Country life

Rook, hares, hunts

Denis Wood

Our rooks have deserted us. For many years until now we have always had a rookery in the farmer's field over the way and now I miss them very much. I am fond of rooks, having a fellow feeling for their wickedness and being entertained by their wary sagacity when they hop and walk over my lawn like Jack ashore.

Wherever they have gone, my rooks will have been mending or making their nests for some time, but actual egg-laying does not usually begin until the middle of March or earlier in mild springs such as that which we are having now, In his book Man and Birds (Collins) Dr R. K. Murton quotes J. D. Lockie's observations in districts round Oxford. From this it seems that breeding is timed to coincide with a peak in the production of earthworms which rooks need to feed their young. Many investigations have been made into the diet of rooks indicating that, while earthworms, beetles and 'grubs' are available they will take these for preference, but move to corn stubbles and seeded corn when there is a scarcity of earthworms in dry .weather. It does appear that, although they eat a considerable amount of corn during their lives, the effect on production is negligible.

In his didactic poem, The Landscape of 1795, Richard Payne Knight wrote of their "adventurous squadrons" which:

Dig up the earth-worms, wrapp'd in spiry folds,

And drag the embryo beetles from their holds;

and Knight adds a footnote saying that rooks, by digging up worms and slugs, are doing the most essential service.

Seeing a lolloping hare in a field at Hampstead Norreys the other day, I thought that it is about at this time that hares begin their March madness, springing, running, standing on their hind iegs, boxing at each other, the performers sometimes surrounded by a circle of other spectator hares.

This sent me to look up an absorbing book, The Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans and David Thomson, published by Faber in 1972. It is thought that these lunatic antics are not necessarily attributable to the mating instinct because the common hare breeds during nine or ten months of the year. Perhaps it is just the joys of spring, wild outbursts of delight at their own acrobatic prowess at the time of lengthening daylight and fresh spring grass. The book, as well as giving a straightforward account of the natural history of the three hares of the British Isles, the Irish, the Blue (this is the one whose coat Spectator March 22, 1975

turns white in winter) and the common or brown hare, goes deeply into the mythology attached to them, its frequent association with the moon and fire for example, and its occurrence as a symbol of increase and recreation.

It has been and is the subject of much superstition the danger of a mother giving birth to a `hare shotten' child if her path is crossed by a hare while pregnant. It was 'associated with witchcraft and believed to be familiar of witches. Sir Thomas Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica wrote that "its flesh when eaten breeds incubus and causeth fearful dreams." This fearful superstition is due perhaps to the hare's undoubted oddness apart from its behaviour in March, it has large protruding eyes, the fact that leverets are born with their eyes open and fully furred, and its desperate human scream When it is hurt.

The poet Cowper, himself subject to fits of extreme depression, may have had a curious sympathetic affinity with hares. He kept three together at one time, all males but With female names, Tiney, Bess, and Puss, who after he had been ill for three days and nursed by Cowper, was so grateful for his recovery that he expressed his

Fratitude by licking Cowper's hand `first the back of it then the palm

then every finger separately . . ." Puss died in 1783 "after nine whole Years of In unregenerate days I was sometimes allowed out to hunt on Mondays when the Garth hounds hunted our side of the country. Here is an extract from my diary of February 22, 1937:

Met at the Bell, Waltham St. Lawrence. Father on his mare, Joanna, Jean on Brown 's grey Gaiety and I rode my horse, Happy Man. Drew blank twice. The country was under water, some of the lanes were like' rivers, the water being from four to six inches deep. Mr. Headington said later that he had never in all his life seen the country wetter. Many fields were covered by sheets of water. In one gateway it was a foot deep and Jean's mare tried to lie down and Jean got very wet getting off in a hurry and getting on again. Soon after this When hounds were drawing some kale olpposite Haines Hill we viewed a fox away and at last got going. I pushed rlaPPY Man on and for a quarter of an hour was well up with hounds, much of the time galloping through sheets of water, towards Waltham St. Lawrence. I hit my hat on a branch jumping some rails by a tree but Happy Man was in great form. Soon, however, a man fell in a. ditch in front of me and his horse kicked him on the head. I got off to help but he and his daughter said that they did not need help — though he looked bad. Meanwhile Jean had gone by. After ! had got on again Happy Man fell Jumping a ditch but I kept care of the reins and he scrambled up with a little difficulty. Soon after this we ran out of scent and hounds drew near Bill Hill. Then I found that Happy Man had cast a Shoe . Gilbert (the groom) was not far off on Joanna, father having gone home, so he led Happy Man while I got a lift home, changed into jodhpurs and dry clothes and came hack to meet the horses near the Blacksmiths at Twyford. When he had been shod I rode Happy Man back with Gilbert on Joanna. Helped with mashes and gruel.

I Would not now hunt any of God's golden creatures but these were days of heedless joy which like the torrents of spring hurried away. It is reassuring to remember that although the land was as wet, if not wetter, nearly forty years ago than it is now the farming world did not come to an end.