One old keeper of our acquaintance has a curious recipe for a dog-wash, and swears that in more than fifty years he has not found its equal. You must uproot, he will tell you, an armful of foxglove plants, and boil them in a copper of water. When the infusion is cool enough, rub it well into your dog's coat, and lather him with a little soft soap. "And I'll lay," says the old chap, "that you don't see nothing about a dog after that, and his coat will look fit to go to a wedd'n." The keeper's plan is to leave the lather in his dogs' coats for some little time after they have left the tub. Every lathery dog is tied up in turn in a sunny spot, free from draughts; then all are rinsed in the order of washing, and are taken for a long gambol in a field of grass, the keeper taking care not to let a dog free in a dusty place, for his first act is to have a good roll, regardless of a clean coat.
Shame-faced Cocks
At harvest-time the old cock pheasants begin to show themselves in the woods again. In April one grew almost weary of the insistent, boasting crows of the vainglorious dandies. Then for months they seemed quite to drop out of woodland society. They like to take things easily through the summer, leaving all family cares to the members of their harems. And no doubt they feel out of sorts, and have no desire to be seen—for they have to pass through the strain of the moulting season.
As the last acre of the cornfield is cut, a hundred young pheasants rise, with self-important splutterings, before the binders, each bird clearly betraying its sex by the growing feathers of maturity. But the cunning old cocks seldom advertise their presence. They slink stealthily out of the field while the machines are making their first rounds, and in a couple of yards from the corn reach the shelter of the hedge. They steal away with lowered heads, as though to hide their faces behind each blade of stubble. A dissipated, dishevelled old ruffian the cock pheasant appears while moulting—with half a tail, many flight feathers missing from the wings (corresponding feathers drop out together from each wing, so that he is not deprived of power of flight), and lacking all the metallic gloss of plumage, burnished gold and bronze. To come suddenly on a moulting cock pheasant—as when he is enjoying a quiet dust-bath—is to pity him. And the way he blunders off suggests that he is heartily ashamed of himself.
The Turtle-Dove's Summer
In May the turtle-doves were skimming low across the fields, after their arrival in this country. During the last week of August we saw them gathering into little parties of dozens or scores against the hour of their departure. The doves leave before the end of harvest—the first chillness of autumn bids them go. The pigeons remain to continue their feasts of corn. Their cooing from the recesses of the beeches suggests a well-fed laziness. Great feeders as they are, they stuff their crops to bursting-point, and nothing vegetarian or fruitarian seems to come amiss to them—whether the greens of root-crops, acorns, beech-mast, clover, the sown peas, dandelion leaves, sainfoin, anemone roots, charlock, beech buds, the seeds of bluebells, wild strawberries, oak-galls, or corn in all its stages. Turtle-doves pay little attention to corn till harvest-time; the seeds of charlock and of other noxious plants are a greater attraction. Though they fly with wood-pigeons a great deal, their diet is different, and they seem to come to ponds to drink more often than the pigeons, perhaps because some of their favourite foods, such as charlock seeds, are hot and thirst-producing. They are among the farmer's best friends.