Part 9

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The Hare Poacher

In March many keepers are worried by hare poachers. To lose a hare by poaching during the shooting season is bad enough, but to lose one of those left for stock is a calamity to the keeper--though to the poacher a hare means a meal for his family, or a week's supply of beer. The chances are ten to one that a hare snared in March will be a doe--for the does run pursued by a pack of bucks, and so go first into the snare. Hare-poaching would be a matter of less concern to the keeper if the buck hares were always taken, for he could often spare a few, as they will race does to the point of utter exhaustion or death. At rutting times the poacher's task is easy. He selects three or four runs which, from their well-used appearance, are promising, then slips down his snares of brass wire, dulled by exposure to smoke to be the less easily seen by hare or keeper. The poacher chooses runs close together, and should he be a man who goes to work, prefers that they shall be near his line of march, so that he may keep an eye on the snares without stepping out of his lawful path.

Slouching along, with a lie ever ready on his lips in case he should meet a keeper, he can see when a hare is caught merely by moving his eyes, and without turning his head. And if a hare is caught, he will pass on his way unconcernedly, returning without a sign. Meantime his mind has been scheming out the best way to take possession. Probably he will wait for night and darkness--or, instead of going to work the next day, he may devote a large part of it to waiting for the chance of a clear coast, so that he may fetch the hare in broad daylight. But give the cunning poacher the smallest hint that the keeper knows about his snares and he will leave them alone altogether. He will only visit his snares when he has no reason to suspect that a keeper has heard of them--otherwise the keeper may be watching to "put a stop to these here little games."

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March Hares

The March hare is certainly mad; what but madness could cause him to go capering round and round a field for hours at a stretch? The battles of the hares are waged in companies; you may see a score of militant, amorous hares together, and several couples will be engaged in duels. The combatants rear themselves on their hind legs, and spar furiously with their front feet, and when one of a fighting pair has had enough of it another instantly takes his place; while the hare that refuses to fight may be chased until forced to turn and square himself to the battle. The whole company may set upon some poor coward, and worry his life out of him. It would seem that when once hares and rabbits have finished their duels, so common a sight in the country in March, they live peaceably enough through the rest of the breeding season. After these early days of courting, one seldom sees more than a slight skirmish between a couple of hares or rabbits, though the does breed again and again through the summer. Fights at courting times among wild creatures are usually due either to a local or temporary preponderance of males, or to some special attraction of particular females. At this time of year, it might appear that fighting and courtship went naturally together; but we doubt if wild creatures who pair are given very much to fighting and quarrelling. It is when one has many wives, as the cock pheasant or the stag, that the most desperate fighting is done.

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The Cubs' Birthday

A majority of fox cubs are born about March 25, five or six to a litter. With such crafty parents there is small chance that they will go short of food, and fortunately they come into the world just when baby rabbits are most plentiful. Much else than rabbit goes down their throats, as the entrance to any fox's earth makes evident--there you see remains of quantities of frogs, mice, rats, hares, and, of course, of countless pheasants and partridges, and of many a fowl. The dog fox is not one to show any great attention to his mate: he pays her many visits, but he enjoys himself in his own way. Nor could he be expected to take a deep interest in the welfare of his half-dozen families, several miles apart. But some foxes make better fathers than others; one we have known to rear a litter of cubs on the death of the vixen. Of course a dog fox could do little if the cubs were dependent on a milk diet. A curious case of an exemplary fox was that of the unfortunate one which met his end while carrying a shoulder of carrion mutton to two vixens and two litters inhabiting the same earth.

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Courtiers in Pens

March brings the gallant cock pheasant to his courting days. He knows that he is safe from men and guns, and stands recklessly within easy gunshot, a figure of defiance. Should he step away he lifts his feet with a pompous and disdainful air. He keeps a sharp eye on the hen pheasants of the wood: the time is near when he will be the sultan of half a score of hens; that is, if he remains at large in the woods. If confined in the keeper's pens, the number of wives is sternly regulated, and five, or at the most seven, are allowed to him. It is curious that in captivity the number of the cock pheasant's hens must be kept down, whereas the mallard, who pairs when wild, will cheerfully accept a polygamous state, and will faithfully husband two or three ducks if kept in a pen.

When partridges are penned up for a few months in the breeding season, on the French system of rearing, they remain faithful to their rule of pairing. Keepers have found that it is useless to try to regulate the partridge courtships: the birds must be left to their own instincts in choosing mates. It will not do to put any cock and hen together and expect them to pair. The hen is quite as particular in accepting a mate as the cock in selecting one for his attentions. Sometimes a hen wins the hearts of several suitors, and then there will be fighting, the strongest securing the prize, the defeated contentedly pairing off with the less sought-for hens. When a partridge betrothal has been ratified, the happy pair announce the fact to their friends by keeping sedulously together, apart from the other occupants of the general pen. The partridge is seldom quarrelsome: in a wild state a cock bird will go far afield in search of a mate if he cannot find one peaceably in his usual haunts--or he may make up his mind to go through the season unwedded. Sometimes, but rarely, it will happen that trouble arises through an amorous cock partridge losing his mate late in the nesting season and trying to run away with another's wife. But while some partridges show a pugnacious temperament, as they boast no spurs, like cock pheasants, their duels mostly take the form of chasing and running.

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When Hawks Nest

In March the hawks pair--and the pairs visit and examine all sorts of old nests. The nest of a kestrel is usually found in the heart of a wood--though it may be recognised as a kestrel's only by the sight of the birds flying off, for they rear their young in old sparrow-hawks' nests, or in a magpie's, a crow's, or in a squirrel's abandoned drey. The sparrow-hawk builds its own nest, as a rule, of rough sticks, with twigs as lining, usually placed near the tree's trunk. It will return to the same nest year after year. But at times the nest of a wood-pigeon is adopted, or of a carrion crow. The cock sparrow-hawk is a polite mate, perhaps of necessity, being so inferior to the hen bird in size and strength. He is energetic in inspecting nest-sites, in advance of his mate. This habit has proved fatal to many, for it is a favourite plan with some keepers to place a circular gin in likely nests--a cruel trick, and illegal, for the law which prohibits the use of the pole-traps forbids also that traps shall be set in nests. Faithful as are hawks and magpies to each other, it is strange how swiftly a new mate is secured should an old one suffer a fatal accident. In the earlier part of the breeding season, a hen sparrow-hawk may lose her mate time after time; yet a new mate is quickly at her side, though no other hawks are to be seen about the country, except those in pairs.

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Love-Dances

The little blue pigeons, the stock-doves, call "Coo-oop, coo-oop, coo-oop," all day, in the old elms in the meadow, or high among the massed twigs of the lime. Pigeons and doves are fantastical love-makers like several other birds--the blackcock and cock grouse hold regular love-levees, going through ridiculous antics and gestures; ducks skim absurdly about the water, bobbing their heads up and down as if bowing compliments to each other; and even the sober rook will perform a kind of love-dance. At courting times, the wood-pigeons assume a wonderful lustre of plumage, and the white of the neck-ring is very striking, like the edging of a woodcock's tail. The cock wood-pigeon is a laughable sight as he goes sidling down some bare branch to greet his prospective bride; nearer and nearer he works his way, bowing incessantly with a sideways motion of the body, until at last, with neck bent low, bill meets bill in some kind of bird-kiss.

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Names that Puzzle Cockneys

The Cockney in the country is perplexed by the countryman's names for birds and beasts; especially by names denoting gender. The countryman seems to the townsman to be particular in drawing his distinctions, and his precise way of referring to an ox or a steer, a bull-calf or a heifer, is found very puzzling, particularly to ladies--who hold all cows to be bulls. And when the countryman speaks of a wether-sheep, a barrow-hog, of a hummel-stag, he is speaking in mysteries. Even the terms of the poultry-yard--cock, cockerel, pullet, fowl, hen, or capon--are not always understood.

Custom grants some creatures only one sex. A cat is usually a she, and a hare nearly always. To be precise, as to hares, one should refer to the male as a jack and a female as a jill, the terms buck and doe being more properly applied to rabbits and to fallow deer; red deer are distinguished by the terms stag and hind. Ferrets in some parts are known as hobbs and gills. Rats, like badgers and hedgehogs, may be boars and sows. The males of otters, stoats, weasels and foxes are dogs, but only the female fox is a vixen. Rams are sometimes "tups." The terms bulls and cows are applied to many kinds of animals, such as elands, moose, whales, elephants, and the seals; but the young seals are pups, and gather in rookeries. The terms for birds offer some difficulties; all common wild duck are mallards, to distinguish them from widgeon, teal and so on; but while the male may be called either the mallard or the drake, the female is always a duck. Grouse are cock and hen; blackcock, blackcock and greyhen; and all woodcock are 'cock.

No less confusing to the Cockney in the country are the terms for quantities of game. He speaks of a "brace of rabbits," and the gamekeeper's eyebrows rise at the term. Two rabbits are a "couple"--when they are not a pair. Two pheasants, two partridges, or two grouse are a "brace," three forming a "brace and a half" or a "leash"; but we speak of a "couple" of woodcock, snipe, duck, or pigeons.

When the gamekeeper speaks of "pairs" of birds he is referring to birds that have paired; but a cock and a hen pheasant remain a cock and a hen. Some confusion arises from the terms applied to gatherings of birds or beasts. Young families of birds are usually "broods," and families of animals "litters." One speaks of a brood (or pack) of grouse, a covey (or pack) of partridges, a bevy of quail, a nid of pheasants (meaning a young family), a wing of plover, a wisp of snipe, a team of duck, a company of widgeon, a flock of sparrows, rooks, or pigeons, a skein or gaggle of geese, a herd of swans or deer, and a sounder of wild pigs. The gamekeeper knows better than any one else just what is meant by a litter of cubs. There is a distinction between a big "rise" of pheasants and a good "flush." If a thousand pheasants fly up at the same time it is a big rise, but not a good one, because few can be shot. A good flush does not mean necessarily that there are many birds, but that they rose, or were flushed, so that most of them offered shots--a few at a time.

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Hares and their Young