Part 33

The gamekeeper often picks up hints about poachers in unexpected ways. His wife, as a rule, takes no great interest in the affairs of game; yet every now and again she is able to tell her husband some news that may be at once bad and good. It happened that the wife of a highly respected gardener fell ill, and one afternoon the keeper's wife kindly offered to take charge of her children. The eldest child, a boy of about six, seemed to have little to say for himself; but, as the party was walking silently along a lane, he suddenly said in a voice that promised well to be a bass some day: "Our muver, she do make we some good dinners." "Indeed," said the keeper's wife, "and what does she give you for dinner?" The boy answered eagerly and proudly: "Bunny rabbits, m'm." "Indeed," said the keeper's wife again, "and where does mother get the bunny rabbits?" "Please, m'm, faither buys 'em off a man as brings 'em." "Oh! in-deed!" said the keeper's wife, and it was not long before one more receiver of stolen rabbits was brought to justice.

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The Pheasants' Roosting-Trees

When the oaks shed their leaves night has a new danger for the roosting pheasants. They become easy targets for the gun of the night shooter. While the leaves remain the pheasants are well screened--and they often owe their lives to their habit of roosting in oaks, where the leaves give shelter long after beeches are bare. On a night of bright moonshine beeches scarcely provide any cover for the bulky form of a roosting pheasant. No doubt it is rather for comfort than through cunning that pheasants choose a roosting-place in oaks. They show no cunning in choosing their oak-tree, for they will roost night after night on some low branch overhanging a road. They seem naturally to prefer oaks to beeches for a lodging. Unlike most trees, oaks throw out their branches horizontally, but beeches' branches tend to rise vertically. Their bark is smooth and cold, but oak bark is rough, easily gripped, and warm.

When oaks have lost all their leaves the beeches provide the better cover; for their vertical lines form some sort of screen. Even with a full moon it is not always easy to see sleeping pheasants which go to roost in the lower branches. It may be more difficult to see a roosting pheasant than to shoot it--though the hardest shot a pheasant can give is when it flies by night. Fir-trees in a pheasant covert have a special value to the roosting birds. While unsuitable as sleeping-places, for the birds cannot fly up through the thick twiggy branches, nor can they see where they are going, the firs make the more suitable roosting-trees warm and cosy, and against their dark background it is difficult to see the pheasants, and to shoot them. The poacher has no liking for sporting shots.

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The Fox in the Storm

Wet weather is often a benefit to the fox. Like all accomplished night thieves he is more venturesome in attacking hand-reared birds when the wind howls and rain beats heavily down. The storm drowns what little noise there may be from his stealthy feet; and the scent of the birds is stronger by reason of their steaming bodies. In wet autumns foxes take their heaviest toll of the young birds that have grown to a fair size--the dripping trees incline the birds to sleep on the ground long after they are able to fly, and should be flying nightly to roost. Grave risks are run by birds that sit on their nests through wet June nights.

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Foxes at Pheasant Shoots

Foxes are sometimes found among pheasants where wire, or string netting, has been set up at the flushing-places, to prevent the birds running instead of flying, and to cause them to rise and fly at a sporting height and pace. When it is too late, and the beaters have come to the flushing-place, the indignant "cock-ups" of the pheasants are heard, and then they rise in a great rush, too thick and fast for the convenience of sport. We remember one case where a stampede of pheasants so enraged a sportsman that he ordered his loader to bowl over the old sinner of a fox. Should a fox show himself during the beating of a wood, it would be wise to give him every chance to escape. What usually happens is that the beaters force him forward with sticks and curses, and the guns drive him back with cries of "Tally-ho!"

But the fox's appearance is disconcerting; and there is a touch of irony in the thought that a crafty old fox, who in his time has slain more than his share of pheasants, should yet be in at the death of those that escaped him.

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Pheasants that go to Ground

The careful gamekeeper will stop all the rabbit-holes round about the place where he hopes that many pheasants will fall--perhaps for fifty yards before and behind the stands of the sportsmen. Many a pheasant is lost through going to ground in a rabbit-burrow, and there is seldom a spade and a grub-axe at hand. The pheasant may be winged or otherwise wounded, and if it cannot be dug out may die a lingering death. But many a crafty old cock has revealed his hiding-place because, while he has taken the precaution of drawing his body into a burrow, he has forgotten his tail. Only one partridge, in our experience, has run to ground after being winged.

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Pheasants' Doomsday

A wise pheasant would go abroad before the middle of November. He would leave the fallen beech-mast for the pigeons, and turn a deaf ear to the persuasive whistling of the maize-laden keeper. Since the issue of his death-warrant on October 1, the pheasant has fared well--he has never known the want of a hearty breakfast. But sooner or later comes a morning when he must breakfast on the remnants of a last good supper. If he wonders why, he never thinks he has been denied his food because a big breakfast is not good to fly on, because a full crop will lessen his value in the eyes of the game-dealer, and because it is intended that he shall fly high, and give a sporting shot. So he is kept short, like a pig whose time has come to be made into pork. But no doubt even his short life has been worth the living.

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The Hungry Retriever

We have a story of a retriever who was forced to forego breakfast on the morning of a shoot. Retrievers, as they grow old, often grow cunning, and we saw this one getting the better of his master in a novel and drastic way. The old dog had grown fat, and somebody complained that he was inclined to be lazy in his work. It was decided that he had too much to eat, and it was to improve his activity during a day's partridge driving that his master kept him without breakfast, usually a heavy meal. There was a cold partridge that came within range of the dog's nose--but his longings were not gratified. Out in the fields the dog was sent for the first bird his master shot, a runner. Away went the dog with unusual speed; he picked up the bird, and then quietly sat down and made a meal of it. Having had his breakfast, he did his work handsomely for the rest of the day.

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The Old Wood

The first covert shoot has a peculiar charm for the sportsman--especially when the shoot is in familiar woods. There has grown a feeling of friendship for the old rides and trees, and they seem to offer a warmer welcome every year. He comes to the historic corner where he failed miserably to do justice to a rush of pheasants. Here is the opening through which his first woodcock tried to glide--in vain. He remembers, perhaps, that even now he has that woodcock's two pen-feathers in the depths of some ancient purse. Here was where he scored a double at partridges hurtling through the tree-tops--only to be beaten a moment later by a hare, slowly cantering. Nothing has changed in the woods. They wear the same old look of nakedness; save for a hurrying pigeon, there is the same desolate lifelessness. Nothing stirs, but the leaf fluttering to earth; all is dead quiet. Then in the distance is heard the prelude of the beaters' sticks--tap, tap, tapping. The sportsman dreams, musing of past days and their great deeds. Then a lithe moving form catches his eye--a hare has slipped out of sight. A shot rings out, echoes and re-echoes; another, and doubles, and clusters of shots. The old wood is the old wood still.

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Memories of Muzzle-loaders

Perhaps not many shooting men remember much about the old days of the muzzle-loader, or could recall all the items of the paraphernalia necessary for a fair day's sport. In spite of their drawbacks, wonderful feats were performed by the old guns; and certainly there was a truer ring about the word sport in the good old times. A fancy-dress shooting party, with the sportsmen in the old-time shooting-suits, armed with muzzle-loaders, would be entertaining--if dangerous. How many members of the party would arrive on the scene of action with all the appliances necessary for the firing of a fowling-piece--powder, shot, wads, and caps? And who would know how to load his weapon, even with powder, shot, wads, and caps at hand? The man who did not know how to load would be in a bad way, for, of course, no valets could be allowed on the scene, even supposing they might know more than their masters. Short-tempered men would be exploding perpetually in wrath at the delays caused by the process of loading, while birds were rising and going away--we have heard powerful language addressed even to the modern weapon when it has been responsible for a hitch in shooting. It is shocking even to think of what a short-tempered man might say if he flung away an open box full of copper caps in mistake for an empty case, or if he applied his powder-flask to his lips and swallowed a few drachms of treble strong black powder instead of a few drops of sloe-gin. No doubt some of the party would suffer the misfortune of upsetting their whole supply of shot for the day's sport. Then the short-tempered man sooner or later would break his ramrod--others would shoot ramrods, like arrows, into the air. At the end of the day there would be headaches and black-and-blue shoulders. And what would be the bag?

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