The Last to Leave
This free and easy sport which the cutting of the corn provides for a mixed and excited crowd makes a scene very familiar in any English countryside. The driver of the binder, as he is carried round and round the cornfield, in ever-narrowing circles, gains a good view of the rabbits and the game, stealing about in their fear; and now and again he may be observed to dismount to club a rabbit with his whip-handle. On farms where the rabbits are considered the natural rights of the harvesters, old hands grow very cunning at making the most of their chance when the last few yards of standing corn remain to be cut, and the rabbits, with which the little strip of cover is seething, at last bolt out, to be fallen upon by the men in waiting, and to be slain as fast as sticks can rain blows. Rabbits remain in their sanctuary of corn long after the fox has stolen away, and the pheasants, rats, stoats, and weasels have followed after.
In the Woods
It is a matter of importance that the woodland rides shall be trimmed before harvest-time, so that the woods may be sanctuaries to the corn's evicted creatures. On many shoots this trimming is left to a woodman; he may be responsible for all such work over a large estate let to various tenants. As a consequence, the rides of some of the woods are likely to remain untrimmed until just before the time of covert-shooting, when the work will seriously disturb game. Keepers prefer to trim the rides on their beats themselves, at such odd moments as between the feeding of hand-reared pheasants, and with the help of labourers who are glad enough to earn a few extra shillings during the long evenings of July. The work in this way is done betimes, and all the better for shooting purposes. The harvest migration of game to the woods tells many a story to the keeper. Foxes who have spent a happy summer entirely in the game-stocked cornfields do not come in unnoticed. Fresh-made runs in the fences leading to the coverts tell of the passage of stoats. Hedgehogs work their way in from the fields; they are more numerous than most people imagine, and the keeper holds them responsible for many a ruined game-nest.
Weasel Families
As the summer wanes, families of stoats and weasels break up, and parents cease to have any dealings with their offspring. This severance of the family ties throws a light upon wild creatures and their young. Having given their young ones a good start in life, many seem to dismiss them from their minds. One grove will not nurture two robins, and the day comes when Cock Robin will drive his young hopeful into the world, and will attack him fiercely if he dare again approach his presence. The wild rabbit that on one day, in defence of her young ones, faces and drives away a stoat, her deadliest foe, on the next day leaves them to the mercy of fate—a new family having arrived. The mother stoat stays with her young ones for a long while, sometimes until they are much larger than herself; but sooner or later comes the day of parting.