Were it not for the oaks there would be scanty winter faring and feasting for many wild creatures. When acorns and hazel-nuts are scarce, and full beech-masts are not plentiful, birds and beasts have an unusually hard struggle to tide over the winter, even should it be mild, as a paucity of nuts is supposed to foretell. Different creatures like their nut food in different conditions and at different times. The rooks in their greed pull the acorns from their cups where they grow, others do not relish them in their fresh green state, and wait until they are ripe and mellow. Pheasants, who are very partial to acorns in autumn and winter, when more delicate faring is not available, prefer to eat them just as they begin to sprout. Like corn and other seeds, acorns when sprouting possess a peculiarly attractive sweetness. Some of the trees seem to produce fruit of extra sweetness or extra fine flavour—at least, the gamekeeper finds that his pheasants seem to prefer to feed beneath certain trees. Perhaps it is that those trees which are most sun-drenched produce the sweetest acorns, just as the most exposed hazel-nuts on the topmost twigs are so much better than the pale ones of the lowest branches.
The keeper welcomes a generous supply of acorns—provided that the trees which yield them grow in his woods, and not exclusively near the boundary of his beat. Wood-pigeons, as soon as they have cleared the beech-mast, their specially favoured food, will stuff their crops with acorns to the bursting-point—and so grow fat. Acorns also form an important item in the winter fare of rabbits and deer. It is true that they draw rats to the coverts, and even when the last acorn has gone it is not easy to clear the rats away completely. Whether or not there are plentiful acorns, the keeper is much indebted to the oak for food for pheasants, because they are so fond of the spangle-galls, to be found in plenty on the backs of the leaves, that they prefer them even to the maize which is freely scattered. All the galls of the oak, whether oak-apples, or bullet, artichoke, spangle, or root galls, are the outcome of eggs laid by the various gall-wasps, and the pheasants know that within the spangle-galls are the grubs, feeding on the galls' flesh. Left to themselves, the grubs will in due time reach the chrysalis stage of existence, to be hatched in June as winged insects, and to lay in turn the eggs which cause the pretty vermilion-spotted galls. So the wheel of life turns again and would turn for ever if unspoked by the pheasant's beak.
Plump Rabbits
In mid-November rabbits are at their fattest. Grass has been green, sweet, lush, and growing; under the autumn sun, winter oats and wheat have sprung inches high, and rabbits have been enjoying rare feasts. The stoats, in turn, have found benefit in the autumn. It is on full-grown rabbits that they now depend chiefly for food. No longer can they feed on young birds; nor are small rabbits often to be met. Rats show fight when attacked, and stoats prefer to tackle game without power of resistance. Full-grown hares have too much staying power to be hunted down, and they are too fond of making for the open fields to be worth hunting. There are mice and field-voles, but the fat rabbits of the woods are the most obvious of possible meals. No hunt is more determined, ferocious, or relentless than when a stoat hounds a big rabbit to its death.
The Stoat's Hunting
By scent alone the stoat runs down the rabbit chosen for its dinner. No matter how devious the rabbit's course, or how many other rabbits cross the trail, the one line of scent is followed to the end, and sooner or later the death-scream of the rabbit is inevitable. We have often seen the last act of the tragedy. One hunted rabbit made for the shelter of young underwood, cleverly twisting amid the jungle of fern, grass, and bramble, so that the leaping stoat could have been guided only by scent; the rabbit seemed to understand that the hollowness of the bottom of old wood offered few chances of dodging. At last the rabbit grew exhausted; and, at a loss to know where to run to shake off its pursuer, but a few yards behind, took to turning and twisting with redoubled energy, now rounding a leafy stump, then dashing into a clump of brambles, doubling, again rounding the stump, again flashing through the brambles—then sitting up for a second, listening to hear if the stoat were still following. The stoat, thus baulked again and again, grew ever more furious. Coming up on the hot scent to the leafy stump, round which the rabbit had slipped in the nick of time, it would dash in so furiously as to make the brown leaves rattle off, as a terrier leaps at a rabbit's seat from which the owner has just fled. The burning scent throws the pursuer into a frenzy. But the stoat, with a chatter of rage, lost little time in following on into the bramble clump; and the sight of man near by was not enough to turn it from its object. At last, in the brambles, it came upon the rabbit dead-beat—charged in a blind fury, sank its teeth into the head, worrying home the grip. Then, having disabled the rabbit, it retired a yard or two and charged again, retiring and charging at intervals, as if to gain fresh power for driving in the needle-sharp teeth.... At such a moment the keeper feels more than ever justified in shooting a stoat.
Waiting for the end of such a rabbit hunt, for a moment we lost sight of the chase; then felt certain we could hear the hoarse breathing of the captured rabbit in a thick spot, on the opposite side of the 20-foot ride near where we were standing. Yet we felt certain that neither stoat nor rabbit had crossed from our side. We waited, and sure enough the stoat caught the rabbit almost at our feet, where we had thought them to be. The mystery of the heavy breathing remained—the sound was exactly that of a rabbit being mauled by a ferret within a burrow. We crossed the ride, made search, and discovered a large hedgehog curled up in its nest. While the bloodthirsty business had been going forward six or seven yards away, the hedgehog had lain snugly wrapped in winter sleep—actually snoring!