GAMEKEEPERS' WOODCRAFT.
MOST practical naturalists will tell you that gamekeepers are very unobservant men, and it is true enough that among them are to be found some of the most sturdily con- servative persons in the country. They prefer, the majority of them, to do things precisely as things have always been done before, even though they have been done in the wrong way. It is with the utmost difficulty that you will get them to refrain from killing owls and kestrels, even though you may put before them absolutely unassailable proof that owls feed mainly, and kestrels almost entirely, on mice and young rats. To them a kestrel is a hawk, and all hawks should be shot at sight. But here and there you will come across a keeper who not only uses his eyes, but can tell you what be sees, and the acquaintance of such a man is a privilege. For a keeper, alone of men who live in the country, spends his whole life out of doors in the company of animals and birds, feeding them, trapping them, shooting them, and watching them lead their lives in their own wild, natural way. If a keeper could only put into writing all that he sees in ksingle year of his life, he would write one of the most interesting books in the language. But the difficulty would always be the same, to decide what "all" should mean. The very facts and thoughts which he would leave unwritten, because they would seem uninteresting to him, would probably be the most interesting things he could put into the book.
In the current issue of the Gamekeeper, a paper which circulates among keepers, and to which many keepers are contributors, there are a number of essays and extracts from essays on "Woodcraft," which make curious and attractive reading. The writers have chosen each his own way to tell as much as they can in a short space of the knowledge which enables them, for instance, to detect the presence of vermin or game on the ground under their charge, or to decide whether or not poachers or stray dogs are about in the coverts, and so on. Some of the personal experiences, as might be expected, are odd enough ; some are incredible; but throughout there is a quite convincing air of personal belief in the story as it is given. One of the writers, for instance, remarks that 'the first adder I saw, the young ones ran into the old adder's mouth. I have killed adders twenty-eight inches long, with a mouse in the stomach." The second of the two statements may pass, but the first betrays its origin in its language. When adders have been observed to perform the remarkable feat of swallowing their young to save them from danger, they are invariably "the first" adders seen by the narrator, or they were seen "a long time ago," or "when I was a boy." Frank Buckland offered a reward for many years for • a viper sent to him with its young in its mouth, but he never received one. When, again, the same writer remarks that "the first three hedgehogs I saw were sucking cows," be is only repeating, doubtless with entire confidence in its truth, a very old and curiously per- sistent country legend. Hedgehogs most assuredly do not suck cows, though they have been observed to lick the milk which occasionally runs from the full udder of a cow lying on the grass. Here, again, you will notice, the hedgehogs were "the first." But what follows is much better. "A stray dog will not bark at any one. When a dog goes off on his own account, be will not acknowledge his master on his homeward journey." Could a stray dog be described more unerringly ? Half-a-dozen words call up everything that a stray dog ever is or does. Only confident dogs, dogs who own masters and houses, dogs who keep their own kennels, and can command regular meals, and take children out for walks,—those are the dogs that bark. But a stray dog goes gingerly and doubt- fully, peering into the faces of passers-by, and ready to scuttle away with his tail between his legs even if the most ridiculous toy-terrier so much as shows a tooth. He has no spirit for barking ; indeed, he has lost the right to bark, and lie knows it. A very different frame of mind is that of the dog who returns from a hunting expedition on his own account. He is fully aware that he has broken the rules ; very possibly, he considers, he will receive a thrashing. But meanwhile, is he to adopt either a deceitful attitude, and pretend by his demeanour that be has not been bunting, when the earth from the rabbit burrows is red upon his paws and nose ? Or is he to approach his master with an affectation of slavish penitence, imploring a pardon he disdains ? Certainly not. For adog that is a dog, there can be no admission of fault or recognition of authority. His only attitude, until the situation becomes absolutely acute, must be one of superb aloofness from petty detail.
The presence or absence of foxes is one of the first matters which would occupy the attention of a keeper taking charge of new coverts. Foxes can be detected in a dozen ways. Destroyed nests, game lightly buried, tracks on wet ground, and scent are some of the plainest. A keeper can tell if a fox is about by the cries of green plover, perhaps the most anxious of all bird parents. Or be will watch partridges repeatedly springing and settling again, and will know that fox cubs are vainly endeavouring to catch them. If a dog, again, is hunting mute in a covert, the keeper can tell without going near; he will see hares stealing out of the wood. Or, if lie enters the covert, he will perhaps find pheasants perched up in a tree. Looking at a covert from a distance, be may be certain there are no men moving about in it if he can see wood-pigeons or rooks sitting in the branches of the tall trees. If, on the other band, he sees a pigeon or a crow suddenly swerve in its flight, he may be pretty certain it has caught sight of a human being below. If he wants to discover whether there are pike in a particular piece of water, let him watch the young families of duck and waterfowl. If they disappear gradually, there are large pike in the water. If they remain in quantities, there are no pike. One of the easiest creatures to detect in a wood is a badger. He will take the skin off a young rabbit very much as a cook does, and will leave it for you to see ; or he will scratch straight down to a rabbit's nest, or will scrape out a wasps' nest. A stoat treats a rabbit quite differently from a badger ; you cannot mistake the neck bitten through at the back. One of the ocessionally wicked wood creatures is the squirrel. When a sqn:rrel takes a young bird, he gnaws away at its skull and neck-bones, and leaves its breast untouched. Both Equirrels and stoats take eggs; and one of the writers de cribes how a stoat carries his booty. "Stoats are regular egg thieves, and they carry them under the fore-leg, the same as a man carries a parcel." That is convincing at once; but others who have seen stoats with eggs describe them as rolling the egg with their fore-feet. It would depend on the ground, of course. "A muddy gate," one keeper writes, "is a very tell-tale to the practised eye. Here is the round footmark of a poaching cat, there the almost bird-like tracks of master rat, and the smaller and cleaner cut tracks of stoat or weasel." Curiously enough, none of the writers mention the track which a rat leaves with its tail. One of the first trails pointed out by a keeper to the present writer as a boy was the thin lines which a rat's tail will leave in a gutter or furrow. But rats perhaps are too ubiquitous to be interesting. To a novice possibly the most surprising thing about the imprint of a rat's feet is its length. A big rat's hind-foot may be nearly two inches long. Over two inches would be a giant. Mr. Millais in his "Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland" mentions rats which were nineteen and twenty inches from nose to tip of tail, and two that weighed two and three-quarter pounds. That is nearly the weight of a pheasant.
Much of the behaviour of birds and beasts is chronicled as having reference to the weather. "If you see rabbits feeding on a fine afternoon you may bet you will have rain or worse weather." The rabbits know that a storm is coming, and so, contrary to their usual habits, come out to get their Meal in sunlight while it is still fine. The following is vaguer, but suggests an uncomfortable fore- knowledge on the part of the birds. "If you see a covey of partridges on a stubble, and they look half as large again as what they are, you may bet you will have a storm within three days." Rooks can prophesy fine weather. "The actions of the rooks as they leave their roosting-place in the morning and fly gaily chattering high overhead to the far- away stubble will generally mean a good day." That is pleasantly joyous. But the bird of birds for the keeper is the blackbird. He is the gamekeeper's friend and ally. The blackbird lets nothing escape him. He is always watchful, always alert. And be will not only warn the keeper that some enemy is moving, but he will tell him what it is. If it is a cat, or an owl, or hawk, he will keep up an agitated twitter which brings every bird in the neighbourhood to see what is the matter. But if it is a stoat, the blackbird behaves quite differently. You cannot hear what he says unless you are within a few yards, but when you do hear one particular note you may be absolutely certain what it means. It is a low, lisping whistle, and when the keeper hears it, his friend the blackbird has told him of a stoat within a few feet of where be stands. If a keeper bad to decide which bird he would miss most on his rounds, he would be doubtful in choosing between the rook and the wood-pigeon. But he would give up the blackbird last.
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