As sportsmen would rather shoot fowl than snare them, the decoy is mostly interesting nowadays to naturalists and antiquarians. To show their value, however, in times gone by, it may be mentioned that a corporation has been known to invest trust funds in one, and that a decoy in Suffolk, which sent a ton and a half of wild-fowl to London four times a week, realised £1,000 a year. In this 16,800 ducks were captured in a single season.
CHAPTER XI.
FIELD AND COVERT POACHERS.
As compared with the doings of human "mouchers," there is a class of field poachers whose depredations are tenfold more destructive. These are nature's poachers, and their vigils never cease. In season and out, by night and by day, they harry the things of the field and wood. Playing as some say a questionable part in the economy of nature, they play a very certain part in the economy of our game, both winged and furred. Strange anomaly it is, that whilst our game stock could not be preserved a year without their agency, the hand of every one is against them. So long as nature is founded on its present beneficent plan, so long will the swallow be speared by the shrike, and every wood be the scene of plunder and prey. Nature is one with rapine, and the close observance of every woodland way only emphasises the fact. Every sylvan thing is but a unit in a possible chain of destruction. The bee-bird captures the butterfly, and is stricken down in the act by the hawk; the keeper kills the raptor, and the keeper's hobnobbing with death is delayed but a while.
The greatest and smallest murder but to live, and whilst the eagle kills the lordly stag, the merlin is lark-hawking on the down. Only those whose harvest is gleaned in the open, who have observed in all weathers and through every hour of the day and night, can form any adequate conception of how dependent is one form of life upon another. The way of an eagle in the air is one of those things concerning which Solomon professed himself unable to understand, and the scythe-like sweep of wings of the majestic bird is one of the most glorious sights which nature has to offer. Just as the eagle is the largest, so the merlin is the smallest British bird of prey, and to see this miniature falcon rush past on the breast of a mountain storm gives an idea of its almost marvellous velocity of flight. Within the whole range of animate nature, nowhere is the adaptation of means to an end more strikingly exhibited than among the raptors—the plunderers. The furred poachers are not less appropriately fitted with their weapons of destruction; and so perfectly adapted is the otter to its environment that its movements in the water are as the very poetry of motion.
Let us follow these poachers of the field and covert to their haunts, and there observe them in their wild home. The sparrow-hawk is a roving arab of the air and the most arrant of poachers. Ask the keeper to detail to you the character of this daring marauder, and he will record a black and bloody list of depredations against the bird. He knows nothing, however, of the laws which govern the economy of nature, and if he did, or would, what are they compared to the shilling per head for those he can display on the vermin-rails.
The kestrel or windhover acts in quite a different fashion to the sparrow-hawk. It is persecuted less, and confidently approaches human habitations. And yet at certain seasons the kestrel is as destructive in the covert as its congeners. When the pheasants represent little more than balls of down he clutches them from out the grass as he clutches a mouse or cockchafer. Coming from out the blue, one hears the pleasant cry of kee, kee, keelie, and there he hangs rapidly vibrating his wings, yet as stationary as though suspended by a silken thread. Presently down he comes, plump as a stone, and without touching the ground sweeps a "cheeper" from off it, and soars high above the covert. The depredations are only committed, however, when the game is exceedingly small, and the benefit which the kestrel confers on the woods by its presence far outweighs any harm it may do. The artificial methods of game-rearing now in vogue are most conducive to disease. In extenuation of the thefts of our little marauders it may be pleaded that they invariably pick off the weak and ailing birds, and therefore tend to the survival of robust and healthy stock.
The presiding spirits of the moors are the beautiful little merlins. They work together, and quarter the heather like a brace of well-broken pointers. Not an object escapes them. However closely it may conform to its environment, or however motionless remain, it is detected by the sharp eye of the merlin and put away. The miniature falconry in which the merlin indulges on the open moorlands, where nothing obstructs the view, is one of the most fascinating sights in nature. The "red hawk" is plucky beyond its size and strength, and will pull down a partridge, as we have witnessed repeatedly. The young of moorfowl, larks, pipits, and summer snipe constitute its food on the fells. It lays four bright red eggs in a depression among the heather, and about this are strewn the remains of the birds indicated. To be seen to advantage this smallest of British falcons ought to be seen in its haunts. It is little larger than a thrush, and in the days of falconry was flown by ladies, its game being larks, pipits, pigeons, and occasionally partridges. On the moorlands it may be seen suddenly to shoot from a stone, encircle a tract of heather, and then return to its perch. A lark passes over its head, and its wings are raised and its neck outstretched; but it closes them as if unwilling to pursue the bird. Then it flies, skimming low over the furze and heather, and alights on a granite boulder similar to the one it has just left. As we approach, the male and female flap unconcernedly off, and beneath the block are remains of golden plover, ling birds, larks, and young grouse.
At night the waterside is productive of life, and here it is most varied. Like most poachers, the heron is a night fisher, and there is one equally destructive which carries on its nefarious trade under the full light of day—the kingfisher. And the kingfisher is a poacher in another respect. It never constructs the hole in which its young is reared, but takes possession of that of some small burrowing rodent, or even that of the little sand-martin.
The buzzard is another bird of the moorlands, but can hardly be convicted of poaching. When it takes moor-game these are invariably found to be diseased or late hatched birds, and it certainly has not speed to pull down a full-grown grouse. Many times during whole summer afternoons have we seen the buzzards wheeling about when the young grouse have been following the brooding birds, but never have we seen them swoop at one. And seeing that as many as sixty mice have been taken from the crop of a single bird, surely the buzzard ought to be protected. During times of severe frost the buzzard often performs deeds of daring to obtain a meal. When a lad, Wordsworth was in the habit of setting "gins" for woodcocks, and one morning on going to examine his snares he discovered a buzzard near one which was struck. The bird of prey attempted to escape, but being held fast could not. A woodcock had been taken in one of the snares, which when fluttering had been seen and attacked by the buzzard. Not content, however, with the body of the woodcock, it had swallowed a leg also, round which the noose was drawn, and the limb was so securely lodged in the latter's stomach that no force that the bird could exert could withdraw it.