The Towered Bird.
For upwards of twenty years it has been asserted that no towered bird has been hit only in the head. It has become quite an article of faith with some people that every towered bird is stifled by wounds or blood in the organs of respiration. Quite lately it has been stated that it has often been said that towering has been caused by a shot on the head, but that this is never the case.
The writer has often fallen into this supposed error himself, and has gone very fully into the subject. It is not only a very interesting question in itself, but one that sportsmen should not be misled about. At the last retriever trials there was reported to be a “towered bird,” and upon the dog being sent for it a field away he found it quickly, but the towered bird rose again and flew away, followed by the keeper’s remark, that it was “a very lively dead bird.”
This shows that not all keepers are aware that towerers are not always dead birds when they fall; for this keeper was surprised when the towerer rose again; but I noticed that the judges were quite satisfied that the escaped partridge was identical with “the towerer.” They did not set the dog to hunt again, but turned their backs on the scene of action, and credited the dog (which happened to win the stake) with the find.
That bird had been hit in the head, not in the lungs, and he towered in consequence. If he had been also wounded in the lungs he would have died at the apex of his flight—they always do. It may be asked how I know this, and my reply must be that I know it from the examination of many towered birds of different kinds. Of course, I make no claim to be telling experienced sportsmen anything they do not know already. I am well aware that very many do know it, because I have gone out of my way to ask them; but I think there is occasion for dealing fully with a subject that has been misunderstood for twenty years.
This being so, I propose to glance, briefly, at the varying behaviour of game when struck in different parts of the body; and this seems to be all the more necessary, as wrong information is sure to cause many a fruitless search, much loss of time, and perhaps some muttered thunder directed against the supposed Ananias who saw the bird tower.
Young shooters are often confident that a towered bird is dead, and can be picked up if looked for long enough. Probably they have read it, and have confirmed the statement with a few observations of their own. The partridge that is struck in the head usually falls at once, whether the shot has actually pierced the brain or not, but this is by no means invariable, as I have suggested above.
The several kinds of towerers behave as follows: A rap on the head from a glancing shot may or may not damage the sight, but if it does not completely stun the bird he will rise up and tower from the place where the shot struck him; his is usually a very strong flight, and he is likely to fly a good way, towering all the time, until the loss of strength forces him to come down; he will not collapse at the apex of his flight, but as he falls continue to beat his wings, more or less slowly, nearly or quite to the ground. When he reaches the earth he may die, or he may sit muffled up in a dazed condition. Generally he can be approached and killed with a stick, but sometimes he will have a blind side and a wideawake one; and it is not difficult to approach him by selecting his dark side. In no case is such a bird likely to fly until his enemy is within a yard or two of him. Often he makes no attempt to save his own life, and many times I have allowed a retriever to pick up such a bird, having the gun ready in case of his blunder. On several occasions, probably not more than three, the towered bird on being disturbed has towered again; but generally if he is able to fly at all he is able to see where he is going to and to get away. Many birds of this kind have no shot in them whatever, as I have proved by post-mortem examination; others have proved the same thing by being as lively as ever upon being approached. Once, a few years ago, when a controversy on this subject raged, X-ray photographs of three towerers were published, but shot pellets could only be traced in two of them, and consequently both sides claimed the victory. It is very likely that laboratory examination never will find a shot pellet in the head of a towerer, but that only proves that when a shot enters the head it is generally enough to bring the bird down at once. It is quite another matter when a shot pellet strikes the head and does not enter. Then the state of towering is frequently instantly produced.
This kind of wound, then, may be recognised by the towering of the bird from the instant it was struck, also by some movement in its wings in descent, and lastly, by its attitude of squatting when found upon the ground.
A bird struck in the lungs or stifled by blood in the windpipe behaves very differently. On receiving the shot it generally, but not always, drops its legs as if they were broken; that will generally prove not to have been the case. Then it flies on, from fifty to five hundred yards, with nothing apparently the matter, except the dropped legs, then it suddenly begins to rise or tower. This towering appears from the shooter’s position in the rear, and far behind, to be straight up, but that is optical deception, caused by the position of the shooter directly in the rear. The angle of elevation is really about the same as that of the head-struck bird, although, as the latter rises from only forty or fifty yards away, his angle of elevation looks more oblique than that of the bird a quarter of a mile away.
The stifled bird rises in spite of the fact that his head does not point upwards like that of a pheasant rising to top the trees. The partridge rises without any appearance of change of angle in his body, and when he reaches the apex he does not turn over backwards, as has been said of him, but starts to fall from the position of ordinary horizontal flight. You will generally find him dead upon his back, but the reason of this is that the resistance of his outstretched wings in falling turns him over, and they cease to resist the air when he is on his back. It is a case of movement in the direction of least resistance.
A bird which is brought down instantly by a shot in the head generally jumps about or flaps his wings when on the ground; one would think that he could not do this if he was entirely unconscious, but if he has any degree of consciousness the head-struck towerer must have very much more, just as the stifling bird has, so there must be many degrees of semiconsciousness in wounded partridges.
It very often happens that the most experienced will mistake the dead bird’s fall for that of a runner, and a runner’s for that of a dead bird, but the latter is less frequent. The runner generally flaps a wing as he falls, shows the white of the other one and holds his head up; but all these signs taken together do not prove him to be a runner, because he may have had a lung shot as well, and then he will die upon the ground. Again, a runner may deceive in the other way, he will sometimes fall as if unconscious and then recover and run away. The runner which is just wing-tipped and can fly a long way, sinking slightly until he touches the ground, will not fly again, but generally proves to be a very strong pedestrian indeed.
Several different kinds of hits cause birds to drop their legs instantly, and I fancy that when this happens they are always found where they fall, near or far. The most common of these is the lung-shot bird, then there is the back-broken bird, which does the same, and may also be known by the wobble of his flight—an up-and-down movement, like a boat in a heavy sea. Then there is the leg-broken bird which is likely enough to fly again, but not to run, that day at least. A broken-legged bird generally only has one leg down, whereas a dead bird generally drops both, no matter how far he is to fly before he dies. I think a bird very seldom bleeds to death from a shot wound in the neck vein, but probably this must happen sometimes. I am inclined to think that when the only wound is in the blood-vessels of the neck the bird would fly so far, losing blood all the way; that when he was picked up the cause of death would not be recognised, and I think this is the reason why this kind of wound is so seldom seen. It does not follow that it infrequently occurs.
A shot which breaks the spinal cord is as instantaneous in effect as one which enters the brain, and brings the bird down at once, but not with what is called a broken neck, for I never saw a broken neck in grouse, partridge, or pheasant, unless the keepers had wilfully done it in order to kill a wounded bird. It is a very bad plan to kill any game this way, and especially grouse, for without the bone of the neck to suspend them on the stick the weight often causes the body to drop and be lost in the heather. The skin alone is not strong enough to carry, at any rate, the young birds, especially when boys drag their feet and bodies through the tall heather.
It has been said that the reason partridges “tower” is that they are obliged to lift their heads upwards in order to get their breath, and that their bodies follow where their heads point. This can hardly be the reason, because we have two kinds of “towerers” to deal with, and besides, many a blackcock on taking wing and going away horizontally, nevertheless holds up his head and looks at his disturber over his back, but he does not go upwards in consequence. I do not believe that the upward flight is caused either by any rudder-like action of the tail, although that is, perhaps, possible.
Probably the wings are so set by Nature that their beats not only counteract gravity, but something more than this, and it possibly requires the will of the bird in steering to make him keep a horizontal course. The concave undersurface offers more resistance to the air than the upper convex surface. Hitherto I have considered that this arrangement was meant to negative gravity when the bird was urging its forward course, but when one remembers that young birds with half the power of flight of the old ones nevertheless can rise quite easily, and seem to maintain a horizontal course quite comfortably—that is, their inferior wings in ordinary up-and-down beats are equal to the resistance of gravity—consequently, it appears almost certain that the ordinary beats of better wings are much more than equal to the resisting of gravity. Or, in other words, if partridges in a state of health did not wilfully hug the ground they would rise up like “towered” birds.
I wonder whether this is the reason that day birds (which appear to migrate in their sleep, and certainly cannot travel by night at any other time than when the instinct is upon them) migrate at great altitudes. That is to say, whether they go up because they cannot help it. If so, there would be a certain altitude for each kind of bird where the wing beats influence, on the more rarified air, in sending the bird up, and the lessened power of gravity, would become equal, and at that altitude the bird would travel forward without the will being called into request to keep a horizontal course. Balloonists tell us that at great heights birds thrown out fall like stones, so that there must be an altitude where ordinary wing action ceases to overcome gravity. In any case the partridge goes upward, whether either head or lungs deprive him of part of his senses, probably of all the sense of direction except that one of keel downwards, that no bird ever seems to lose as long as he is alive.
Another reason for believing that the natural up-and-down wing beats would take any healthy bird upwards as well as forwards is to be found in the necessity of the moult. If the full wing beats only kept the horizontal course then it would probably happen that the loss of a single flight feather would have the effect that gravity would gradually overcome the horizontal tendency and pull the bird downwards; but that does not appear to be true, and this is additional reason for believing that the up-and-down wing beats with a horizontal keel much more than overcome gravity, and that consequently when a bird cannot direct its own course it goes upwards, because it is built to do so, and to overcome the downward drag of gravity by the mere up-and-down wing action and a level “keel.”
G. T. Teasdale Buckell.
Hunt “Runners.”
IV.
Butler of the North Cotswold.
There are few more picturesque hunting scenes than the country around the Cotswold Hills in the fair county of Worcestershire, which is hunted by Mr. Charles McNeill and his famous pack of Belvoir-bred bitches. This Eden of foxhunting is a much sought after possession, wild and rugged with variety of scene on hill and dale, pasture and woodland. It has often been said that farmers are the backbone of foxhunting, and these Worcestershire sportsmen, bred and born to it, are a community whose fame for staunchness to sport is known far and wide. The majority of them, or their sons, ride to hounds, and wire is practically unknown in their country, whilst foxes are preserved as they ought to be, the best of good feeling prevailing between sport and agriculture. All the same, we did not expect to find a farmer in the capacity of runner to the hunt.
Many countries are going begging for a master, but not so the North Cotswold, which has been so successfully presided over by Mr. Charles McNeill for the past five seasons, the announcement of whose retirement was received with universal regret. When it became known there was a vacancy for next season, twenty-two applicants for the mastership came before the Hunt Committee; showing how hunting men appreciated a community of farmers who plump solid for sport. Sir John Hume Campbell is to be congratulated that he has been chosen to succeed Mr. McNeill.
Butler, the runner to the Hunt, wearing the cap and scarlet coat of office, is a typical Worcestershire dairy farmer. Born in the Heythrop country close by, he has followed the hounds on foot for the past twenty years, which occupies the reign of three masterships—Mr. Algernon Rushout, Captain Cyril Stacey and Mr. Charles McNeill. Before that time he had five years in the saddle making young horses, “hunting oftener than his master did,” as he put it, and a coachman’s place for six months in the heart of Birmingham was the last straw that compelled him to give up domestic service, and take to the wild, free life of a runner, with farming as a mainstay. On a hunting morning Butler is up before daybreak to get his cows milked, pigs and poultry attended to, so that the institution of a bicycle to ride the long distances to and from covert has been a great saving of time and exertion.
Our first sight of the North Cotswold Hunt in the field was at a picturesque fixture, Cheevering Green, in the hill district, and there we made Butler’s acquaintance when he stood holding open the gate as horsemen drew up from far and near. A middle-aged man, with a dash of grey in his side whiskers, and keen, penetrating brown eyes, foxhunting is written in every line of a face evidently intended by Nature for a hunting cap. Sporting the primrose collar of the Hunt, and the coronet on his button dating back to Lord Coventry’s mastership, Butler, with his sturdy black and white terrier, makes a pleasing adjunct to a Hunt which is appointed in Leicestershire style. There is no gainsaying the fact that the countryside appreciates a Hunt that is well found in all departments, and a scarlet coat is still a passport which will admit its wearer where others would be less welcome. It was the late Duke of Beaufort who used to say that every man who goes hunting ought to pay the chase the compliment by putting on his best clothes, even if it be his Sunday suit. Though the North Cotswold is a Hunt far distant from Leicestershire, yet Mr. McNeill has aimed at perfection in every department, and by doing so won everybody’s gratitude; for, after all, the pomp and pageantry of the chase tends to its popularity in a marked degree, which more sterling qualities can hardly boast. When the Master-huntsman rode up in the middle of his pack of seventeen and a half couple of bitches there was a cheery word all round, and expectancy which preludes a good day’s sport. As usual, the Hunt runner had a quiet word for the ear of the Master, news of an outlying fox which a neighbouring farmer had viewed every morning for the last week. These North Cotswold bitches, for Mr. McNeill has no doghounds in his pack, have done well this season, killing seventy-two foxes up to the middle of January, in a country that is fourteen miles long and eight miles wide in the middle, being a good deal less top and bottom. All Belvoir in colour and type, they are triumphs of breeding, proving their worth by winning prizes on the flags at Peterborough, and golden opinions in the field, where they are remarkable for tongue and drive, a pack that mean catching their fox at the end of a gallop. Mr. McNeill is a Leicestershire man, who acquired the greater part of his skill as a huntsman studying the methods of Tom Firr, and he is as quick as lightning, inspiring hounds and followers with confidence.
For the first draw we commenced hill-climbing to the larch plantations up above, an experience that made one appreciate the sagacity of a well-trained hunter.
These hill districts must require a considerable amount of stopping before a day’s hunting, but it is not a duty now performed by the runner. Butler’s mission is to bolt the foxes when they get to ground, and for this he receives half-a-crown on every successful occasion. Years ago he carried a big, white buck-ferret, and worked him on a line when foxes sought the shelter of stone drains. Unfortunately, the ferret came to an untimely end; making a hole in the bag in which he was being conveyed home one wet night, he escaped and, perishing of cold, was found dead next morning.
From the hill-top we were rewarded with a beautiful view of a far-stretching panorama of country in the vale beneath, and quickly the sonorous music of the big-framed bitches lent enchantment to the scene. A second or two later the whipper-in’s silver whistle was ringing out the glad “Gone away,” and Butler, with a smile of satisfaction on his face, was holding up his cap; there were no confusing halloas. Though the North Cotswold country is anything but a good scenting one, except when there is a bite of east in the wind, the bitches rattled their fox out of covert, and keeping his head up wind as they slipped down into the vale, spread-eagled their field in a hunt of thirty minutes to the Croome country on the opposite hillside. It was a ride full of new experiences, giving us, alas, but a distant view of the Master and hounds as they skimmed over the stone walls that divide the seventy-acre pastures. A rain-cloud blotted us out at the finish, enveloping the hillside in a dense wall of fog, robbing the pack at a critical moment of well-earned blood.
WITH THE NORTH COTSWOLD.
Stone-wall jumping is a characteristic of the North Cotswold country, and it is surprising how well hounds’ legs and feet stand the trial, proving the worth of good bone and breeding, which, like first-class machinery, can go at the highest pressure and last. In the vale there is a beautiful line of grass with upstanding fences, equal to anything to be found in Leicestershire, so that a hunt is seen under all sorts of conditions, and a pack that can do well here is fit for any country.
Talking of runs brings up a wealth of reminiscences, for it is a district in which the keenest interest is taken in the doings of hounds by the non-hunting fraternity, who are sportsmen to the very core. To set the runner and his friends talking hunting is like putting a match to gunpowder, and two brilliant bursts we noted down would make the fortune of a season’s sport. Finding a fox near Hyatt’s Spinney, the bitches, with tuneful chorus, drove him along into the open country of large acred fields surrounded by stone walls. There was a burning scent, and so good was the pace that hounds could keep their fox travelling up wind, whilst Mr. McNeill was viewing nearly the whole of the journey in a hunt of twenty minutes.
It was a regular Belvoir burst, and the pilot had to go straight in the race for his life, losing no time over the walls, he ran up the middle of each field in a desperate effort to gain on his pursuers. Such a high state of tension could not last for long, and the huntsman at last saw the fox miss his footing at a stone wall and fall back from distress. Though the mistake only made a matter of a few seconds, it cost a gallant fox his life, for before he could clear in a second attempt, a bitch called Housemaid dashed up, and seizing hold of his brush, pulled him back, but herself went over the wall, where she lay, knocked out. An electrifying cheer from the master put a finish to the fastest burst of this season, under the wall near Springhill.
Another good gallop this season, both from a thruster’s point of view as well as the huntsman’s, was from Gallipot Gorse in the Vale. An old customer, who had on several occasions led the pack a dance, always to save his brush by getting to ground, was not so fortunate on this day.
Getting away close at him, they drove along to Toddington without touching a cover, and running by Worrington Village they crossed the new railway below Laverton. It was evident to those with hounds that the pilot meant the earths on the hillside in Burrill Wood, but two fields from that point the pack suddenly viewed their fox. Up went their hackles, and giving utterance to that cry of delight which proclaims the death-knell, their language seemed to convey its meaning to the hunted one. A curious incident occurred at the finish, which was witnessed by several members of the Hunt. In the last field, a grass one, when this gallant fox knew the end had come, he turned round and met the pack with his hackles up, and made the best fight he could, a game old warrior, indeed. With gleaming ivories shining defiantly, he died facing the foe, his teeth meeting in a death-grip directly the leading hound seized him. So good a fox was honoured with full funeral rites, all wanting a bit of him, and the Master would not have been half sorry if he had just managed to beat them at the finish.
When it comes to dislodging a fox, Butler is not the first man with the spade, for the staff has one better in Padison, the first whip, who is determined, in the saddle or out of it. Where there is any chance of handling a fox he goes to work with the fire and dash of a fox terrier, stripping to his shirt in the effort to get under ground. The kennel huntsman is old Dan Reid, who looks quite classic in appearance, riding a long-tailed black thoroughbred; and being of Irish extraction, he has the dry humour of that race. On one occasion when they were out a badger, some one remarked that Mr. Brock was scratching in faster than they were digging him out. Dan replied: “No, but he’s not, for I’ve put a tarrier dog in to keep him amused.”
One story more about the runner and we have done, for there is always chaff flying about with the wheat, and this belongs to the lighter quality. After a mark to ground in a drain, the runner was left with instructions to get the fox out, whilst hounds went on to draw elsewhere. Unfortunately, it occurred to him to give the neighbouring villagers a little entertainment on his own, and soon tremendous holloaing was heard in the distance. To the master’s horror he saw a crowd of village women round a red-coated figure who was wheeling a barrow, in which was a cider barrel containing the unfortunate fox in a bag. All the party were halloaing, delighted at the prospect of making a Roman holiday of the arch enemy. It was a moment when the Master showed his royal displeasure, and the fox was at once enlarged, such a mistake never happening again.