Part 25

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Marked Birds

A white or a pied bird, whether rook, blackbird, starling, finch, or sparrow, never fails to hold the eye, and may become a character of public interest in a neighbourhood. Its usual fate is to be shot--the fate of any rare wild creature. The sportsman sees no special reason for sparing a pied pheasant that has come to his coverts--he shoots it at the first chance for the sake of the few seconds' pleasure given by the curious plumage before it is tossed with the rest on the game-cart. But the keeper silently mourns for the death of the pied bird. If he voices his lament, he receives a stock answer: "Well, it is too late now." Happy the keeper who succeeds in catching up a bird that he treasures, so that he may give it safe shelter until the rattle of guns is silenced.

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Colour-Changes in Feathers

"Once a pied bird always a pied bird" is the expression of a common fallacy. A pheasant may be almost white for months, then change colour, and become hardly different from other birds. A pied bird tends to become more pied as the time of moulting approaches. A homely illustration of this increasing lightness of colour is seen when a black cat is about to change its coat; then the fur turns a rusty brown. When this is shed the new growth seems blacker than ever. A black cat or dog with white marks nearly always has young with similar markings. And if you have a white or pied hen pheasant, in spite of the fact that after a moult her new feathers may come of the ordinary brown shade, you may expect, perhaps, half the chicks from her eggs to wear their mother's pretty white or pied dress. Birds that have been pied in their youth, then have put on sober apparel, again put on the showy shade of feathers in their old age, though it is a lucky pheasant that reaches anything like old age, whether pied or not.

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Nature's Healing

Nature is a kindly doctor--and though any accident to the flying or running powers of a wild creature probably means death, miraculous recoveries are to noted. Rabbits commonly suffer from broken legs, whether from gunshot, trap, or other cause; but limbs often heal and become serviceable members again. Nor is a broken wing always enough to cause the death of a game-bird. Should the bird escape its foes while the broken bone is setting, it may live to fly, if not quite as well as ever. We noticed once that one bird in a covey of partridges flew more slowly than the others; it was shot, and when picked up we found that there had been an old wing fracture, and that the broken ends had crossed and overlapped in setting. A curious case was that of a partridge which was shot in the wing, and ran when followed through the turnips by a retriever. Several times the bird sprang above the turnips, attempting, but in vain, to fly; then, when the dog seemed about to catch it, the bird gave a final spring, and this time flew straight away. But after fifty yards or so it dropped to earth, falling almost perpendicularly. The explanation seemed to be that the fractured bone-ends had joined, and kept their place accidentally, for the few moments of the flight.

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A Little Story

A sporting old gentleman, who was very deaf, always took a small boy with him shooting, whose duty seemed to be to stand behind his master and do nothing. He never carried cartridges, and looked incapable of loading a gun. One day we asked the boy to explain his mission in life. "'Tis this way," said he. "In each hand I holds a pin, and I gives the master a prick behind to let him know when game be a-coming--if on this side or on t'other."

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Accidents to Hares

More than once, descending the steep face of the Downs, we have set foot upon hares in their forms--crouching so closely as to be unseen until felt; and once we have witnessed a curious fatal accident which befell a half-grown hare through the habit of lying low. Partridge-shooting was going on in a field of sainfoin, and as the guns lined out from the fence we saw this hare dancing, as it were, on her head. It was a dance of death, and before we could reach her puss was lying still. One of the guns had actually trodden on her head, and had passed on unknowingly. Half-grown and undersized hares seen in autumn have small chance of enduring through the winter; with the setting in of cold weather their fate is sealed; they are unable to thrive on the rough frosted food, and are claimed by a lingering death. In the wet days of autumn, when showers of leaves and rain are falling, hares change their quarters in the woods for the open fields, preferring of all places a stubble-field free of grasses that hold the moisture. The fall of rain and moist leaves has an opposite effect upon the rabbits--driving them to the shelter of their newly renovated burrows, where they lie all day, snug, warm, and dry.

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Hares no longer Speedy

We have heard of terriers who have chased hares and caught them after a burst of less than a field's-breadth; but we have never seen a terrier catch a sound hare in a fair run, though we have known a clever little dog to flash up a ditch and seize a loitering hare, and we have often known a hare to be caught napping in her seat. The hares that terriers catch after short runs have been in some trap or snare, or have been shot, or otherwise wounded, or probably they are diseased. The wonder is that hares can run so fast and long as they do in a state of advanced disease. Hares suffer each year in some places from a disease of a typhous nature, aggravated by feeding on frosted clover. Parting the white fur on the underside of such a hare the skin is found to be green. There is good cause to be suspicious of disease whenever a thin hare is seen in autumn or winter.

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Starling Hosts

Too many starlings in a given place are likely to be a serious trouble--in fact they make a place almost impossible for other inhabitants. Starlings haunt many kinds of roosting-places--the high reeds, the woods, and the shrubs about a house. The keeper finds small pleasure in the thunderous noise of their wings in his coverts. Towards the end of October the sales of underwood take place; thereafter the underwood is cut, and this often drives the starlings from an old roosting-haunt to fresh woods, where their presence is far from desirable, in view of the approaching covert-shooting. Naturally, people hesitate to take preventive measures, such as shooting or lighting fires of green wood, for the shots or the smoke would drive away pheasants as well as starlings. Yet it is wiser thus to drive away one season's pheasants than to have the wood made impossible for many years--to all save starlings.

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LONDON, EDWARD ARNOLD.]

Trials of a Copser

While we have never met any one who actually hated honeysuckle, if there is a man who curses it occasionally it is the copse-worker chopping underwood. A honeysuckle trail will turn a well-aimed blow from its true direction, and so may cause the copser to cut himself very badly--even a slight blow from his sharp bill-hook is a serious matter. The copser's hand and arm have received the order to swing outwards to gather force for a quick stroke--honeysuckle arrests the bill-hook and turns its direction, while the hand and arm disastrously go on with the reflex part of the order. And though we do not suppose there is a copse-worker in the whole world who does not appreciate rabbits to eat, probably most of them speak at times as harshly of rabbits as of honeysuckle. For rabbits gnaw the underwood, and when the butt of a stem has been gnawed by rabbits' teeth, part of the wood dies, and is far harder to cut than a clean stem.

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Wild Birds in Cages

We have heard from several people that owls are among the birds that cannot be tamed and kept as pets; but this idea is a fallacy. Barn-owls taken from the nest, and properly handled, grow into attractive pets, and we know a pair of them, about four months old, who sit on their master's shoulders, and seem to return his affection. We dislike the idea of rearing wild birds in captivity--especially such useful birds as barn-owls, who are better employed in catching mice than in doing tricks. But nearly all birds are susceptible to a taming treatment, even such shy creatures as the redshanks of the marshes, the wariest of birds in their wild state. There are people who seem to possess a natural instinct for understanding birds, as others for handling dogs, horses, or snakes.