourhood of all the nests he can find with some strong-smelling fluid. But the foulest or strongest scent will not save a bird when a fox has once seen her. Fortunately he is not clever enough to know a new trap from an old one, nor a sound from a broken one, and the keeper finds at nesting-time a good use for his disused traps, placing them about birds sitting in dangerous spots. Anything in the shape of scrap-iron the fox suspects; anything unusual about a nest, such as a piece of newspaper on a bush near by, will arouse his fears, and possibly save a bird's life. But as rooks learn to treat scarecrows with contempt, so foxes learn to have no fear for harmless terrors, and the keeper rings the changes on all the fox-alarming devices which experience and ingenuity can suggest.
Dog-Washing Days
Two or tree times a year, the gamekeeper gives all his dogs a grand washing; and his methods should be marked by other dog-owners, for there are few who understand dogs better. He knows that a dog's coat, like a woman's hair, is spoiled by too much washing, which destroys the satiny gloss imparted by the natural oils. He knows, too, that a dip in a pond or a splash in a stream only wets the surface of a coat, and does not cleanse the skin. His method is thorough, and designed not only to cleanse the hair and skin, but to rid the dogs of all the unwelcome guests they may harbour. Choosing a warm, sunny day, the keeper gets to work betimes, so that he may have his dogs washed and out to dry by midday; they must be perfectly dry before nightfall. He sets up a wooden tub on an old box, for his own convenience, and brings forth his pails and cans of water—water of just that tepid temperature which a dog likes. He wants his dogs to enjoy their bath, and knows that if he scalds or otherwise frightens them they will be shy of the wash-tub for ever afterwards. To pitch a dog unawares into a tub of water is as foolish as to throw him into a pond. He must be coaxed to his bath with words of encouragement, so that he will see there is nothing to be frightened about. Properly treated, dogs soon learn to appreciate the wash-tub, and there may be trouble in making them come out.
Having brought the dog to the tub, the next work is to put him in and thoroughly wet his skin—not an easy matter with a retriever, who may lie in water for ten minutes and yet keep his skin dry. So the keeper works in the water by hand, rubbing the hair the wrong way, and gently persuading the dog to lie down. Once comfortably settled in the tub, a happy look comes over the dog's face. This, by the way, may not be true of the face of the keeper's wife, should she come to her door to watch proceedings, and find that her good man has borrowed her new wash-tub. To make the best of a bad business, she may decide to give her pet goose a good tubbing; and this will be one of the grandest treats in the goose's life.
One old keeper of our acquaintance has a curious recipe for a dog-wash, and swears that in more than fifty years he has not found its equal. You must uproot, he will tell you, an armful of foxglove plants, and boil them in a copper of water. When the infusion is cool enough, rub it well into your dog's coat, and lather him with a little soft soap. "And I'll lay," says the old chap, "that you don't see nothing about a dog after that, and his coat will look fit to go to a wedd'n." The keeper's plan is to leave the lather in his dogs' coats for some little time after they have left the tub. Every lathery dog is tied up in turn in a sunny spot, free from draughts; then all are rinsed in the order of washing, and are taken for a long gambol in a field of grass, the keeper taking care not to let a dog free in a dusty place, for his first act is to have a good roll, regardless of a clean coat.
Shame-faced Cocks
At harvest-time the old cock pheasants begin to show themselves in the woods again. In April one grew almost weary of the insistent, boasting crows of the vainglorious dandies. Then for months they seemed quite to drop out of woodland society. They like to take things easily through the summer, leaving all family cares to the members of their harems. And no doubt they feel out of sorts, and have no desire to be seen—for they have to pass through the strain of the moulting season.
As the last acre of the cornfield is cut, a hundred young pheasants rise, with self-important splutterings, before the binders, each bird clearly betraying its sex by the growing feathers of maturity. But the cunning old cocks seldom advertise their presence. They slink stealthily out of the field while the machines are making their first rounds, and in a couple of yards from the corn reach the shelter of the hedge. They steal away with lowered heads, as though to hide their faces behind each blade of stubble. A dissipated, dishevelled old ruffian the cock pheasant appears while moulting—with half a tail, many flight feathers missing from the wings (corresponding feathers drop out together from each wing, so that he is not deprived of power of flight), and lacking all the metallic gloss of plumage, burnished gold and bronze. To come suddenly on a moulting cock pheasant—as when he is enjoying a quiet dust-bath—is to pity him. And the way he blunders off suggests that he is heartily ashamed of himself.
The Turtle-Dove's Summer
In May the turtle-doves were skimming low across the fields, after their arrival in this country. During the last week of August we saw them gathering into little parties of dozens or scores against the hour of their departure. The doves leave before the end of harvest—the first chillness of autumn bids them go. The pigeons remain to continue their feasts of corn. Their cooing from the recesses of the beeches suggests a well-fed laziness. Great feeders as they are, they stuff their crops to bursting-point, and nothing vegetarian or fruitarian seems to come amiss to them—whether the greens of root-crops, acorns, beech-mast, clover, the sown peas, dandelion leaves, sainfoin, anemone roots, charlock, beech buds, the seeds of bluebells, wild strawberries, oak-galls, or corn in all its stages. Turtle-doves pay little attention to corn till harvest-time; the seeds of charlock and of other noxious plants are a greater attraction. Though they fly with wood-pigeons a great deal, their diet is different, and they seem to come to ponds to drink more often than the pigeons, perhaps because some of their favourite foods, such as charlock seeds, are hot and thirst-producing. They are among the farmer's best friends.
The Lagging Landrail
Whenever we flush a landrail we wonder that so slovenly a bird should be able to cross seas in migration. One doubts its ability to cross a wide river. Those who for the first time see a landrail rise might be excused for supposing it to be wounded—the long legs trail at full length, hardly clearing the heads of the clover which forms its favourite cover. Few birds are so slow in flight, certainly no other game-birds—if it is entitled to be classed with them, because, as for woodcock and snipe, a game licence is required before it may be taken. Beaters have surprised themselves by bagging landrails with sticks and partridge carriers, and we have known a clever retriever to catch a landrail in the air. In spite of her wide experience, the dog mistook the landrail for a wounded bird when it rose, in its heavy way, some twenty yards before her, while she quested for a partridge. As if in revenge for having been fooled, she gave furious chase, and retrieved it. Flushed in a gale of wind, a landrail will make some progress, though its flight at first is rather suggestive of a wind-driven leaf. But after a time the flight grows stronger, as though the wings had worked off some stiffness. No bird seems less willing to be seen than the landrail. Yet it will make itself heard almost continuously from the first streak of dawn until darkness. Its harsh-toned "Crake, crake, crake," seems close at hand at one moment, then far away, suggesting that the bird is swift enough on its legs, if slow in flight. It does not travel far, having arrived from its over-sea journey, haunting, as a rule, one chosen field, where it is seen only by the mower, who may accidentally wound the close-crouching bird with his scythe. Landrails seem to become more scarce every year, and this is often put down to the mowing machine, which it is claimed is more fatal to sitting birds than the scythe. But birds usually run from their nests before the approach of the noisy, whirring machines, and, if they are caught, seldom suffer more than a cut leg; whereas the scythe comes upon them almost unawares, and strikes fatally. Probably some influences bearing upon the migration of landrails have more to do with their scarcity than unnatural destruction. Hiding so closely in the grass or the corn, landrails seem to have every chance of long life in this country.
The Truce Ends
The first day of August is the most important of the gamekeeper's minor festivals, for the close time under the Wild Birds Protection Act has come to an end; duck-shooting begins to be a legal if not a difficult pastime, and hares, which, unfortunately, may be harassed all the year round, can now be sold openly. The time has come for the cutting of the first cornfields; and this is ever an important event to the keeper, for it allows him to make a shrewd estimate of the quantity of game.
The opening of the duck-shooting season finds the early broods of wild duck strong on the wing; happily, the old practice of shooting the immature birds is dying out. In the barley-fields where the wild duck resort at dusk, the cool passing of an August day makes requital for the heat of noon. Sport, if an object, will at least be unsullied by the modern taint of wholesale slaughtering; apart from shooting, there is the quiet of the fields to be enjoyed, the cool breeze that sets the barley rippling, the perfumes of corn crops, charlock, clover, turnips, and swedes. In a duck country, barley-fields, left standing as they are until dead ripe and after wheat and oats have been harvested, may suffer severely from their nocturnal visitors.
The Thieving Jay
At this time of year jays will make long excursions from their thickets in the heart of the woods to sample the wheat crops. They go stealthily to their stolen feasts in the early morning, so soon as the ears show signs of turning, nipping off whole ears, and carrying them to some thick hedge for leisurely consumption. If there is a case against jays, there is much in favour of these handsome birds. They do far less harm to game than rooks and other egg-stealers; they may be almost blameless in the matter of game eggs, although when a pair of jays acquire the egg-stealing habit they may clear off three or four hundred eggs in a few days. Their most useful work is the destruction of pigeons' eggs. Of course pigeons do no harm to game, except by clearing off beech-masts and acorns, and the corn sprinkled in the wood; but the damage they sometimes do in the cornfields is enormous, going far to destroy perhaps two out of ten acres of wheat. Still, one must remember that charlock buds, served up with pigeon's milk, form the pigeons' favourite food for their nestlings.
The Oldest Writing
Day after day the keeper, going his rounds, reads stories of life and death. Here a bent leaf gives the clue: there a stray feather: the snout of a rat tells of a poaching cat that killed the rat, but left the head with its sharp front teeth and strong and long jaw-bone untouched. A shrew's body is seen, snapped up by a cat, but left uneaten on account of the bad taste. The remains of a feast are found, carelessly covered by only a few leaves; another sign of cats' work. A determined cat will kill almost anything that a fox might take; but whereas a cat leaves all the feathers of an old bird, and the skin and fur of old furred creatures, the fox swallows feathers, fur, skin, bones, and all but the wings of birds, and the stomach and clawed feet of ground game. Feathers in a circle by a field hedge tell of a hawk's killing. Feet of little pheasants, and bits of downy skin by the coops in the ride, speak of murdering rooks. A dead rabbit is seen, and four tiny holes are discovered beneath the damp, mouthed fur of the pole—a weasel has sucked the life-blood.
Prospects
All through the long, anxious months of spring and early summer the keeper has been sifting and weighing the points of evidence upon which he will be able to base a final judgment of the season's prospects. In June there are many signs which go to make up a long story; thus, nest after nest may be found to contain egg-shells, all broken in the same way—nearer the round than the pointed end—telling of the successful hatching of partridges. Then the keeper becomes so accustomed to encountering parent partridges who threaten to bar his way, while their downy chicks magically vanish, that he grows almost indifferent to their agitation. But in July, to judge the welfare of game is extremely difficult. Hedges and woodlands are in the prime of their growth; and in midsummer days luxuriant vegetation hides nearly all birds on the ground. By chance a keeper may happen on a brood; he notes that sixteen have dwindled to ten, and wonders whether the heavy shower three weeks ago come Sunday, or the old vixen he knows too well, or the widow's tortoiseshell cat, must bear the responsibility. But most game-birds seen are old ones—birds perhaps whose nests have been destroyed too late for a second nesting, or birds whose young ones have met with an untimely fate. Wary old birds with families are specially cautious to keep well out of sight. Distressing, then, as it is continually to see barren birds, there is consolation in the knowledge that naturally they are more in evidence than parents with thriving young ones. With July the days pass that are most risky to young game—safe days lie ahead; and with the cutting of the first harvest fields the most valuable of all evidence is gained as to the numbers of birds. Later on, as fields of standing corn become fewer, birds of all sorts flock to them, and estimates of quantity are likely to be misleading. But if it can be proved that three different coveys have been seen during the cutting of a piece of forward corn, it is to err on the moderate side to reckon that there are three others, though unseen. To all interested in the numbers of game-birds these are fateful days.