It is the inevitable, if regretful, duty of the recorder of the past to have to inscribe “Obiit” over the mention of many an individual who comes under his notice, and this applies to the four-footed animals, as well as to the birds and the wild flowers, of Woodhall. Of some of the most interesting, it must be said that they are gone, and their place knoweth them no more.
The first I may mention is the Badger. This animal used to be fairly common in these parts; whether it is now quite extinct is difficult to say, because its nocturnal habits, and very retiring disposition, prevent it coming much under the observation of man. It is supposed still to harbour in the rocks at Holbeck, some nine miles from Woodhall. A specimen was captured at Woodhall about the year 1885, frequenting some rabbit holes in a bank, at that time belonging to myself, and within 100 yards of the present blacksmith’s shop on the Stixwould-road. Another was captured a few years before in the adjoining parish of Martin, which I have stuffed. At an earlier date one was taken by a man named Thomas Norris, at Well Syke Wood, some two miles from Woodhall Spa.
About the year 1889 one was seen for some months in the Northern Dar Wood, in Woodhall. The keeper, doubtless with murderous intent, tried to find its burrow, but did not succeed. It was not killed so far as is known, but disappeared. Another was killed in June, 1898, at Mavis Enderby. In 1903, two badgers were killed at Asgarby, and one at Asterby in 1904. In 1899 our local pack of hounds, the South Wold, ran a badger, instead of a fox, over several fields, until he took to ground, and was afterwards killed by one of the party, as he kept his head out of the hole. It should hardly be a moot
point whether the extermination of the badger is an advantage or not, although a good deal has been written on both sides of the subject. Its skin makes the “sporran” of the kilted Highlander, and its hair makes our shaving brushes. Though it may be found occasionally in an enlarged rabbit burrow, it is not there to prey on the rabbit; for (as Major Fisher assures us in his interesting work, “Out-door Life in England,” 1896) its diet is mainly vegetarian, and what animal food it indulges in is mice, frogs, an occasional hedgehog, with beetles, snails, and worms; and especially it is very partial to the grubs of the wasp. It is very cleanly in its habits; sometimes occupying the same “earth” with the fox, to the great advantage of the latter, as it clears away the putrid matter brought in by Reynard, and so prevents his contracting the mange, to which he is very liable, from his own untidy propensities. [53a] Being thus not only comparatively harmless, but also serviceable to the sportsman, it is much to be regretted that continued war should be waged against these creatures. [53b] Unfortunately, old prejudices are but slowly overcome. By a statute enacted in the 8th year of Queen Elizabeth, chap. 15, and confirmed by subsequent statutes, provision was made for the destruction of what were then deemed “noysome foule and vermine,” and the price of 1s. was set on the head of every “fox and grey,” i.e., badger. This act continued in force down to 1863. But the old ideas concerning the badger have been long exploded among those who know anything of its habits. The badger, further, is the only representative of the bear family in this country. A scion of that race, whose bones are found in our fossiliferous caverns, co-eval with the mammoth and prehistoric man, he, if any of our existing animals, may boast of “blue blood in his veins.” The nobleman, whose ancestry came over with the conqueror, is a parvenu in comparison with him. Surely the principle of Noblesse oblige
alone should ensure for him a shelter in our woods and wastes. [54a]
The next to be mentioned of our ferœ næturæ, also the object of constant persecution, and growing, consequently, rarer every year, is the Otter. The parish of Thimbleby adjoins Woodhall Spa on the north, indeed, a large slice of it is now included in the recently created civil parish of Woodhall Spa. At the further end of Thimbleby an otter was killed in the year 1898, at a water mill on the river Bain, the miller erroneously supposing that it would kill his ducks. Shortly before, another specimen had been shot by a keeper on the same river, at Goulceby, its mate fortunately escaping. Soon after, a young specimen was seen several times disporting itself in the Horncastle Canal. It there escaped the vigilance of many would-be assassins, and gradually worked its way towards our neighbouring river, the Witham; but there it fell a victim to a gunner, who descried it in a drain near Tattershall Bridge, in Billinghay Fen. Another specimen was afterwards shot among the dykes of Walcot Dales, near the Witham, and still another in the neighbouring parish of Martin, a few years ago. Here again this persistent slaughter is much to be regretted. The otter is not the enemy to the fisherman which it is too commonly supposed to be. In the “Badminton Library,” the Honourable Geoffrey Hill says: “People are beginning to find that the otters kill and keep down the coarser fish, especially the eels, which live on the spawn and fry of the better sorts.” Mr. E. Daubney, writing from the banks of the Dart, says: “They eat frogs, rats, birds, fish, et id genus omne, but of nothing are they more fond than the eel; for this they will give up the finest and most fresh-run salmon.” [54b] In our own neighbourhood, in 1901, two young otters were shot on a farm at Sturton; they were at a pond which abounded in eels, and had doubtless by the eels been attracted from the river Bain, a mile distant, where they could only get trout.
A naturalist, who watched some otters at their home, night and day, for more than two months, says that he only saw them take three trout; the first fish taken was an eel, the second a chub, or roach. (“Country Life,” illustrated, Vol. VI., No. 134, July, 1899.) Another authority [55a] states that the stomach of one specimen examined “was full of larvæ and earthworms”; while a fourth writer [55b] says, “Otters will eat celery, potatoes, young shoots from the hedges; and especially have they a liking for the two first.” The writer has seen a dead salmon lying on a Highland river bank with the shoulder eaten away by the otter, their peculiar habit being to take only this part, and never to return to the body again. [55c] But even their attacks on the salmon have indirectly a useful effect, for, as one of the authorities already quoted (Mr. E. Daubney) observes: “If a salmon pool is visited by otters, the salmon are hustled, and so made to bestir themselves (often when sickly, and reluctant to move), and so make the effort to get down to the sea, to return again enormously increased in size and condition, and in this way the otter does the sportsman a service in sending the salmon down to recruit in the sea; just as, in turn, the sea-lice which fix upon the salmon when recruited in the salt water, so harass the fish, as to drive it once more up the river again into the fresh water, when it may afford sport to the angler.” [55d] It is not generally known, and it has even escaped the notice of our greatest naturalists, that the otter utters a shrill whistle when calling to its mate or young, which might be easily mistaken for the note of the kingfisher or sand-piper. This has been noticed by Mr. F. B. Whitlock, in the “Naturalist” for 1895, p. 381. The great stronghold of the otter is the broads of Norfolk, where, in the sluggish, reedy water, he can get
plenty of eels, snails, and so forth. In our own neighbourhood, if the war and extirpation goes on, he will soon be a memory only.
The next wild animal to be named as fairly common at Woodhall is the Fox. The locality, indeed, has been for many years a stronghold [56] of Reynard, as was to be expected, in a district where the woods are so extensive, although by no means so extensive as they were within the writer’s recollection. On one occasion, some 14 or 15 years ago, we had the Burton hounds, and the South Wold, over the same ground, in the same morning, within hearing, if not within sight, of each other. The Ostler Ground, especially from the thick and warm cover afforded by the heather, may be said to be a nursery for foxes for the supply of the neighbourhood. Not long ago there were six earths; and there are still three, which are carefully preserved; and the bark of the dog-fox or the answering scream of the vixen may be heard almost any night, in different directions, while out foraging. So thick is the cover, in parts, that the hounds frequently fail to penetrate it; and, after the pack have gone away without a find, I have almost trodden upon a fox, on one occasion upon a brace of them, still lying snugly among the “ling” in security. The fox does much less harm than is commonly supposed. It will not disturb other game if it can get rabbits, and it will not take rabbits if it can get rats. A very old sporting farmer has repeatedly assured me that although he had a rabbit warren near his farmstead, the rabbits were left undisturbed, and even his chickens were safe, so long as there were rats to be captured in his corn-stacks, or in the banks about his farm-buildings. [57]
The first fox which the writer ever saw, was brought by a Woodhall man, named Hare, to his father. It had been caught in a trap by the leg, and had attempted to bite its own foot off, in order to effect its escape. It was kept until the injured limb had recovered, and was then sent to his friend, the M.F.H. The writer’s own recollections of fox-hunting go back to the days of the famous Jack Musters, the Squire of Colwick and Annesley, who married Mary Chaworth, the object of Lord Byron’s passionate admiration. Sometime in the forties he hunted our own South Wold country. He was indeed “a character.” Though said by the Prince Regent to be “the most perfect gentleman he had ever met,” yet, in the hunting field, his language and his actions were most violent. The writer has still clearly impressed on his memory an occasion at Woodhall, when, as a boy of 12 years old, mounted on a small pony, and with the hounds running hard, he endeavoured to open a gate for the impatient M.F.H., and, on his not being able to accomplish this quickly enough, he was assailed with such a flood of invective, and torrent of oaths, that he was forced to withdraw from the attempt in confusion and bewilderment. But, if the sportsman who crossed his path was not spared by “Jack,” as he was familiarly called, neither was any unfortunate hound which offended him. On one occasion, a young hound, at High-hall Wood, near Woodhall, was guilty of chasing a hare. The whole “field” was in consequence pulled up; one of the whips was ordered to bring the delinquent forward. The thong of his hunting crop was twisted round the hound’s neck, and while he on foot held the poor brute in this way, the other whip dismounted and belaboured it with his whip until he was himself too exhausted to flog any more. The whole field were kept looking on at this display of wholesome (?) discipline, and when it was over the hound was left lying on the ground, almost strangled and a mass of contused weals, to recover its consciousness and limp after the departing pack, as best it could. The painful impression made upon the young mind of one devoted to animals, and tender of their feelings, remains still as an unpleasant memory, from which it recoils.