The Towered Bird.
For upwards of twenty years it has been asserted that no towered bird has been hit only in the head. It has become quite an article of faith with some people that every towered bird is stifled by wounds or blood in the organs of respiration. Quite lately it has been stated that it has often been said that towering has been caused by a shot on the head, but that this is never the case.
The writer has often fallen into this supposed error himself, and has gone very fully into the subject. It is not only a very interesting question in itself, but one that sportsmen should not be misled about. At the last retriever trials there was reported to be a “towered bird,” and upon the dog being sent for it a field away he found it quickly, but the towered bird rose again and flew away, followed by the keeper’s remark, that it was “a very lively dead bird.”
This shows that not all keepers are aware that towerers are not always dead birds when they fall; for this keeper was surprised when the towerer rose again; but I noticed that the judges were quite satisfied that the escaped partridge was identical with “the towerer.” They did not set the dog to hunt again, but turned their backs on the scene of action, and credited the dog (which happened to win the stake) with the find.
That bird had been hit in the head, not in the lungs, and he towered in consequence. If he had been also wounded in the lungs he would have died at the apex of his flight—they always do. It may be asked how I know this, and my reply must be that I know it from the examination of many towered birds of different kinds. Of course, I make no claim to be telling experienced sportsmen anything they do not know already. I am well aware that very many do know it, because I have gone out of my way to ask them; but I think there is occasion for dealing fully with a subject that has been misunderstood for twenty years.
This being so, I propose to glance, briefly, at the varying behaviour of game when struck in different parts of the body; and this seems to be all the more necessary, as wrong information is sure to cause many a fruitless search, much loss of time, and perhaps some muttered thunder directed against the supposed Ananias who saw the bird tower.
Young shooters are often confident that a towered bird is dead, and can be picked up if looked for long enough. Probably they have read it, and have confirmed the statement with a few observations of their own. The partridge that is struck in the head usually falls at once, whether the shot has actually pierced the brain or not, but this is by no means invariable, as I have suggested above.
The several kinds of towerers behave as follows: A rap on the head from a glancing shot may or may not damage the sight, but if it does not completely stun the bird he will rise up and tower from the place where the shot struck him; his is usually a very strong flight, and he is likely to fly a good way, towering all the time, until the loss of strength forces him to come down; he will not collapse at the apex of his flight, but as he falls continue to beat his wings, more or less slowly, nearly or quite to the ground. When he reaches the earth he may die, or he may sit muffled up in a dazed condition. Generally he can be approached and killed with a stick, but sometimes he will have a blind side and a wideawake one; and it is not difficult to approach him by selecting his dark side. In no case is such a bird likely to fly until his enemy is within a yard or two of him. Often he makes no attempt to save his own life, and many times I have allowed a retriever to pick up such a bird, having the gun ready in case of his blunder. On several occasions, probably not more than three, the towered bird on being disturbed has towered again; but generally if he is able to fly at all he is able to see where he is going to and to get away. Many birds of this kind have no shot in them whatever, as I have proved by post-mortem examination; others have proved the same thing by being as lively as ever upon being approached. Once, a few years ago, when a controversy on this subject raged, X-ray photographs of three towerers were published, but shot pellets could only be traced in two of them, and consequently both sides claimed the victory. It is very likely that laboratory examination never will find a shot pellet in the head of a towerer, but that only proves that when a shot enters the head it is generally enough to bring the bird down at once. It is quite another matter when a shot pellet strikes the head and does not enter. Then the state of towering is frequently instantly produced.
This kind of wound, then, may be recognised by the towering of the bird from the instant it was struck, also by some movement in its wings in descent, and lastly, by its attitude of squatting when found upon the ground.
A bird struck in the lungs or stifled by blood in the windpipe behaves very differently. On receiving the shot it generally, but not always, drops its legs as if they were broken; that will generally prove not to have been the case. Then it flies on, from fifty to five hundred yards, with nothing apparently the matter, except the dropped legs, then it suddenly begins to rise or tower. This towering appears from the shooter’s position in the rear, and far behind, to be straight up, but that is optical deception, caused by the position of the shooter directly in the rear. The angle of elevation is really about the same as that of the head-struck bird, although, as the latter rises from only forty or fifty yards away, his angle of elevation looks more oblique than that of the bird a quarter of a mile away.