A Gamekeeper's Note-book

by Owen Jones; Marcus Woodward

Pets at the Cottage

One usually sees a pretty assortment of pets about the keeper's cottage, where there are children. The keeper himself is not above a pet animal, though he may not confess it—and, strange to say, the keeper's favourite is often a cat. But you may be sure it is a cat among cats, and without sin—an expert among rats, mice, and sparrows, yet able to sit for hours on the hole of a rabbit, or alone with a canary, and not yield to temptation. At one keeper's cottage a dormouse is to be seen—at this season he is broader than he is long. Here lives "Billy," a buff bantam cock, who will sit on your knee and take a mouthful of bread from your lips; here also is "Tommy," a game-cock, who takes lunch and tea on the inside of the kitchen window-ledge; and here is "Sally," a goose that will lay more than threescore eggs in the spring, lives on grass, likes to explore the cottage's interior, and puts all the dogs to shame as a guard, loudly proclaiming the arrival of strangers. In a coop on a lawn lives a white rabbit, whose mission in life is to keep the grass short; this rabbit will not look at a carrot, but rejoices in bread and milk, and above all in cold chicken. In the yard is a retriever, who is always careful to offer you her right paw in greeting, loves blackberries, and is the special friend of a little terrier. Once there was a pet lamb. On many a little rough grassy grave the keeper's child places wreaths of wild flowers.

Wood-Pigeons

The shooting of pigeons is the keeper's special feather-sport—he is always on the spot to take advantage of favourable circumstances. It goes on in summer as in winter, and remembering the tremendous amount of damage done to pea-fields, corn crops and roots by pigeons, there is a justification for this shooting which cannot be urged in favour of pheasant-shooting. The keeper understands the sport. He knows the pigeons' habits and feeding times, and that concealment is the secret of success. Lying at ease on the ground, with his back to a tree-trunk, he waits in all patience for the pigeons to come to their favourite trees. Or, having noted the part of the feeding-field where the birds alight, he conceals himself in a hedge, or behind bushes arranged by himself, so that from his butt he can shoot comfortably at any bird within range. As birds are shot he sets them up as decoys. A stick about nine inches long is put in the ground, and one pointed end inserted in the pigeon's throat, the bird being set up in a life-like way. Knowing that they are thirsty birds, especially when feeding on the ripe, hard grain, he builds a hut near the pond where the pigeons drink, and if he cannot see them on the ground or in the trees, creeps out to stalk them, and the shots they give as they rise, diving and turning in all directions, are such that no one need despise.

The Keeper's Larder

Wood-pigeons are among the gamekeeper's perquisites. Apart from a very occasional request from "the house" for the wherewithal for pigeon-pie, the pigeons shot are for the benefit of the keeper and his family, and when he shoots more than he requires there are always labourers and others glad of a pigeon or two "to make a pudden." Rabbits, also, are perquisites, but to be sold no more than pigeons. The popular idea is that keepers may help themselves to any game they please—true, they could if so minded. But no matter what a keeper's ethics in other directions, as a rule he deals honourably with the game in his charge. The keeper has no more right to take a brace of birds or a hare without permission than has an ironmonger's assistant to take a coal-scuttle. There is little to be said against the keeper making use of game killed, but not eaten, by foxes or vermin, or of chance-killed game unsuitable for his employer's table. One old keeper was so anxious to make every available pheasant figure in the game-book that he would never keep the brace given him at the end of a day's shooting. Instead, he would include the birds with the bag on the following day, and this he would do day after day.

Free though they are to kill and cook rabbits, few keepers care for them, or eat them often. Most keepers, indeed, would be as pleased to go to penal servitude, or to live in London, as to eat rabbits more often than once a month. This is not because they have eaten too many, but because the smell of rabbits has become distasteful. However, rabbits prove a great help to the keeper with children to feed. Usually his larder is well stocked, and his good-wife has a store of all kinds of dainties in her cupboards—from home-made pickles to home-brewed wine. Often your keeper is a clever gardener; he takes prizes for his vegetables, and he will grow fine cucumbers and even melons under fragments of glass. Something of a cook himself, well accustomed to preparing luxurious meals for his sacred birds, he is a judge of cooks and cooking, as many a keeper's wife has discovered. If she does not know, he can tell her how to prepare a savoury dish which shall have the special advantages of not spoiling through being kept warm or from being warmed up—for the keeper's dinner is a movable feast, and must be ready at any time between noon and night. The sheet-anchor of one such dish is proper home-cured bacon, in winter baked in a pie-dish with alternate layers of parboiled potatoes, for which in summer the contents of eggs beaten just enough to blend the yolks and whites are substituted. Served with new potatoes, it is the very dish to put heart in a man.