"Cocks only"—to compromise
There are good reasons for shooting coverts for the first time before the end of November, apart from the fear of a leakage of pheasants. A sack of corn a day will quickly swell a bill to uncomfortable proportions. Unshot coverts also mean that the whole time of keepers and watchers is taken up, with a string of awkward consequences. Thus, little can be done to thin the rabbits, for fear of disturbing the other game in the coverts. Each night some of the hares go out, never to return. Hunting must be curtailed in self-defence. Then again, neighbours may be shooting, and it is very certain that what goes into your neighbour's bag cannot go into yours. The best compromise between shooting in woods still leafy and waiting for the sporting Christmas pheasant to soar far above the tops of the bare trees, is to shoot "cocks only" at the first covert shoots. This may be a perplexing plan to those not accustomed to it—either they include a good many hens, or they let off a good many cocks which they mistake for hens. It is a plan to make the nervous man shoot his worst. And the keeper, as a rule, will not be found to favour it, unless the guns are discriminating and good, and appreciate sport more than bag. But sooner or later the day of "cocks only" must come—why should it not come at the beginning and be done with?
What a Cat may kill
A strange confession was made by a cat-lover concerning the cat of her fireside. The confession was made publicly; in fact, in the columns of an obscure local paper. It was to the effect that the cat had brought in to her kittens, in one week, twenty-six field-mice, nineteen rabbits, ten moles, seven young birds, and two squirrels—all of which passed through her mistress's hands; there may have been others not taken account of. It never seemed to enter the head of the cat's mistress that any hurt was being done to other people's interests by this poaching of rabbits, nor that any neighbouring gamekeeper might read her words. It would be unfair to argue that all cats, with or without kittens, are as bad as this one; we have heard of cats a great deal worse. Naturally a mother cat forages far and wide for food; but she hunts chiefly for small things, and knows that mice and birds are more suitable for her weaning kittens than sitting partridges and pheasants. It is that arch old villain, Sir Thomas, who commits the crimes for which mother cats are blamed. But the keeper has no hesitation in bringing home to all cats a reparation, sudden and effective, for Sir Thomas's sins.
A Cockney Story
A gamekeeper friend told us, with infinite delight, this quaint little story. If we are to believe him, he was sitting one fine September day behind the hedge of a cornfield, thinking about the coveys hidden in the corn, when he became aware that a lover and his lass were sitting on the road side of the hedge, directly behind him. They were Cockneys, and this was the first of their days of country holiday-making. Presently the lover speaks. "Emma," says he, "just look at this pretty fly wot's settled on me 'and." "Lor'!" says Emma, "ain't he a daisy?" A pause follows; the lovers are silently contemplating the beauties of the fly. Emma suggests he is out for an airing in his racing colours—yellow and black. Then the lover calls out in a voice of mingled amusement and pain. "Crikey!" he cries, "ain't 'is feet 'ot?"