A Mutual Understanding
Between the gamekeeper and copsers in his woods there is an unwritten agreement, making for the good of all. The workers take heed and care of the game-nests, and the keeper sees that they are rewarded according to the care. He does not pay people to find nests, but to protect those discovered in the course of daily work—a small sum, by way of encouragement, usually a shilling for each nest. But the copser, while chopping up the rows of underwood, finds a good many small nests, with three or four eggs each, and the keeper may agree to pay him a penny for each of these odd eggs, as he calls them, and a shilling for each more respectable nest saved. The copser must leave cover for a few yards around the nests, and do nothing to disturb the tenancy. When the nest is so situated that it causes no inconvenience or delay to the copser's work, the shilling is paid only when the eggs hatch; in special cases the keeper takes the risk of safe hatching. It is a proud moment for the copser when he makes a satisfactory report of a nest. "That there old bird over agen they ash-stems," he will say delightedly, "she be hatched and gone, master."
