Poachers and Poaching

by F.L.S. John Watson

CHAPTER XIII.
WORKERS IN WOODCRAFT.

I.

The gamekeeper's cottage stands at the end of the oak lane. An orchard surrounds his dwelling, the brown boughs now drooping with ripened fruit. Under an overhanging sycamore is a kennel of silky-coated setters and a brace of spaniels. The former have beautifully-domed heads and large soft eyes. The spaniels with their pendulous ears are a black and a brown. Pheasant pens are scattered about the orchard, each containing half-a-dozen birds. In a disused shed are traps for taking game, and nets and snares found in rabbit runs or taken from poachers. The keeper does not always take these engines when he finds them, but waits quietly until they are visited by the "moucher;" then he makes a double capture. Few of the poachers, however, leave their traps after dark, and only the casual is caught in this way. At the other end of the orchard divisional boxes are ranged round an old barn-like building where pheasants' eggs are hatched. A shaggy terrier, with fresh mould upon its nose, peeps from beneath the shed doorway. Drowsy bluebottles buzz about the vermin larder, and under the apple-trees are straw-thatched hives. Contented pigeons coo and bask on the hot slates of the barn roof, and bird-sounds are everywhere. These blocks, upon which sit their falcons, act as a reminder of an old English sport fast passing away. These are merlins and peregrines, kept for a friend by the keeper, who is fond of hawking. The merlins can pull down partridges, while the peregrines are flown at larger game. No sport so exhilarating as falconry, none so fascinating.

The interior of the keeper's cottage is as characteristic as its surroundings. Here are guns of every description—from the old-fashioned fowling piece and matchlock to the ponderous duck-gun. Above the chimney-piece hangs a modern breechloader with Damascus barrels. The keeper admires the delicate mechanism of this, but deprecates the spirit of the age which produced it. Such cunningly-devised engines will make old-fashioned sport, or what he calls "wild shooting," extinct. By this he means the traversing of rough ground in healthful anticipation of a miscellaneous and always uncertain bag. It is this very uncertainty which gives the chief zest to sport. Against the walls are cases of stuffed birds, with a red squirrel or a white stoat to relieve the feathers. In one case a knot-hole is imitated from which peer three young weasels; and an old one is descending the hole with a dead bird in its mouth. All these are portrayed to the life by the keeper's own hand. Looking at the contents of the cases, he deplores his want of ornithological knowledge in earlier years. Among the stuffed specimens are a Greenland falcon, a pair of hobbies, several rare owls, swallow-tailed kite, hoopoe, rose-coloured pastor, and others equally rare.

The gamekeeper's life is essentially an outdoor one. He is far from populous towns, and needs but little assistance. Poachers rarely come to his preserves in gangs, and a couple of village mouchers he can easily manage. His powerful frame has once been the seat of great strength, though now it needs but a glance to show that his eye is less keen and his hand less firm. Still he is quick to detect, and with his hard-hitting muzzle-loader he rarely misses. Given favourable conditions he is almost infallible with the gun, though he gives his game law. He cannot now cover his extended ground in a single day, and perhaps does less night watching than formerly. His beat covers a widely diversified district with almost every species of game. The pheasants wander about the woods and copses; the partridge are among the corn and stubble; and rabbits pop in and out everywhere. Hares haunt the meadows and upland fields, and snipe go away from the marshes. Woodcock come to the wet woods, and a host of sea-haunting creatures feed along the bay. There is a heronry in the wood, and pigeons build in the larches. Of the habits of these creatures the keeper is full; and if he is garrulous he is always instructive. By observing, he has found that animals and birds have stated times and well-defined routes. Exactly at the same hour, according to the sun, the partridges and pheasants resort to the same spots. Hares follow the tracks day by day, and rooks fly morning and evening along the same valleys. Nightly, herons stalk the pools and the otter traces the mountain burns to their source. At noon a sparrow-hawk speeds by the covert, and at evening a kestrel hangs over the rickyard. In the afternoon, regularly, weasels run along the old wall; and as these things the flowers in their times of opening and closing are not less constant.

The keeper's domain encloses a park in which are red deer and fallow. Sometimes he has to shoot a fawn for the "great house." This he singles out, hitting it if possible just behind the shoulder. In season he must provide a certain "head" of game. Twice weekly he procures this, and takes it to the hall. For its proper hanging in the larder he is responsible. When the keeper wants game he knows to a yard where it may be found—where the birds will get up and in what direction they will go away. If a hare, he knows the gate or smoot through which it will pass, and out of this latter fact he makes capital. It is well known to poachers that when once a hare has been netted there is no chance of its being taken again in like manner. Rather than go through a second time, even though a "lurcher" be but a yard behind, it will either "buck" the gate or take the fence. Consequently the keeper has netted every hare on his ground. This greatly reduces the poacher's chances, and wire snares are now the only engines that can be successfully used. Spring and summer are taken up with breeding and rearing pheasants, and this is an anxious time. The work is not difficult but arduous. And then so much of the keeper's work is estimated by the head of game he can turn out. This result is tangible, and one that can be seen by both his master and visitors. There is nothing to show for long and often fruitless night-watching but rheumatism; and so the keeper appreciates all the more readily the praise accorded him for the number of well-grown birds he can show at the covert side. After pheasant-shooting in October the serious winter work of the keeper begins. Each week he has to kill from three to five hundred rabbits, which are sent to the markets of the large manufacturing towns. He can employ what engines against them he pleases, but the number must be produced. Firing a hundred shots a day is now more jarring than it was once; it has made him slightly deaf, and he adopts other means of destruction. He works the warrens in winter, but long waiting for a glutted ferret in frost and snow is not pleasant. Under favourable conditions, however, a great many rabbits may be taken in this way. Iron spring traps are used in the rabbit tracks, but these are impracticable on a large scale; and the pheasants and partridges, which run much, are apt to be caught in them. Moreover it is now illegal to set these traps in the open. The most certain and wholesale method of capture is by the "well-trap." This is a pit, placed immediately opposite to a hole in the fence through which the rabbits run from the woods to the field or pasture. Through the "run" a wooden trough is inserted, and as the rabbits pass through the floor opens beneath their weight and they drop into the "well." Immediately the pressure is removed the floor springs back to its original position; and thus a score or more rabbits may often be taken in a single night. In the construction of these traps rough and unbarked wood is used, and even then the rabbits will not take them for weeks. Then they become familiar, the weather washes away all scent, and the "well-trap" is a wholesale engine of capture. The rabbits of course are taken alive. These the keeper stretches across his knee, dislocating the spine. English rabbits are degenerating in size, and the introduction of some of the continental varieties would be beneficial. With the rabbits in autumn great quantities of wood-pigeons are sent away, the birds at this time becoming exceedingly plump and fat. An almost incredible number of acorns may be found in the crop of a single bird when the former have fallen.

These are a few of the keeper's duties. He himself has a russet, weather-beaten face, bounded by silvery hair. He might stand for a picture of a highly-idealised member of his class. So secluded is his cottage that he locks the door but once a year, and that on Christmas Eve. He can remember when there was larger game than now, when badgers and wild cats were not uncommon. One of his ancestors was an inveterate deer-stealer, as the parish books show. Then the red-deer roamed almost wild on the fells. To-day he has but one regret—that he was not contemporary with the wolf, the wild boar, and the bear. Of these in Britain he has just read an account, together with the vast primitive forests through which they roamed.

II.
THE CHARCOAL BURNERS.

The humid climate of the north-west of England is peculiarly favourable to the growth of coppice-wood; and scattered along the slopes of the valleys copses prevail, consisting for the most part of oak, ash, birch, and hazel. This growth beautifully clothes the hill-slopes, and in addition to taking away the bareness, brings to them much animal and bird life; and besides this, the young timber is fairly remunerative. The coppice woods are cut every fifteen years, and the ground set apart to it pays about equal to that devoted to grazing. This is owing to the fact that every part of the wood is well suited to some particular use, and finds a ready market. What these uses are will be presently seen.