We have a little story of how some rooks paid a pretty compliment to an Empress. The preceding tenant of the Empress Eugénie's place at Farnborough is said to have spent hundreds of pounds in a vain attempt to induce rooks to build in the trees. Old brooms were hoisted—real rooks' nests, with and without eggs, were fixed in the most tempting sites among the tree-tops—young rooks were procured and given every attention—and some were even hatched and reared artificially. But the rooks refused to colonise. Then came the Empress; and promptly the rooks came also. Soon a flourishing rookery was established. Perhaps the new-comers, too, were exiles.
Rook-Pie
Though May is still the month of rook-shooting, this sport has passed out of fashion, and rook-pie is no longer an honourable dish—it has sunk, indeed, into a place of disrepute from which no amount of steak, seasoning, and hard-boiled eggs can rescue it. In old times a dozen rooks would be sent and received with compliments, like a brace of pheasants; and labourers prized a few rooks as much as the charity beef at Christmas. But now one might search far before finding a cottager who would deign to eat rook-pie. The rooks are shot and buried, or are left where they fall beneath the rookery trees, for foxes to find and carry to their cubs.
The farmer and the gamekeeper have a common cause against the rooks, which, when they are not attacking the interests of the one are pilfering the produce of the other. An April blizzard consoles the keeper for the pheasants' eggs it ruins by blotting out a generation of rooks. For when such a disaster overtakes a rookery late in April, as young birds are nearly ready to leave the nests, the parent birds are hardly likely to make another attempt to rear a brood. But when rooks' eggs are frosted before or during hatching there will be late broods, not hatched until the trees are in full leaf. Then the young rooks might escape the watchful eye of the keeper were it not for the habit of squawking for food, and for the garrulous chuckling of the parent birds when feeding the hungry mouths. These late broods increase the toll of the eggs and young game birds, parent rooks taking five times as much food as the others.
Old rooks are very cunning in search of prey. On one excellent partridge-shoot there is a hedge bordered by telegraph poles. It is the only hedge on the place, and in seasons when grass and corn are backward it is packed with partridge nests. The rooks of the neighbourhood have learnt the trick of sitting on the telegraph wires, the better to find the way to the nests, as revealed by the movements of the nesting birds. Thus, waiting and watching in patience, in time they find out every nest in the hedge.
Birds for Stock
In February the work begins of catching up pheasants for stocking aviaries, to supply the coming season's eggs. In mild Februaries, keeper after keeper tells the same sad story—he "can't catch no hens." Many of those caught in food-baited traps in mild weather are weak and unsound, and some are injured by shot, and so are not desirable for stock. The birds most capable of producing plenty of fertile eggs and strong chicks are those that scorn to enter a cage, except during hard or snowy weather. Some keepers make a practice of catching up the desired number of stock-birds before covert shooting begins. Otherwise they are caught up early in February—so that they may settle down to the new way of life before the laying season is upon them.
"Catching up" is, in its way, a fine art. One secret is to place the cages, before use, in the principal feeding-places without setting them for action, for a few weeks. Cages of wire-netting with a roomy, horizontal opening at one end, after the style of a lobster-pot, are most effective; a scanty trail of corn leading on to an ample supply within. These cages are ever ready, and so catch bird after bird; they have the drawback that if the captives become restive they are liable to bark their heads on the wire. Less satisfactory traps are made with lengths of wood (local underwood is used preferably, to allay suspicion) and only so high that when the trap is thrown the birds cannot injure themselves if frightened. These traps seldom capture more than one bird at a time, and they may be thrown accidentally. A small annoyance of pheasant-catching is provided by the active little tits of the wood, who carry the corn outside the cages, and scatter it far and wide for the pheasants to pick up without running any risk. When pheasants come regularly to feeding-places in fair numbers, a large and effective cage is built of hurdles, one hurdle square. The birds are allowed to grow accustomed to feeding therein. One day the keeper lies hidden, and makes a family catch by stealthily dropping a shutter attached to a string. Where a wood with plenty of pheasants joins a belt or wide hedgerow the keeper may erect guiding wings of wire-netting, which converge on a covered-in tunnel, and then gently beats the wood through in that direction. The pheasants are run into captivity in a short time, and with little trouble.