Unseeing eyes pass blindly over the home of a litter of cubs; but the keeper's never overpass the place. Long furrows through the dog's-mercury and grasses tell their tale. Primroses are torn and crushed, the great leaves of the burdock are bruised and broken, the moss is rubbed from the underwood stumps and from the boles of trees where the cubs have been gambolling and rubbing their coats, the excavated soil near the earth is smooth from the pattering of their feet, beaten hard and polished—and in all directions there are scattered wings, feathers and bones. If the keeper calls, and sees signs of recent rollicking play and fresh-killed food, and fresh-drawn soil where the cubs amuse themselves at earth-making and enlarging the burrows of rabbits, he knows the family to be in residence. Should the soil near the entrance to the earth have a green look, he knows the family has gone away.
A Fox's Feat
Who would believe that a full-grown fox could pass through the mesh of ordinary sheep-netting?—four-inch mesh, if memory serves. We know of one case where a vixen was actually seen to accomplish this wonderful feat. With her cubs, she had been dug out from her earth, carried to a distant part of the country, and imprisoned. The four-inch mesh must have been a tight fit for her body; but perhaps she had worried and fretted at her imprisonment, until she had worn herself to a shadow. Her cubs, which were unweaned, may have helped to weaken her strength, and reduce her waist until it could squeeze through the netting.
The story has a sequel. A town doctor saw the vixen a few moments after her escape; and happened to find himself sitting next to a M.F.H. at dinner. The doctor remarked, with a well-meant attempt at affability, "Foxes seem to be plentiful in your neighbourhood this year." "What makes you think so?" asked the M.F.H., with encouraging eagerness. "Why, only the other day, passing your place about noon, I saw a vixen with cubs trotting across your lawn." The doctor swiftly perceived that he had let the fox out of the bag, so black was the look that came over the Master's face. But it was months before he solved the full riddle of the black look, when he learned that the fox he had seen on the lawn in broad daylight had only just escaped from her wire-net prison, so saving herself from the ignominy of being turned down with her cubs.
The keeper finds his game-nests with his eyes, the fox with his nose. The keeper who must preserve game and preserves foxes takes steps to overcome the scent of his birds. He sprinkles the neighbourhood of all the nests he can find with some strong-smelling fluid. But the foulest or strongest scent will not save a bird when a fox has once seen her. Fortunately he is not clever enough to know a new trap from an old one, nor a sound from a broken one, and the keeper finds at nesting-time a good use for his disused traps, placing them about birds sitting in dangerous spots. Anything in the shape of scrap-iron the fox suspects; anything unusual about a nest, such as a piece of newspaper on a bush near by, will arouse his fears, and possibly save a bird's life. But as rooks learn to treat scarecrows with contempt, so foxes learn to have no fear for harmless terrors, and the keeper rings the changes on all the fox-alarming devices which experience and ingenuity can suggest.
Dog-Washing Days
Two or tree times a year, the gamekeeper gives all his dogs a grand washing; and his methods should be marked by other dog-owners, for there are few who understand dogs better. He knows that a dog's coat, like a woman's hair, is spoiled by too much washing, which destroys the satiny gloss imparted by the natural oils. He knows, too, that a dip in a pond or a splash in a stream only wets the surface of a coat, and does not cleanse the skin. His method is thorough, and designed not only to cleanse the hair and skin, but to rid the dogs of all the unwelcome guests they may harbour. Choosing a warm, sunny day, the keeper gets to work betimes, so that he may have his dogs washed and out to dry by midday; they must be perfectly dry before nightfall. He sets up a wooden tub on an old box, for his own convenience, and brings forth his pails and cans of water—water of just that tepid temperature which a dog likes. He wants his dogs to enjoy their bath, and knows that if he scalds or otherwise frightens them they will be shy of the wash-tub for ever afterwards. To pitch a dog unawares into a tub of water is as foolish as to throw him into a pond. He must be coaxed to his bath with words of encouragement, so that he will see there is nothing to be frightened about. Properly treated, dogs soon learn to appreciate the wash-tub, and there may be trouble in making them come out.
Having brought the dog to the tub, the next work is to put him in and thoroughly wet his skin—not an easy matter with a retriever, who may lie in water for ten minutes and yet keep his skin dry. So the keeper works in the water by hand, rubbing the hair the wrong way, and gently persuading the dog to lie down. Once comfortably settled in the tub, a happy look comes over the dog's face. This, by the way, may not be true of the face of the keeper's wife, should she come to her door to watch proceedings, and find that her good man has borrowed her new wash-tub. To make the best of a bad business, she may decide to give her pet goose a good tubbing; and this will be one of the grandest treats in the goose's life.