I relate this story about H——d and his bull-terrier because few men ever were so successful in getting up a good show of game on a property. It was a favourite observation of his that it was not game,—it was vermin, that required looking after; that these did more injury than the largest gang of poachers, as the depredations of the latter could be stopped, but not those of the former. There are few who, on reflection, will not agree with the old keeper. Stoats are so bloodthirsty, that if one of them come across a brood of young pheasants he will give each in succession a deadly gripe on the back of the neck close to the skull, not to make any use of the carcasses, but in the epicurean desire to suck their delicate brains. All who are accustomed to “rabbiting” know that even tame ferrets evince the same murderous propensities, and commit indiscriminate slaughter, apparently in the spirit of wanton destructiveness.
From all, however, that I have seen and heard, I fancy no animal so much prevents the increase of partridges and pheasants, as the hooded crow.
An intelligent man, C——s M——n (an admirable dresser of salmon-flies), whose veracity I have no reason to distrust, assured me that he had seen about the nest of a “hoodie” (as he called the bird), the shells of not less than two hundred eggs, all nearly of the partridge and pheasant. He told me that he once had an opportunity of observing the clever proceedings of a pair of these marauders, bent on robbing the nest on which a hen-pheasant was actually sitting. One of the depredators by fluttering round her, and slily pecking at her unprotected stern, at length so succeeded in irritating her, that she got up to punish him. By a slow scientific retreat, he induced her to pursue him for a few steps, thus affording his confederate, who had concealed himself, the opportunity of removing certainly one egg, perhaps two. By repetitions of this sham attack and retreat, the adroit pilferers eventually managed to empty the nest.
The above mentioned man had been brought up as a gamekeeper in Cumberland. He became an excellent trapper; and was afterwards employed on an estate near the Cheviot Hills, where, in a short time, he got up a decent stock of game by destroying the vermin. He found the grounds swarming with “hoodies;” but it was not until their breeding season the following spring, when he was favoured in his operations by a frost, that he succeeded in capturing them in considerable numbers. On the ground becoming hard, he, for nearly a fortnight, fed certain spots on the banks of the Teviot with wood pigeons and rabbits, besides any vermin that he contrived to shoot. By that time the “hoodies” habitually resorted, without distrust, to those places for food. He then set his traps baited with all such delicacies,—but he considered a small rabbit, or a pigeon lying on its back with outstretched wings, as the most tempting of his invitations; and it often happened that he had scarcely disappeared before the click of the closing spring apprised him of a capture. When his frequent success had rendered the birds shy, he set his traps in the adjacent stream, covering their sides with grass or rushes,—the attractive bait alone appearing above the surface. For three reasons he regarded the banks of the river as the best situation for his traps—he could, as just mentioned, conceal them in the water on the birds becoming too suspicious—secondly, streams are much resorted to by the “hoodie,” who searches diligently for any chance food floating on the water,—and lastly, the rooks, of which there were many in that part of the country, from naturally hunting inland, the reverse of the “hoodie,” were the less likely to spring his traps.
From the short, fuller neck,—the head bent peeringly downwards,—but, above all, from the hawk-like movements of the wing, the sportsman will be able to distinguish the hooded-crow from the rook at a moment when he may be too distant to observe the black and more hooked bill,—and never let him spare. He should be suspicious of every bird he sees crossing and re-crossing a field,—in reality hunting it with as regular a beat as a pointer’s.
M——n killed a great many stoats and weasels with unbaited traps. As it is the habit of these little animals, when hunting a hedge-row, to prefer running through a covered passage to turning aside, he used, where the ground favoured him by slightly rising, to cut a short drain, about a foot in breadth, and rather less in depth, parallel and close to the hedge, covering it with the sods he had removed. At the bottom of these drains he fixed his traps, as soon as the animals became accustomed to the run, and rarely failed in securing every member of the weasel family which had taken up its abode in the vicinity. The best description of hutch-trap (which many prefer to the gin-trap) is made entirely of wire, excepting the bottoms. All appears so light and airy that little suspicion is awakened. The doors fall on anything running over the floor. Of course, this trap is baited unless set in a run. An enticing bait is drawn towards it from several distant points.
To many keepers it ought to be of much advantage to read Colquhoun’s advice on trapping, appended to “The Moor and the Loch.”
Note to 407.—Rearing Pheasants.—Cantelo.—Pheasantries.—Mr. Knox.
With respect to rearing pheasants under a barn-door hen, he observed that they required meat daily. He said that he had been in the habit of shooting rabbits for those he had brought up, and of giving them the boiled flesh when cut up into the smallest pieces, mixed with their other food. He remarked, farther, that the chicks ought to be allowed to run upon the grass at dawn of day—which was seldom regularly done, such early rising being at times not equally congenial to the taste of all the parties concerned.
The treatment he recommended seems reasonable, for those who have watched the habits of pheasants must have remarked that, immediately upon quitting their roosts, they commence searching in the moist grass for food (greatly to the benefit of the farmer), and do not resort to the corn-fields until after the dew is off the ground, and the rising sun has warned the grubs, slugs, worms, and caterpillars to seek concealment.