YOUNG MERLINS.

KESTREL IN TRAP.

Ui WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA.

Pheasant running down a cart-wheel rut for a considerable distance before it could get out. Just when the downy little creature came opposite the hummock of stones, a break in the side of the rut enabled it to escape and disappear in the copse.

STOAT IN TRAP,

l)rotlierOn stopping to watch him it occurred to my to examine the trap again, and upon doing so we were suri)rised to find that it held a wicked-looking Stoat firmly within its grip, and a photograph was at once taken of the unfortunate captive.

I have often trapped these little animals with what is known in North Yorkshire as a '' Samson Post," and in other parts of the country as a " Figure of Four," from the resem])lance which the

HEDGEHOG.

FIGURE-OF-FOUR ^^

sticks when sot in position bear to that nunioral when written in the old-fasliioned way. In encom-passing the destruction of Stoats and Weasels, I have always been far more successfid with the tiesli of a Blackbird as bait than that of either a Grouse, Plover, Starling, or Rabbit.

Hedgehogs are ruthlessly shiin l)y gamekeepers on account of their mischievous habits amongst the eggs and young of Partridges and Pheasants. They are easily caught in figure- of-four traps.

As an instance of the vexatious losses gamekeepers whose beats are near large Rookeries suffer, especially in dry springs, my brother had a Pheasant's nest containing seventeen eggs—doubt-inless the production of two females— shown him i\rull in 1896 by a couple of gamekeepers, who were naturally proud of the clutch. Happening to jjass the place a few days afterwards he noticed three or four Rooks fly np from the nest and alight on an adjoining tree. Upon examining it he found only three eggs of the seventeen remaining intact.

I used to help a Yorkshire gamekeeper to dissect Rooks which he shot and poisoned in the spring on his moor, which in droughty weather they would ily nine or ten miles to visit, and have a very vivid recollection of his pardonable rage when we foinid pieces of the shell of Grouse eggs in one or two of them. On one occasion I watched a nund)cr of Pooks pull the nearly-fi edged young ones out of a l)hu-k-bird's nest situated in a large hole under the top ^' tlu'ough " of a dry stone wall close to Kii'kby Stephen in Westmorland. I am Althouiih Rooks are very interesting birds, sorry to say that T regard them under ccTtain conditions as little less mischievous llian ( *arrion (Vows.

YOUNG RAVEN ON NEST.

A Scottish game-watcher once told me that whenever he shot a lien Raven as she Hew off her nest, if he could not secure the egg's the cock always devoured them, and then went off in search of a fresh mate. Whilst in the Highlands of Scotland \\ brother was shown a projecting crag covered with grass and moss, in the side of a corrie, upon which a j^oung gamekeeper told him a male Buzzard deposited food for his sitting mate, whose nest was situated some forty or fift)' feet away. It had then lying upon it one young rabbit, not (piite half-grown, and fragments of others, Imt so far as he could see no birds of any kind. As it was in a fairly accessible position he descended to it, and made a photograph, which is here reproduced.

Although I do not think the common l^uzzard is regarded as a particularly dangerous bird by game preservers, it is trapped in the following-manner: A young rabbit is killed, and after being partly flayed is tied down in a sprhig or small stream. This done, a little knoll is built close beside it, and a trap, carefully hidden by moss, jjlaced on the top. No sooner has the unsuspecting bird espied the tempting meal than it either alights on the knoll or drags the carrion thei-eon to devour it, and is caught by one or l)oth legs, as shown in (jur ilhisti-ation on the preceding page, which is from a i)hotograph takcMi in the Hebrides.

The lied ({rouse is the only bird which Ave can claim as purely indigenous to the British Isles. Incredible sums are now sp(Mit every yeai-for the i)rivilege of rearing and shooting the bird; and so exhihu-ating is the sport that I have known well-to-do fai-mers tramp lliii-ty oi- Ibi'iy miles a day as l)e:itei-s j'oi' ihree shillings and sixpence and

-A, ".J,i.\ •» ••V-K

l.-io WITH XATFUK AND A CAMHIiA.

tlioir limchcfm, and declare tliut sooner than miss the fun tliev would rather pay to be allowed to go driving' " Moorcocks.'' Tlu' illustration opposite shows a Grouse's nest in a bed of rushes—a situation in which I have never seen or heard of one before. It was fouiul bv niv brother in Westmorland last year. Grouse sit very closeh' upon their nests. I once knew a

YOUNG GROUSE

clumsy shephei'd tread upon one, and the poor bird left all her tail feathers finnly pinned betwixt the edi^'C of her nest and his ii"on-])lated l)oot toe.

A good gamekeeper having a Grouse moor under his charge takes pains to be on the best of terms with shepherds, as a clutch of eggs is easily trodden on by accident or otherwise, and the driving of a flock of sheep at a brisk pace across a few acres of heather in May is likely to produce a good deal of disappointment in August. Shepherds' dogs, too, often need careful watchin;^-, as the' will occasionallx

GROUSE'S NEST IN RUSHES.

Vri WITH XATrnr: ami a camkra.

kill.sittiii,ii' hens before they can get off their nests and swallow wee "poults" in the most businc^ss-like way. T knew one great laiikv conspieuous-ribbed mongrel in North Yorkshire that was guilty of this and another eurious practice. He must have been of French extraction, for he would swallow young frogs as fast as lie could iind them.

Sheep farmers' cats often take to a feral life and do a great amount of damage amongst Grouse in the breeding season. Some tive or six years ago I was out with a gamekeeper in the Xorth of England aft(M- a Sparrow-hawk that had made her nest in a little glnU which divided a nund:)er of heather-clad pastures that were full of sitting Grouse. In crossing one of these pastures, on our way to another part of the beat, we came upon an ominous-looking train of feathers. In oiu^ direction it led to a headless.female Grouse, and in the other to a nest containing- seven eggs, from three of which protruded the cold tips of little 1)eaks. I stood l)y looking on in sad silence, whilst the keeper vented his rage in entirely unprintable language. We turned back into the ghyll where my companion had some steel gins hidden, and whilst he nuide a stone passage five or six feet long l)y twelve inches high and seven or eight wide, 1 took off my jacket and tickled a mountain trout under a moss-clad bouldci'. The stone passage was luult on a fairly level bit of ground, closer to some great loose rocks under which the feline depredator was ])rol)al)ly liiding at the time. The trout was suspended in the middle of the passage, and a traj) carefully covered with moss laid on the do(»i- of it at either end, and the next morning that keejx'r avenged the headless Grouse. No cat can resist a trout as bait, and no gamekecpci- who knows his l)usiiiess ever

talks about victims of tin's kind, or owns to having seen a cat of any colour, size, or sluipc on his beat.

In the South of England, where the conditions are different, mischievous cats are caught by a trap popularly known amongst some keepers as "Bill Adams," from its terribly destructive chara c t e r. It is baited with a herring and often placed on a plank thrown across a stream, as shown in our illustration. Just as pussN' steps softly beneath a kind of triumphal arch, its weight releases a bit of cunning machinery, and a couple of doors swiftly close, one before and CAT TRAP. one behind,

)fl:.and all chance of escape is instantly cut

I recollect once seeing an old Yorkshire gamekeeper catch a Fox in a very ingenious and, I should think, ancient form of trap, which he called a "kist," probably a corruption of chest. He had traced the animal into a hole amongst some rocks, just after a fall of snow, and l)arred it in by carefully walling up every means of egress. This done, he levelled aiul rougldy flagged a path seven or

154

WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA.

eight feet in length, and leading straight away from the hole at which the Fox had entered. Upon this path he built a substantial passage, nine or ten inches wide by twelve or thirteen in height, which narrowed somewhat abruptly at its outer end into a mere slit through which it was impossible for the prisoner to escape. About one-third of the distance from the end of the passage, built over the hole by which Reynard had entered his lair, the stones forming the sides and roof were so arranged as to allow a heavy slate to work up and down with ease in the form of a sluice. The slate had a hole through its upper part, and to this was tied a strong piece of string which was passed over a smooth stick arranged like a trestle close to the slate, so as to suspend it in a perfectly plumb position and thus allow it to work up and down with ease. The string then ran forward to another trestle placed almost directly over the outer end of the passage, and finally ended in a small brass ring, which was passed over the end of a short piece of stick protruding horizontally from the slit. Directly the Fox came forward along the passage and began to sniff the fresh air and try to widen the slit by scratching, he put his foot on the inner end of the stick and at once so depressed it that the brass ring slipped off its opposite end and released the slate, which instantly fell and effectually barred retreat to his stronghold in the rocks.

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