164

WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA.

some of them roosted in the trees in which they fed. I had several birds that had been starved to death sent to me for dissection, and not one of them had a piece of gravel in its gizzard. The crop of one female, which had apparently died just after feeding, contained no less than 4,225 buds and small pieces of slender twigs. Some idea may be gathered of the privations these poor birds had to endure when it is mentioned that one male sent me only turned the scale at sixteen and a half ounces. He came from Upper Swaledale, where the late Mr. George Brook, an exceedingly careful observer, killed male birds in the late autumn weighing twenty-eight and even up to thirty-two ounces.

The accompanying illustration represents a friend of ours and his loader in the act of shooting driven Grouse on one of the best moors in the North of England.

Pheasant rearing is the most important business of a woodland gamekeeper's life. The eggs are gathered from hedgebanks and woods and placed under barn-door fowls in hatching-boxes, which are all numbered and dated on the lid or door, so that the keeper in charge can tell when the chicks are due to appear. The picture on p. 167, representing a pheasant hatchery, was obtained on one of the largest and best preserved mixed game estates in England. In front of the hatching-boxes was a double row of wooden pegs driven into the ground, to each of which was attached a piece of string with a running noose at the end. When the fowls were taken off the nests to be fed the noose was slipped over one foot, and the string being so arranged in regard to length as to prevent one bird from interfering with another, quarrelling and stealing each

GROUSE SHOOTER IN BUTT

166

WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA.

other's food were effectually avoided. A quantity of food, also a dish containing a supply of fresh water, were placed beside each peg. Seventeen pheasants' eggs are placed under an average-sized hen, and the keeper who sees fifteen chicks out of this number is well pleased. A dry, hot season is considered worse than a warm damp one for hatching purposes, and during the prevalence of the former kind of weather the eggs are slightly sprinkled with water whilst the hen is off feeding. In spite, however, of this helpful precaution many chicks die in their shells, apparently without the necessary strength to break forth. In addition to dogs chained up at different points, this hatchery was encircled by a fine copper wire, placed about a couple of feet from the ground and attached to the trigger of an alarm gun affixed to the window-sill of the keeper's sleeping-room, from which he could instantly bolt after any prowling egg-stealer.

Pheasants' eggs vary considerably in intensity of coloration. Lord Walsingham's head-keeper told me that stiff clay land on which pheasants feed produces dark-coloured eggs, and a light, sandy soil pale-coloured ones, and this contention he certainly supported by several instances which he brought under my notice, although other keepers to whom I have mentioned the circumstance have no faith in its accuracy.

One of the most marvellous provisions of Nature for the protection of a bird during a vitally important period of its history is the one first pointed out by Mr. Tegetmier of the Field, a veteran pheasant-rearing authority. He discovered that whilst a hen pheasant is sitting on her eggs in a wild state the natural scent thrown off her body at all other seasons of the year has the course of

PHEASANT HATCHERY.

1G8 WITH XATL'BE AM) A CAMERA.

its travels reversed from outwards to inwards, and ])asses away with the excreta, thus rendering- the bird's chances of discovery by a prowhng- enemy nuiterially less. When young pheasants are hatched off they are placed out in a clean field in coops, along with their foster-mothers, and watched night and day by the keepers in charge. In spite of this, how-

PHEASANT ON NEST.

ever, they are sometimes stolen, and I know one keeper in the Home Counties who had nearly all his young birds taken away in a single night, although they were being guarded by two watchei-s, who had unfortunately had too much beer and gone to sleep, and a retriever dog.

The life of a gamekeeper who knows his diitN' and does it conscientiously is bv no means the sinecure some people imagine*. For, in addition to destroying troublesome vermin of all kinds, he has to circumvent the })lans of men who often know (juite as much as himself. With the genuine poacher,

who is well-versed in field-craft and matches his wits s(|iiar('ly against those of the (^'amekeeper and the wild creatures he desires to capture, I must frankh' confess to a great deal of sympathy, for he is often impelled by the same instincts as the best sportsman, whose ])rivileges he lacks the enjoyment of,

PARTRIDGE ON NEST.

frequently by a mere accident of birth. I have known such men personally, and in their characters there was not any other moral kink wdiatsoever. One such fell upon evil days mainly through the ruin of his health by exposure, and was at last com|)elled to pawn his trusty gun in a small provincial town. As it was not redeemed within the allotted period of time it was placed in the window for sale. The decrepit poacher happened to be hobbling past one day on two sticks, and after

eyeing his old siug-le-barrel wistfully for a few moments the tears began to trickle down his weather-beaten face, and he walked sorrowfidly away. But this is only one side of the picture. In addition to thwarting the incursions of men who go poaching in response to natural instincts, gamekeepers, especially near large industrial centres, have to face gangs of despicably cowardly ruffians who know next - to -nothing of the habits of the game they go after, and are impelled by exactly the same motives as would send them to housebreaking.

As a result of various encounters with this class of poacher, the gamekeeper whom I have just mentioned had his hands scarred from savage bites and his temples disfigured by kicks from inhuman brutes, besides carrying in his body more than forty pellets of shot deliberately fired at him by a dastard wIkjui lie was pressing too closeh' in a fair open chase. Partridges are very curious-tempered birds, and will often forsake a nest full of eggs for no other reason, aj^parently, than that it has been discovered. By careful stalking, we secured the picture on the preceding page of a partridge as she sat on her eggs in a hedge bank, without tlisturl)ing her. The birds are poached in various ways, and in most of tluMu some well known natural hal)it is turned to account in order to encompass their destruction. In the evening the mother of a cove' calls licr chickens together to ''jug" in a small circle with their tails all turned inwards towards the cciilic. The old nude generally slee])s a little a])ait by himself, and acts sentiiu'l; but in spite of bis

I'AirrBlDGM (JALn. 171

vigilance a couple of poachers will, with the assistance of a Ion*;- net, often kill his mate and all their offspring-. The net is dragged along the ground with the top well forward, and directly a covey attempts to rise it is dropped over them and they are doomed. To prevent this kind of destruction gamekeepers " bush " the fields in August, and thus save their game.

PARTRIDGE. (I'hohHjraphtil uii Ike M'eitiiwrland HllU ofler a Storm.)

Partridges are, like Grouse, amenable to an artificially-produced call if their peculiar skirling cry be successfully imitated. A Surrey farmer once told me that he had in years gone by lain in the corner of a field and lured lots of birds within shot by means of a call made and used in the following- - thimble, andway:—He took an ordinary sewing grinding the end away, tied a piece of parchment over the hole so tightly as to render it resonant, and making a pin-hole through the centre, threaded it on to a piece of catgut or horsehair. By holding

one end of the catgut or horsehair between the teeth and the other round the index finger of either hand, he coukl l)y moving the thimble up and down reproduce the call-note of a Partridge. In order to prove the value of this information before making iise of it, I constructed a call for myself, and was surprised 1)}' its effective strains.

Hares are, and probably alwa}'s have been, much sought after by poachers of all kinds. Only the other day an old man, bent almost half-double with age and carrying a hamperful of groundsel upon his back, called at the back door of a house occupied by a neighbour of mine, and when he found he could not dispose of any of his ostensible stock-in-trade he glanced round furtively, and then promptly dived his hand through the groundsel and pulled a splendid Hare forth by the leg and - and - sixpence.offered her in. a whisper for three The old fellow had doubtless snared her as she came through some favourite run in a hedgerow.

The commonest way of illicitly catching the animal in the North of England is netting it by night. When a lad of seventeen I was very anxious to know exactly how this was done, and accordingly ingratiated myself into the confidence of a couple of poachers, and accompanied them one night after a heavy fall of snow on to some property which, curiously enough, belonged to my i)aternal grandfather. I think they were desirous of scaring me at the offset; for after telling all sorts of tales allabout narrow escapes from keepc^rs whom we to watch a netknew quite well, they set me stretched across a field-gate leading into a lane. I had stood waiting in fear and trembling for some time, when a black figure (juietly roundcMl a bend

in the r(3ad and came swiftly towards me. The consciousness of my guilt made me jump to the conclusion that it was a keeper, and my heart started thumping Avildly against my waistcoat, as it was impossible for me to run away; and there were special circumstances for making capture particularly disgraceful. Without stirring a foot, I jerked the net from the gate and instantly thrust it beneath nuicli composuremy waistcoat, and waited with as as I could summon. If ever piety had the upper hand of wickedness it was at that moment, for the dark figure turned out to be our minister going home from a prayer meeting. The sound of his soft "Good-night" relieved me beyond the telling; but I fear I added all too readily to my sum total of iniquity by asking him to tell an imaginary chum along the road " to hurry up."

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