Owen Jones

“ For the keeper the days and nights spent in his rearing-fields pass in incessant anxiety. He never counts his pheasants before they are hatched. He may count them as morsels of fluff; when they begin to use their babyish wings; again when they fill the broad ride with a mass of seething brown—but not until the bracken is dead, and the trees are naked, and the game-cart has borne away its burden, does he count them as his own. Nor does his anxiety cease until the long tails hang safely in his larder. ”

“ The swift passage of birds through obstacles that appear to our eyes to be almost impenetrable is something of a miraculous nature. Without a moment's survey of difficulties or direction, a bird flashes through a jungle where there is no possible way for it to be found by human eyes. The blackbird flies shrieking in and out of a dense hedge of thorns; but not a feather is ruffled in the course of his intricate flight. Or watch the jay or the sparrow-hawk passing at speed through an almost solid network of twigs and stems. ”

“ With partridges, the great trouble is that nearly all of them nest about the same time: where one brood suffers from bad weather, thousands- 139 - must suffer. For ten days after hatching, partridges are at the mercy of the weather. Let one of those marble-sized drops of rain strike a newly hatched chick, and its day is done. As one sharp frost destroys all the apple-crop of a countryside, if it comes when the trees are in full bloom, so a deluge in mid-June is fatal to all young partridges. ”

“ No wolf has found them out in the cornfields where they have been learning to hunt their own game; no wild dog has dug a way into the nursery earth. To be hunted is quite a new experience. The cubs are spared at least the dread of anticipation as in the early hours of a September morning they settle to sleep in their soft warm kennel, canopied by bracken and brambles. Dreaming, it may be, of their own night's sport, the cheerful voice of the huntsman, as he urges on his newly entered puppies to draw with their elders, means no more than a general alarm to the cubs' drowsy ears. ”

“ January is to the shepherd what June is to the gamekeeper. There is more than common meaning to the shepherd in the greeting, "A happy and a prosperous New Year." Be luck good or bad, the bleat of the lamb is the sweetest sound of the year to shepherd ears: it means as much as the pee-peep of the pheasant chick to the gamekeeper. Keepers and shepherds are deeply attached to their respective "coops"—a word used by the shepherd for the enclosures, one hurdle square, made for the lambs. The experience of coop life is briefer for the lamb than for the young pheasant. ”

“ The opening of the duck-shooting season finds the early broods of wild duck strong on the wing; happily, the old practice of shooting the immature birds is dying out. In the barley-fields where the wild duck resort at dusk, the cool passing of an August day makes requital for the heat of noon. Sport, if an object, will at least be unsullied by the modern taint of wholesale slaughtering; apart from shooting,- 160 - there is the quiet of the fields to be enjoyed, the cool breeze that sets the barley rippling, the perfumes of corn crops, charlock, clover, turnips, and swedes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A late spell of midsummer heat makes it seem as though summer indeed has lingered in the woods. With the oak-trees still heavily canopied with green leaves, the season of pheasant-shooting seems an anomaly. A varied bunch of wild flowers may be picked, many belonging to June rather than to the months of nuts and berries. Primroses bloom freely. Flowers are to be found everywhere, and cottage gardens are ablaze with Michaelmas and tall yellow daisies and dahlias; the coming of the first keen frost will mean a floral massacre. ”

“ To bag a brace from a September covey is satisfactory to a sportsman. To get a bird with each barrel at an October drive is no mean thing. But to bring off a double event at Christmas partridges is to make a reputation. And it is to experience a feeling of goodwill towards the whole world. For Christmas and cold hands excuse a multitude of misses.
The birds whirl over the line of guns like brown clusters of bullets. And if the sportsman is tested, the gamekeeper's reputation hangs also in the balance; his highest art is called for if he is to drive birds in the desired direction. ”

“ 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- 200 - 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. ”

“ A gipsy camp means to the keeper so much dirt, so much thieving, so many lies, so much the more trouble, and so many the fewer rabbits in his preserves. The gipsies' cauldron, steaming at dusk over a fragrant fire of wood, brings only the bitter knowledge that some of the birds or beasts he is paid to preserve are stewing in the pot. Speak to him of gipsies, and scorn flashes in his eyes, anger flushes on his face. "They be always a-shirking about wi' a dog or two, perkin' into everything," an old keeper once said to us. "They can't let nothing bide." ”

“ The keeper knows his hens through and through—and he can tell when a hen has chicks without seeing them, by the bristling of her feathers at his approach, and her instinctive clucking.
An incubator helps the keeper to cope with the whims and frailties of broody hens. It is always ready to receive those unexpected eggs which may be brought to his cottage at any moment, as when sitting birds are disturbed by sheep or cut out in the mowing grass. ”

“ On a midsummer night, in an old wood, the crooning of the nightjar, with its whirring, vibrant, monotonous notes, now rising, now falling in key, seems- 126 - the ideal of lullaby. The beautiful night-flying swallow suffers for an evil reputation. It is a bird of mystery.
The nightjar is the last of our summer visitors, coming about the middle of May to stay until September. It is known almost the world over, but few understand its ways; birds of the night suggest evil doings and inspire superstition. ”

“ One other quiet and calm figure is in the heart of the turmoil—the gamekeeper, who bestirs himself only in the interests of game. With ever-watchful eye and warning voice he sternly represses those who, overcome by the lust of killing, would recklessly slaughter, besides rabbits, the young pheasants or the crouching leverets. Great is the relief of the keeper when the last corn is cut and the harvest festival of the countryman is over for the year. ”

“ Most gamekeepers hold the killing of a hen pheasant after Christmas to be a moral crime. And perhaps most genuine sportsmen feel a twinge of the conscience when they pull a trigger at a hen in New Year days—irrespective of the host's permission. Of course, when the orders are to spare hens, the man who kills or even tries to kill one does something that the keeper will not forget—he loses caste for ever in the keeper's eyes; whereas the man who is not greedy to take advantage of an impromptu permission to shoot hens ensures for himself a niche in the keeper's good graces. ”

“ A determined cat will kill almost anything that a fox might take; but whereas a cat leaves all the feathers of an old bird, and the skin and fur of old furred creatures, the fox swallows feathers, fur, skin, bones, and all but the wings of birds, and the stomach and clawed feet of ground game. Feathers in a circle by a field hedge tell of a hawk's killing. Feet of little pheasants, and bits of downy skin by the coops in the ride, speak of murdering rooks. A dead rabbit is seen, and four tiny holes are discovered beneath the damp, mouthed fur of the pole—a weasel has sucked the life-blood. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The man of experience, who knows his rabbits, does not unduly exert himself. Taking things calmly, he may catch more rabbits than others who are better runners but more excitable. He knows that the great thing is to stand still, rather waiting for the rabbits to come to him than going after them. As a binder works round a field, he moves quietly in the opposite way; then, catching sight of a rabbit crouching beneath a piece of knapweed, some tangled bindweed, or a thistle, his upraised stick falls with certain aim, and instantly he puts into force the rustic law of possession. ”

“ As the last acre of the cornfield is cut, a hundred young pheasants rise, with self-important splutterings, before the binders, each bird clearly betraying its sex by the growing feathers of maturity. But the cunning old cocks seldom advertise their presence. They slink stealthily out of the field while the machines are making their first rounds, and in a couple of yards from the corn reach the shelter of the hedge. ”

“ They are fond of prying about the base of a gate-post, where a trap is often set to good purpose. Then they delight in frisking along the middle of a ride, especially after rain. There the keeper sets a tunnel trap, covering it with bundles of brushwood; and every stoat that comes along will explore so likely a lurking-place for a rabbit, and each naturally enters by the fatal passage. Those heaps of corn-rakings placed in the woods for pheasants form a favourite stoat-haunt. Here they find a warm, dry lair, and good hunting, for the corn attracts a crowd of small birds. ”

“ His cares and worries, his long hours and weary trudgings, and the chances and changes of the weather make the keeper grumble more and more with the years; but he is always a devoted slave to sport, and takes pleasure in each act of preparation for a new season. Every time he adds to the store of feeding eggs he is thinking of the prospects of his pheasants. He sees chicks turning to awkward poults, and poults turning to full-feathered birds, topping the lofty trees or sailing high over the valley, while the guns are coughing below. ”

“ To be able to name the different sorts of feathers to be picked up on any woodland walk is an interest like that of the knowledge of flowers, which allows one to give each wayside blossom its name. The gamekeeper may put by the more beautiful feathers he finds for presents to his friends. The jay is killed for an egg-thief, but his blue and black wing is borne afterwards to church on the hat of a village maiden. The keeper has an appreciative eye for the burnished metallic hues of the feathers of cock pheasants of every kind. ”

“ A bright warm summer is good for all pheasants, whether it be their fate to start life beneath a fowl in a stuffy, if cosy, coop, or to be gathered beneath the breast and wings of their real mother in the wood, or among the corn. A fine summer means more to birds than to man, for to them it is a matter of life or death. ”

“ During the first fortnight of October little parties of fieldfares from Scandinavia drift over the fields, chuckling in their throaty way, redwings are seen, our wood-pigeons are reinforced by countless thousands from overseas, snipe come in, woodcock will soon be here, parties of goldcrests, newly arrived, cry their sharp notes among the larches, and the winter flocks of tits, with goldcrests, tree-creepers, and nuthatches busily move in the woods. Everywhere birds are in flocks. ”

“ Wire netting is the cause of many a tragedy to young pheasants. One may see it stretching for miles on the fringe of woods as a fence against rabbits. Suppose a hen pheasant, with her brood, has been making an excursion to the fields. She comes to the wire and finds her return passage barred. Seeing that most of her little ones have wriggled through the meshes, the mother flies over, and goes on. But as often as not she leaves behind her one or two chicks, and these the flower of her flock—for they are the ones so well grown as to be just too large to pass through the meshes. ”

“ Ideal quarters for the birds, when the time comes to shift them from the rearing-field to the coverts, is ground bare of brambles, fern, and grass, where oak saplings throw out horizontal branches—not too thick—a few feet from the ground. With his young birds in such a place, the keeper may lie on his bed in peace and thankfulness—to dream of the harvest of his toil, a harvest which needs but a fine November day and straight powder to be garnered in abundance. Where the ground is unfavourable the keeper will try to teach his birds the roosting habit ”

“ Rats soon find out that where there is a dog in a kennel there will be food—not crumbs only, but an assortment of bones, and many a tit-bit, despised by a fastidious dog, from that comprehensive dish, household scraps. It is strange to watch a rat stealing a feast within a few inches of a sleeping terrier—the very rat for whose blood the terrier has wearied himself by scratching at a hole for the greater part of the day. Should the dog wake up and dash for his enemy, the rat coolly darts beneath the kennel. It is a thousand to one against the dog catching the thief. ”