Accidents to Hares
More than once, descending the steep face of the Downs, we have set foot upon hares in their forms—crouching so closely as to be unseen until felt; and once we have witnessed a curious fatal accident which befell a half-grown hare through the habit of lying low. Partridge-shooting was going on in a field of sainfoin, and as the guns lined out from the fence we saw this hare dancing, as it were, on her head. It was a dance of death, and before we could reach her puss was lying still. One of the guns had actually trodden on her head, and had passed on unknowingly. Half-grown and undersized hares seen in autumn have small chance of enduring through the winter; with the setting in of cold weather their fate is sealed; they are unable to thrive on the rough frosted food, and are claimed by a lingering death. In the wet days of autumn, when showers of leaves and rain are falling, hares change their quarters in the woods for the open fields, preferring of all places a stubble-field free of grasses that hold the moisture. The fall of rain and moist leaves has an opposite effect upon the rabbits—driving them to the shelter of their newly renovated burrows, where they lie all day, snug, warm, and dry.
Hares no longer Speedy
We have heard of terriers who have chased hares and caught them after a burst of less than a field's-breadth; but we have never seen a terrier catch a sound hare in a fair run, though we have known a clever little dog to flash up a ditch and seize a loitering hare, and we have often known a hare to be caught napping in her seat. The hares that terriers catch after short runs have been in some trap or snare, or have been shot, or otherwise wounded, or probably they are diseased. The wonder is that hares can run so fast and long as they do in a state of advanced disease. Hares suffer each year in some places from a disease of a typhous nature, aggravated by feeding on frosted clover. Parting the white fur on the underside of such a hare the skin is found to be green. There is good cause to be suspicious of disease whenever a thin hare is seen in autumn or winter.
Starling Hosts
Too many starlings in a given place are likely to be a serious trouble—in fact they make a place almost impossible for other inhabitants. Starlings haunt many kinds of roosting-places—the high reeds, the woods, and the shrubs about a house. The keeper finds small pleasure in the thunderous noise of their wings in his coverts. Towards the end of October the sales of underwood take place; thereafter the underwood is cut, and this often drives the starlings from an old roosting-haunt to fresh woods, where their presence is far from desirable, in view of the approaching covert-shooting. Naturally, people hesitate to take preventive measures, such as shooting or lighting fires of green wood, for the shots or the smoke would drive away pheasants as well as starlings. Yet it is wiser thus to drive away one season's pheasants than to have the wood made impossible for many years—to all save starlings.