Part 24

Until the last field of corn is cut, cubs are spared their introduction to the joys and sorrows of hunting; but at the end of harvest their time is at hand. Few keepers look forward to the coming of hounds for cubbing. When hounds do come there is nothing more disappointing to the keeper than that they should not find the cubs, of whose dark deeds he has been complaining all the summer. Not only does he lose the prospect of a sovereign reward, but the cubs are still at large to carry on their havoc, while he may appear to have been crying wolf where there were no wolves; the loss of the sovereign is much less to him than the loss of his credit and the prospective loss of his birds. Different hunts have different methods of rewarding keepers whose cubs are found by hounds. One hunt works on the irrational plan of giving a keeper a sovereign for each litter found, and ten shillings extra if a cub is killed. This is almost as much as to ask the keeper to take steps towards handicapping the cubs when the pack presses. The keeper knows how important it is that the young entry shall taste blood at this time, and he knows that if scent fails, the best way to ensure a kill is to allow the cub to run to ground. Instead of completely stopping an earth, he arranges a slight barricade of twigs; and then he may know, by whether the cub has broken the barricade or not, if it has run to ground. He takes care to have a spade and a pick-axe close at hand. The well-intentioned reward really ends in spoiling sport.

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"Various"--the Landrail

In the bag of September partridge-shooting, the landrail is often the only bird booked under the heading "Various," save for an occasional wood-pigeon; at any rate, many look to the landrail to fill the "Various" column, if they often look in vain. On a calm day, the landrail is a weird mark, with its heavy, laboured flight, and its dangling legs; the bird hardly suggests a sporting shot. But few who have shot landrails have not also missed them. Landrails will even put to shame the sportsman who has been bagging his brace of partridges with wearisome monotony. So slow, as a rule, is the landrail in heading away, after its silent rising from sainfoin or clover, that we have seen one bagged by a thrown stick, another knocked down by a keeper's partridge-carrier, as he held it in his hand, and another caught on the wing by a dog; of course this is nothing uncommon. We have even seen a terrier point and pounce on a landrail that was crouching beneath its nose. But when a fair wind is blowing, the slow landrail becomes as difficult a mark to hit as a snipe or a woodcock. And a landrail has a disappointing habit of dropping when it comes to a hedge, for all the world like a dead bird, though very much alive.

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Sport amid the Shocks

Sportsmen may find partridge-shooting among shocks of uncarried corn more interesting than shooting over a bare expanse of barren stubble. The shocks or stooks help to mark the birds, alive or dead; and they cause them to rise to a convenient height, so that they show sharp and clear against the sky, instead of skimming away low against the baffling tints of the autumn fields. And birds seem to lie better among stooks than on bare stubble. They cannot see well or far among the stooks, and they like to linger in the dusting-places that they make in sheltered, sunny spots. Another point worth mentioning is less obvious but none the less true--the stooks help the eye in aiming. It always seems easier to hit a pheasant flying high between the tops of trees, as down an avenue open to the sky, than in the open. So in the cornfields before the harvest is garnered. And there is still another point which adds to the charm found in shooting among the corn-sheaves: when a covey bustles up, the birds spread out and scatter, for they cannot see all the party at the same time; and so they may give each gunner a mild taste of what the days of driving will bring.

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"Mark"

Some men have a special gift for marking a bird that is down, while others never know where the bird fell within half an acre. But marking is only a matter of training the eyes, and anybody may learn the trick: in time the eyes accurately note what they see almost unconsciously. The sportsman cannot be too accurate in marking the fall of a bird. The great thing is to take a good line--an imaginary line drawn from the eye to the place where the bird fell: if at a far distance, the actual spot will be nearer in reality than it seems. The accustomed eye finds points which mark the line, if not the very spot, where the bird has fallen--a spray of charlock flower, a thistle-stem, or a tinted leaf. When a bird falls at a distance it is helpful to take some prominent object in front and behind to mark the line--such as a gap and a sapling in opposite hedges.

A sportsman who is a master of the art of marking knows where to come upon each bird he shoots singly; and when he scores a brace he knows all about the second bird. Often he knows much more about the first bird than those who have nothing else to do but to mark. The usual rule is for the attendant to mark the first bird that falls and the shooter the second. With two men to mark one bird it should be quite easy to find the place. The bird will be within a yard of where the two imaginary lines intersect. A common mistake made by sportsmen is to suppose that because they have fired at a bird coming towards them it must have fallen in front of them: more probably it has fallen several yards behind, especially if it be a bird brought down by the second barrel. It is not easy to mark the place where a covey pitches. On seeing the birds suddenly lower their line of flight, a sportsman may suppose they have alighted, unless he still keeps a watchful eye on them, for birds often lower their flight when they have crossed a hollow or a valley, and then skim on low over the crest of the hill. However, when birds lower their line of flight, after flying some distance, it is a sign that they contemplate settling.

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The Keeper's Dogs

Among the many clever things that a gamekeeper's retriever learns is how to mark a partridge which flies a long way and then towers. When once he has grasped what is meant by the rising of a covey, the firing of a shot, and the sight of a bird soaring away from the rest and falling like a stone, he soon begins to watch for the bird that towers, even without the exhortation, "Mark that bird!" A clever retriever will mark the distant fall of a bird seen by no one but himself, and either will dash off for the spot or show strong symptoms of wanting to go. The well-trained dog finds the bird that he has not seen fall. On being ordered to "go on" he gallops in the direction indicated by a wave of his master's hand, and when he hears the word "Halt," or sees a hand-signal, then he begins to cast, and seldom in vain. A retriever will retrace his steps for a couple of miles or more to bring home a dead rabbit or bird which his master has left behind in mistake. One fine retriever had been trained never to give up game except to her master; and it happened that as she was picking up a dead hare another was wounded and ran away before her. She set off in pursuit, carrying the dead hare, and though every man in a long line of beaters, keepers, and guns attempted to relieve her of her burden, she refused to give it up. On catching the wounded hare, she calmly held it down with one paw and waited until her master came to her assistance. Keepers, of all men, have least doubt about the reasoning powers of their dogs.

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Woodcock Owls

Autumn brings with woodcock the woodcock owls--as the short-eared owls are called, because their flight is like a woodcock's, or because they come at the same time. We would make the strongest plea for the preservation of these most useful owls. When an unusual number appeared in parts of the South of England, they made themselves very busy among the rats that had taken lodgings in the root-fields. Yet a party of town shooters, out after partridges, gloated more over the bagging of one of these owls than over all the rest of their spoil. The owl was wounded only enough to be caught--and his wound had cost the party eleven cartridges. Perhaps if the short-eared owl bred here he might be tempted to prey on young game; but very few remain to breed in the north, and the young game is grown when the autumn migration begins. Rats and mice with occasional small birds and some beetles form the staple diet.

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Dogs that Despise Woodcock

The difference in the tastes of dogs is curious, and often strongly marked. Two terriers, boon companions at home, were taken to the Hebrides; in their home haunts they hunted the same game together--rats, rabbits, hares, partridges, and pheasants--but in the north the chief sport was among woodcock, though there were thousands of rabbits. Yet neither dog flushed a single woodcock, save by accident, nor would take the slightest interest in any but rabbit sport. They showed that marked aversion to woodcock common to many dogs not used to them. Sometimes dogs will acquire a taste for hunting and retrieving woodcock, and then make this a speciality. A curious point in the case of the two terriers was that one suddenly became very fond of the remains of cooked woodcock, whether hungry or not, while the other refused ever to look at them, even when purposely kept on short commons by way of experiment. It was a strange sight to see the appreciative dog crunch up the frame of a woodcock, winding up the performance by stowing away the head, bill and all.

The best retrievers usually refuse to pick up and carry a woodcock, unless specially schooled to carry anything from puppyhood. To train puppies to fetch and carry things objectionable alike to their sense of smell and touch, perhaps the best plan is to teach them to retrieve well-filled tobacco-pouches. They may be thrown long distances, and a dog will never bite them--at least, twice--and so acquires a perfect mouth. A retriever not trained in this way will probably refuse to touch a woodcock, in spite of every coaxing--one, induced at last to pick up a woodcock, has been known to spit it out, turning up his lip in contempt, and otherwise showing his intense scorn. Now and again a young and obedient retriever may bring in woodcock at the first trial--but with a look of anything but relish.

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Pets of Pigs

One hardly thinks of pigs as possible pets; yet those who have brought them up and acted the part of foster-mother, agree that they make charming pets, energetic and entertaining. They soon know the step of their master, and rush furiously to greet him with every sign of delight. If properly kept no pet could be more cleanly in habit.

We know a village pig-butcher who, by the irony of fate, made a pet of two little pigs, and was very proud of his black and white twins, as he called them. He reared them by hand, and nothing could be more entertaining than their way of taking their meals of milk and water; they had been trained to rest their front trotters on a box, with the idea of saving their foster-parent's garments, and would greet the sight of their bottle with joyous grunts. These piglets, at weaning-time, had cost their master in food the sum of 7s. 9d. Had he cared to sell them they would have brought him in about £4 each; or supposing he were to kill them himself and convert them into bacon, his bacon would cost him about 3-1/2d. a pound. That this was his intention we gathered from his remark: "I'll see as I don't pay no more 'levenpences a pound for bacon." The pigs in the first place had cost him nothing; they were the "darls" or last-born pigs of their litters, which are generally inferior to their numerous brothers and sisters, and are often given away. Clearly a darl may make a profitable pet.

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Some Deals in Dogs

The gamekeeper, as a rule, is an old hand at dog-dealing. All keepers have an eye for a dog, and are tempted to buy for a song any sort of sporting dog, in the hope of making a few shillings or pounds by a quick sale. We knew a keeper who would buy almost anything that could be described as a dog, but his stock price was "A bob and a pot"--a shilling, that is to say, with a quart of beer. When a shoot is let, and the keeper's services go with it, he often has a good chance to make money over dog-deals. Outgoing tenants commonly make him a present of a useful, general-purpose retriever, or spaniel--a dog that has done a good deal of all-round work on the shoot. A dog may be a good dog only on one shoot, or he may obey only one keeper; so when the tenant goes away he leaves his dog where it can do the most good in the world, kennel, chain, collar and all. Then a new tenant comes in, to whom the keeper offers the dog with its outfit--the whole being, as he declares, "honestly worth five pounds to the shoot." But he will take three pounds, and it is clear profit. And the new tenant makes a good bargain.