Part 14

The keeper does not always take his ferrets with him when he goes ratting. Usually they are too large to enter rat-holes freely, and even the small rat-ferret has difficulty in turning round. And when a ferret has once entered a hole a rat cannot pass him, and so may be prevented from bolting and showing sport. The sport takes place underground, unless the ferret retreats while there is time. The fight ends either in severe punishment for the ferret or in the death of the rat; when the ferret proceeds to gorge himself on his victim--and to lie up.

Again, it is more difficult to find a lingering ferret in a rat's hole than in a rabbit's burrow; a line-ferret sent in to explore cannot move about in the small rat passages as in the roomy tunnels of rabbits, and so cannot locate the free ferret. To dig for a ferret in a rat's run is always risky; the diameter is so small that the spade may cut through without any warning, and also cut through the ferret. When the spade breaks through the crown of a rabbit's hole, on the floor of which is the ferret, the man with the spade naturally eases his pressure. But the ferret fills the rat-hole to the roof.

There is still another danger in ratting with ferrets; the dogs, unless very well trained, may bring about a tragedy. Even when a dog is ferret-proof the ferret may plunge teeth into the dog, who naturally retaliates. On all these accounts the keeper may prefer to go ratting with an iron bar in place of a ferret.

By using an iron bar instead of ferrets for bolting rats, all kinds of difficulties and delays are prevented; and the keeper is free to go home at any time without having to wait for loitering allies. To strike an iron bar into a rat's hole is to strike terror into the rat's heart. One might probe a rabbit's burrow with a bar for a month, and no rabbit would bolt--indeed, the more one probed the tighter would the rabbit sit. In rabbiting, a bar is used only to find holes and save digging. But thrust a bar anywhere near a rat's subterranean lair, and probably the rat will bolt, as if possessed, at the first time of asking. Such an effect does probing have on rats that they will fly before the crowbar well knowing that enemies await their appearance. Even with a dog at the hole who has grabbed at the rat more than once, the rat will fly before a shrewd thrust. The art of thrusting is to drive the bar into the hole behind the rat, not blocking the way by which it will bolt.

Rats seem to have a deep-rooted terror of anything that probes and prods. Perhaps some of them when their holes are disturbed associate the trouble with pitchforks. For hundreds of years rats have lived in corn-ricks, and at threshing time when the sheaves have been lifted by pitchforks have bolted furiously. The first thrust of the pitchfork into a protecting sheaf puts out the rats, though well aware of the presence of men and dogs. When the iron bar comes crashing into the burrow, perhaps the rats half expect the soil to be uplifted as if it were a sheaf of corn.

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."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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A Jackdaw Nursery