CORNELL UNIVERSITY The WILLIAM D. SARGENT Collection * A Gift to the Laboratory of Ornithology + JOHN E. THAYER, LANCASTER. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY LABORATORY OF ORNITHOLOGY LIBRARY Gift of H. corgert A YEAR OF SPORT _ AND _¢ ' NATURAL HISTORY | A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY SHOOTING, HUNTING, COURSING, FALCONRY AND FISHING WITH CHAPTERS ON BIRDS OF PREY, THE NIDIFICATION OF BIRDS AND THE HABITS OF BRITISH WILD BIRDS AND ANIMALS EDITED BY OSWALD CRAWFURD WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK FELLER, BRYAN HOOK, CECIL ALDIN, A. T. ELWES, E. NEALE, JOHN BEER, P. VIENZENY, STANLEY BERKELEY, AND G. E. LODGE LONDON—CHAPMAN AND HALL, Lirep ae ty ORNITH a ABGENT 5K oe LONDON: GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD., ST. JOHN'S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C. PREFACE. WHILE superintending the literary department of Black and White, | prevailed upon a number of competent writers on Sport and Natural History to deal week by week, the whole of one year round, with these two topics. We called the series “ Field Sports and Field Studies,” and as the writers knew their business and how to write upon it, the papers were exceedingly popular. Among the authors were such sportsmen and naturalists as Mr. Aubyn Trevor-Battye, who has since achieved fame in Arctic lands, Mr. George Lindesay, a classic in sporting litera- ture, Mr. H. H. S. Pearse, the admirable writer and referee > on hunting of all kinds, and Mr. Sachs, a known and notable angler and writer on angling, with many others of high local or special authority as sportsmen or naturalists. As regards the artists engaged on this book their work is all so praiseworthy that I hardly like to pick and choose from the list, and elect, instead, to print their names in full on our title-page. I claim for this book, in forty-five parts or sections, that it is not a mere jumbled collection of articles, but a consecutive work dealing, in their due sequence, with forty-five consecutive and most interesting seasonal phases of Sport and Natural History in the British Islands. OswaLp CrawFurp, £drtor. Fanuary, 1895. CONTENTS. JANUARY. Fox-HuNTING IN THE SHIRES Fox-HunTING OUTSIDE THE SHIRES . SNIPE SHOOTING. WILD Swan SHOOTING HUNTING WITH BEAGLES FEBRUARY. THE WILD GOOSE RasBiT SHOOTING SprinG SALMON FISHING MARCH. Our Birps oF Prey. I. THE Ow.s é ; ‘ : Our Birps oF Prey. II. Hawks, Buzzarps, KITES AND HARRIERS Our BirDs oF Prey. III. Eacies, FaALcoNs AND OSPREY APRIL. Brrp Nestinc. I. Sea-Brrps Birp Nestinc. II. Moor Birps Birp Nestinc. III. Tree NeEsTING Birps Trout FIsHING IN MoOuNTAIN STREAMS MAY. TuamMeEs TROUT FISHING THE TRICKS OF POACHERS . FISHING WITH THE Dry FLy PAGE 18 25 33 41 49 56 64 72 82 92 104 III 118 126 133 142 x CONTENTS. JUNE. ScotcH Locu FisHING Bass-FISHING JULY. OTTER HUNTING. SEA FISHING FROM PIERS . AUGUST. THE WHITE TROUT Cuus FISHING CHAR FISHING THe Hasits oF THE WILD RED DEER FLAPPER SHOOTING SEPTEMBER. PARTRIDGE SHOOTING . si HuNTING THE WILD RED DEER Rassit HawkINc Me Aan OCTOBER. PHEASANT SHOOTING . Cus-HuntTInG ; . Partripce Hawkinc. [at Vn “9 RoucGH SHOOTING NOVEMBER. CHANTREY’S Famous SHOT. TWEED SALMON FISHING ; ; Hare Huntinc on THE Bricuton Downs Duck-SHOOTING ON THE Broaps CouRSING RoE SHOOTING DECEMBER. DECEMBER SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS A Cock Drive IN SCOTLAND "LONGSHORE SHOOTING GAMEKEEPERS PIKE FISHING PAGE 146 153 158 164 172 178 187 195 200 207 212 219 224 235 243 251 259 266 2471 283 287 294 302 310 315 320 327 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The Wild Red Deer Hunting in the Shires . Hunting outside the Shires . Snipe Shooting . Wild Swan Shooting . Hunting with Beagles. Flight Shooting . Rabbit Shooting ‘Tawny Owl Barn Owl . Long-eared Owl. Short-eared Owl. ‘ 5 i The Sparrow-Hawk (Accipiter Nisus) . The Common Buzzard (Buteo Vulgaris) The Kite (Milvus Ictinus) . The Hen-Harrier (Circus Cyaneus) The Marsh-Harrier (Circus Zruginosus) The Golden Eagle The Osprey The Peregrine The Hobby The Kestrel The Tern . The Lesser Gull The Puffin. Kittiwakes . ‘ ; : : : Guillemots on the Needle Rock, Lundy Island - PAGE Frontispiece 3 II 2. 27 35 43 51 64 65 67 7O 73 75 77 78 79 83 85 87 89 go 93 95 97 99 Ior LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The Common Peewit, or Lapwing The Woodcock . The Great Northern Diver . The Rook . The Heron The Woodpecker Trout Fishing in Mountain Streams Thames Trout Fishing Tricks of Poachers Loch Fishing Bass-fishing Otter Hunting Sea Fishing from Piers White Trout Fishing . Chub Fishing Char Fishing Flapper Shooting ‘ Hunting the Wild Red Deer Rabbit Hawking Pheasants . Cub-hunting Partridge Hawking Rough Shooting . Chantrey’s Famous Shot Tweed Salmon Fishing , Hare Hunting on the Brighton Downs Duck-Shooting on the Broads Coursing : 5 ‘ Roe Shooting. ‘ i ‘ December Sport in the Highlands A Would-be Poacher . . PAGE 105 107 109 112 114 116 121 129 137 149 155 161 167 175 181 1g! 203 205 221 229 239 247 255 261 2609 279 285 297 395 323 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. JANUARY. FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES. By H. H. S. Pearse. Pace, with all the wild rapture that word conveys, and nothing else, has made midland pastures the favourite hunting-grounds of English men and women who have means to justify and health to enjoy the perfection of pleasure in field sports. None but those who have hunted with the Quorn or Pytchley, the Cottesmore, Billesden, or Belvoir in their best country, when all Melton’s bravest and fairest are inspired by keen rivalry, can know what that delight is. The merry men of Lord Eglinton’s Hunt will say that their wide stretches of Ayrshire grass lands hold a better scent, that their Foxes are stouter than any to be found in Leicestershire, and that their hounds run as fast; yet they know no crowds like those that congregate at a fixture near Melton Mowbray or Market Harborough. Followers of the Blackmore Vale have been known to hold very similar views as to the claims of B 2 dA VEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. Dorsetshire; and the fox-hunters of many countries that are classed as “provincial” refuse to admit the superiority of the shires in any point worthy to command the admiration of true sportsmen. There is one hunt—in the West—certainly not less distinguished for historic associations or the social celebrity of those who assemble at its fixtures than any in the Midlands. The ‘blue and bluff” of Badminton must be known to fame all the world over; Dukes of Beaufort for many generations have been acknowledged leaders in the hunting world, and the “ badger- pied beauties” as they skim over the open in full chorus, or spread like a rocket to recover the lost scent for themselves or stoop to it with a joyous whimper after Lord Worcester has lifted them forward in one of his masterly casts, make a picture that might well impress the imagination of the coldest critics. Their followers are to be numbered by hundreds, and yet sport with them differs essentially from that of the shires. The Warwick- shire hounds are of the best also, and can go fast enough, as every man must confess who ever tried to hold his own with them, when Lord Willoughby cheered ‘‘the dappled darlings” over the strongly-fenced pastures of Shuckburgh Vale. This hunt is nearest to the shires geographically and in methods of sport, yet fashion has not admitted it to membership of the guild, pro- bably because Lord Willoughby—though he loves pace no less than the hottest blooded Meltonian—will be master of his own pack, and will not let a hard-riding field dictate terms to him. It may be granted that all hounds go fast enough at times to run clean away from horsemen, but a brilliant episode of this kind is not quite what one means by pace in the Meltonian sense, which depends rather less on scent than on system. A certain HUNTING IN THE SHIRES. LOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES. 5 happy combination in the first place doubtless gave special distinction to Leicestershire, and the counties bordering on it. No ploughshares at that time fretted the fair surface of those old pastures. For miles in every direction there was nothing to interfere with the dash of a clamorous pack in hot pursuit. Nearly all the fields afforded good galloping ground, and the fences, though few, were big enough to add a strong spice of danger to other pleasures of the chase. These were natural advantages, however, of which tlhe Midlands had not a monopoly, and they alone would not have made Melton the hunting centre of the world. But when the great Hugo Meynell began, at Quorndon Hall, to breed hounds for speed, and to handle them with a quickness that had been previously unknown, the fame of Quorn sport attracted aspiring youths from all quarters of England. They vied with each other in hard riding, until their keen rivalry became an embarrassment to the master and a danger to his hounds. Then the system that had been adopted for pleasure became perpetuated and intensified as a necessity. No hunts- man or hound that showed a tendency to dwell upon the line could be tolerated longer. The avalanche of horsemen would be upon them the moment they hung about, and so they got into a habit of flinging forward with a dash whenever scent failed. To have a pack that would bear to be lifted without becoming wild, even amid a bewildering maze of hoofs in rapid motion, became imperative then. The new conditions demanded quick resolution and magnetic power of command in a huntsman; high courage and the quality known,as “drive” in hounds. These were developed in time, and by scientific system they have been trans- mitted from generation to generation. Nowhere out of the shires 6 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. does one see a similar display of eager, restless activity all round. The mighty rush of squadrons, where every horseman strives for a lead, apparently reckless of what may befall himself or anything that comes in his way, would seem the very ecstasy of madness to one who had never played a part in such stirring scenes. Steeple- chasing, some critics say it is, but perhaps they are moved to envy by the thought that they can no longer hold their own with the boldest. He must be cold, indeed, whose blood is not stirred to rapture, or who can stop to criticize when Tom Firr, with clear, shrill blasts of the horn that Quornites know so well, is getting his hounds out of Cream Gorse on the line of a Fox whose neck is set straight for the glorious vale of Twyford, or the Cottesmore are streaming like a torrent in foam down the slopes from famed Ranksboro’ Gorse, or Pytchley men are charging the bullfinches that raise their thorny network across the vale between Lilbourne and Crick, or the Belvoir tans are racing over the Lings from Freeby Wood to Croxton Park. Mere memory of such a moment makes the face of an old Meltonian flush and his nerves tingle with excitement. Call it wild helter-skelter confusion, fit only for boys or savages to take part in; say that it is more like the tumult of a barbaric fantasia than sport for civilized beings ; hurl what: epithets you will at it! But who that has once been in such a burst would not give a cycle of Cathay for those brief, rapture- laden twenty minutes over the beautiful grass lands of the shires ? Think of the throb of pulses, as a Fox breaks cover; the beating of your heart while you wait in breathless excitement for him to cross the first field; the ‘‘Tally ho! gone away!” ringing like a trumpet call, and then the answering chorus of hounds, at sound of which, like a-cavalry regiment in full charge, two hundred FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES. 7 pursuers with teeth set hard are racing for the nearest fence, and eight hundred hoofs thunder on the turf. The men who would keep in the first flight must sit down and ride then. Whatever may be of barbarity in sport dwindles to nothingness at such a moment, when noble horse and perfect horseman are inspired by common sympathies. The lightest touch of bit on mouth ora firm pressure of knees against saddle-flaps is enough to tell the sensitive animal—madly excited though he may seem—what his master asks of him as they near a blind bullfinch or treacherous oxer. To feel the heave of a clever fencer’s quarters, as with neck outstretched, ears set forward, and nostrils quivering, he rises at the obstacle, is to realize why English men and women “risk neck and limb and life” in the pleasures of the chase day after day. Sweeter music man cannot hear than the rhythmic beat of hoofs on springing turf as one lands over a big fence well ahead of the charging throng and finds oneself for a moment alone with the hounds, that are skimming like sea birds across the green waves of ridge and furrow. After going for fifteen minutes at best pace, and such a pace, half the horses that were so eager at the outset have been left far behind, others are already faltering in their stride, and can only be kept going by skilful riders who know when to give them a pull, and many begin to chance their fences, crashing through quicksets or rapping the stiff top rails harder than a cautious man likes to hear. Perhaps a brief check may give breathing space to blown horses before the pack in joyous chorus hits off the scent, and men of the first flight with thinned ranks race on again for the sluggish brook “ where the willow trees grow.”” The keen east wind bites shrewdly, and the muddy stream looks coldly grey, as if frost had already begun to grip it, but he who 8 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. holds the lead at such a moment would be faint-hearted indeed if he turned aside for fear of an icy bath. Some of us don’t like water, and are not ashamed to confess as much; but craven thoughts seldom come to those who can ride straight as hounds run over Leicestershire meadows when the Quorn are close upon a sinking Fox. With the excitement of rivalry thrilling every fibre of their frames, they take firmer hold of the reins, sit tighter in their saddles, give one touch of the spur, and go at it. A horse here and there may refuse ; one, losing heart too late to save himself, will perhaps plunge into mid-stream, sending the spray like a fountain upward, as for a moment he disappears. The others, landing safe on the rotten banks, cast but a glance behind to see that he is not in danger of drowning, and then gallop on to where the hounds clamour fiercely over a fallen victim, and the shrill “Whoo! whoop!” tells that the brilliant burst is at an end. Such runs on a breast-high scent do not come every day, but the quickness of a huntsman in the shires will often make things merry when in slower countries hounds would be walking their Fox to death. To hunt six days a week from Melton or Market Harborough, therefore, one need be well mounted and have two horses in the field every day. With a stud of six or eight hunters one may get along very well if none of them go amiss. With more a bold horseman ought to see all the best of the fun, but with less a man had better be content to take his sport amid less stirring scenes, and not aspire to distinction in this region of fashionable fox-hunting. ¥ANUARY. FOX-HUNTING OUTSIDE THE SHIRES. By H. H. S. Pearse. In England there are a hundred hunts or more that can only be described as unfashionable in a relative sense. The habitual followers of every pack among them may be numbered by scores, or in many cases by hundreds, and as each affords sport enough for the amusement of lords and squires and ladies of high degree, they lack not the attraction that a certain air of fashion gives, though none of them can pretend to vie with the more distinguished shires. For some other packs, however, not so much can be said. Their followers make no pretence to being the arbiters of fashion in any sense. On the contrary, they treat conventionality in matters of costume with a freedom that would have made Beau Brummel shudder, and have shocked the artistic susceptibilities of a Hammond, a Tautz, or a Bartley in their most fastidious days. In such countries a man’s claims to consideration are not estimated by the correct cut of a coat, the faultless fit of breeches, the exact height ofa polished boot, or the way in which a bow is tied above the tops. The tailor does not make the man there, nor does anybody care one jot about the colour of his neighbour's Cc 10 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. cords, whether they be snowy white or dingy as a London fog. One point they are nearly all tenacious of, however, is that every prominent member of the hunt, unless he happen to be a parson, should appear in ‘“‘pink” as a sign of respect to the Master. But it need not be the pink of perfection, and no matter how much the coat may be empurpled by weather stains, if in the original colour it conformed to regulation as by custom established. The least fastidious man in other details of personal adornment is often the most scrupulous in his observance of the respect due to the M. F. H. in this particular, and intolerant of any departure from it. Farmers, who still form a large proportion of fox-hunters in unfashionable countries, are not supposed to dress for the part. They may wear whatsoever taste dictates, though none of them would care to appear in the colour that is accepted as a badge of hunt-membership. The Meltonian is less punctilious about the sportsmanlike correctness of his costume than its style and finish, while the “ provincial” exactly reverses these standards. In his opinion a man who, though entitled to wear the hunt buttons, comes out in a stable jacket, would not show a proper sense of the fitness of things; but whether the scarlet coat be old or new, the breeches immaculate, or the boots wrinkled like a Magyar’s, he might not take the trouble to note. Costume, by whatever canons regulated, is, however, an untrustworthy indication of a sportsman’s character- istics. Fox-hunters, like the horses they ride, go well in all shapes, and it is never safe to generalize, as Mr. Bromley Davenport did when he “held the swell provincial lower than the Melton muff.” The wider sympathies and more varied experiences of Whyte Melville led him to say of the many | i i i ba FOX-HUNTING OUTSIDE THE SHIRES. 13 countries in which he had hunted that “each has its own claim to distinction; some have collars, all have sport.” Happy the man who can take his fill of the pleasure that every phase of fox- hunting affords, without discounting it by comparison with some other that comes nearer to his ideal of perfect bliss. Colonel Anstruther Thomson, who in his day was unrivalled as a rider to hounds over any kind of country, will, if I mistake not, say that he has seen quite as good sport with a rough moorland pack, the Master of which never put on a scarlet coat, as with the well-bred Pytchley, when Tom Firr and Dick Roake whipped in to him. That would be the opinion also of many a good man who has followed Jack Parker's trencher-fed hounds over the wild hills of Kirby Moorside, or heard the Blencathra chorus echoing among the fells of Cumberland. One need not, however, go so far a-field or select the very antithesis of Leicestershire sport in order to illustrate the charms that belong to unfashionable fox-hunting. Between such extremes as the Badminton, Warwickshire, Atherstone, Bramham Moor, Grafton, and Cheshire, which even a Meltonian would not despise, and the obscure hunts of some woodland districts wherein vaulting ambition finds little scope, are many varieties of hunting country that offer attractions sufficient for all modest requirements. Their fixtures are not difficult to get at, and anybody who cares for a day with sportsmen who take more delight in the work of hounds than in steeple- chasing need not journey very far from London. He _ had better, however, select a country in which pheasant preserves are not plentiful, or he may only experience the disappointment of a blank day. At the trysting place he will find probably 14 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. not more than fifty followers assembled, but nearly all of them are sure to be keen fox-hunters, from the veteran whose grey hairs and bent shoulders tell of three score and ten winters past, to the boy whose pony is rejoicing in its emancipation from the leading strings. A dozen farmers, young and old, who know every cover, and nearly every Fox that haunts it, are there in homely garb. The few ladies present do not affect novelties in habit skirts or eccentricities in head gear, and the horses they ride are more distinguished for cleverness than good looks. The Master, whose appearance is welcomed by all with courteous salutations, wears a hunting-cap as the outward sign of authority, instead of the silk hat which so many of his brethren have adopted since Leicestershire set that fashion. The huntsman, a weather-beaten veteran, whose wiry frame and keen face ‘bespeak untiring energy in pursuit, has his hounds in perfect condition, and though some among them are of a type that would not find favour with judges at a Peterborough Show, they all look as if no day would be too long for them. At a signal from the Master old Jim trots away to a ride through the big woods, where his hounds, spreading right and left, are soon hard at work among the bracken and brambles of tangled undergrowth. The long succession of larch plantations and oak copses, closing here and there into deep shadowy valleys where hounds are for a time completely lost to view, would break the heart of a Leicestershire huntsman, but Jim plods on patiently from end to end, relying on himself and hounds to drive the Fox out of these strongholds if they find one here. His voice or horn is only heard at long intervals, and just loud enough to keep the hounds under command. At the first note of a light tongue #FOX-HUNTING OUTSIDE THE SHIRES. 15 thrown far ahead, he pauses for a moment with every faculty on the alert, and then, as the welcome tidings are confirmed, he cheers the pack with a shrill “Hark to Falstaff, hark!” In a minute the dead leaves are shaken with a rush and a rattling chorus, and with a few clear touches on the horn he proclaims a find. Then the old man. becomes a boy once more in his enthusiasm. To force a cunning old Fox through an apparently endless chain of thickets is no child’s play, but Jim’s eye is quick to note every sign when the hounds are at fault, and with cheer after cheer he keeps them on the line of his hunted one. For twenty minutes they stick to the woodlands, and then an inspirit- ing ‘Tally ho! gone away!” tells that we are in for a run at last. Horsemen and horsewomen dash along the rides at headlong speed, eager for a start. Some crash through the copse to leap the low palings of its boundary fence. Others make fora stile, in anxiety to distinguish themselves while their horses have the courage that hot rivalry gives; but the more knowing ones, who want to see the finish, however far off that may be, head fora gate that commands wide views of meadow and fallow. There is in truth no great need forhurry. A field freshly ploughed has brought hounds to their noses. They falter, then check, and Jim, who will not have them hurried at a moment so critical, gives time while they fling round in a wide self-cast. He is not of ‘the let’em alone” school altogether, and knows full well the difference between hare-hunting and fox-hunting, but he never meddles with the hounds until they have done their utmost. Then his casts are made with quick decision and at no laggard’s pace. The Master makes no effort to restrain impetuous pursuers. Jim’s uplifted hand and politely persuasive “ Hold hard, gentlemen, please!” are 16 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. sufficient. Before all followers have found their way out of cover a trusty hound begins to feather on the line, gives a low whimper, then throws his tongue gaily, and all, rushing together at that challenge, drive with a merry chorus towards a valley where level meadows give promise of scent. The promise is not belied, and for ten minutes the hard riders have a taste of joy that makes them envy not the fate of Leicestershire men. Master, huntsman, and followers, however, knowing this is too good to last long, keep their eyes bent on the leading hounds, who, topping a thorn fence, speed up a swelling slope towards the flinty ridges. Into a deep goyle they plunge, and then up the far side to where a ploughman has halted his team that he may watch the sport. There the hounds come toa check suddenly. Jim, by some path known only to himself, gets to them quickly. The foremost riders, finding their way barred by a ravine too big to be jumped at one stride, make the clever hunters creep down to where the further bank affords firm space for landing on. But a young horse-dealer, whose four-year-old rushes at the goyle blindly, jumps almost on the top of Jim’s favourite hounds, and only escapes the torrent of well-merited abuse by rolling backward among the bushes. This is a warning to all other impetuous folk, who are content to seek more easy ways of getting over. Some, finding a practicable bank on the higher ground, scramble over it, and rush in where more experienced sportsmen would fear to tread. Jim’s self-control is sorely tried when a portly gentleman proffers advice on the assumption that our Fox must have been headed by the ploughman. Some hounds apparently thought the same, for, after a fling forward, they have come back to try the goyle. Jim, meanwhile sits grimly silent, keeping his eye on one old hound and his horn \ fOX-HUNTING OUTSIDE THE SHIRES. 17 upraised ready for a blast. ‘‘ Hoick forward, boys!” he shouts joyously, as Vulcan’s deep note proclaims a recovered scent. The Fox, too stout-hearted to be headed from his point, has slipped along a hedgerow unseen by the ploughman, and is setting his neck straight for some earths three miles off. But that check has given him a long start, and scent is cold on flinty hills. The hounds can hardly own to it at times, but they keep driving steadily on, and a true sportsman may well take delight in every exhibition of their sagacity, as, in their rivalry, one after another takes up the thread of pursuit. Presently their pace quickens, and we must gallop fast to catch them. They crash through a narrow shaw and race up hill towards a belt of trees. But it is too late. The Fox has found shelter in an open earth, and there one may be content to leave him with hounds baying about his stronghold. Digging for a Fox is often a necessity when the pack needs blood to give it encouragement, and to such conclusion a fox-hunting run in an unfashionable country often leads; but not every sportsman can take pleasure in it. FANUARY. SNIPE SHOOTING. By J. Moray Brown. SNIPE shooting has one great advantage; it can be enjoyed by the poor man as well as the rich. No high rents, no keepers, no army of beaters, no highly preserved ground are necessary for its enjoyment—nor could the veriest curmudgeon of a farmer make any claim for damages inflicted by Snipe. All that is-necessary is wet marshy ground, and the rest must depend on the caprice of one of the most capricious of birds. The Snipe comes and goes as the season or the weather changes, or perhaps at the ruling of some still more mysterious influence. He is here to-day, gone to- morrow ; now frequenting ground where you make certain of find- ing him at home; at other times, and under apparently most favourable circumstances, deserting it. In fact his pursuit has always that concomitant amount of uncertainty which enhances the delights of sport. Then, too, Snipe offer as a rule such difficuit and sporting shots that the knocking down of two or three couples will, in the eyes of most men not satiated with bird slaughter be more appreciated than the bagging of many partridges or pheasants. The charm, therefore, of this particular form of sport, lies in its SNIPE SHOOTING. 19 uncertainty, its essentially wild surroundings, and the satisfaction of finding one’s game, and holding one’s gun straight. I may be unduly enthusiastic, but to me there is a charm in the mere splashing through a bit of snipe bog, a thrill engendered by the ‘“sc-a-a-pe” of a Snipe, as he shapes his tortuous flight, that the whirr of ‘twice twenty thousand cock pheasants on wing” never awakens. I know that my game is thoroughly wild. [ have looked for him in the proper place, and approached him in the right direction, and if, as I catch a glint of his white under-wings I have “straight powder ’’—why, I glow with pride and pleasure. Foolish, perhaps, to let a little bird of some 5 oz. in weight influence one so; but brother sportsmen will back me in my assertion, and those who know not the delights of shooting the Snipe can, at any rate, testify to his value as a dish. Though in other climes there exist many varieties of Snipe, in Great Britain only three are commonly known: the Great or Solitary Snipe, the Full Snipe and the Jack Snipe. The first of these is a very rare bird, for few sportsmen have so much as seen the Solitary Snipe, and though some are recorded as having been shot or seen every year, they are few and far between. I will therefore dismiss him from the list with the hope that when one gets up before any reader: of A Year of Sport and Natural Fitstory, he may “hold straight,” and thus earn distinction as having shot one of the rarest of British birds ; and here I may add that such good fortune once fell to my lot some eighteen years ago. The place was Cove Common, Aldershot, and on that occasion I expended five cartridges, and bagged one Solitary Snipe, two Full, and two Jack Snipe. Though in Scotland and Ireland, and, indeed, in some parts of D2 20 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL AISTORY. England, many a Snipe is shot during the months of September, October, and November, it is not till the first week in December that he can be said to be abundant anywhere in these islands ; and after the first frosts he is a very different bird from what he was previously, for he is then sharper and quicker in his flight, and in better condition. By January he will be found in fair numbers; and in nearly every patch of marshy ground, every warm spring, or tiny rill we may expect to find our little long-billed friend. But beware how you search for him in some places, or your enthusiasm may place you in an awkward predicament, for the Snipe loves quaking bogs, and if you venture too far you may souse in up to your armpits in mud, weeds, and water, and find some difficulty in extricating yourself. Under such circumstances, and having to exercise due caution in advancing on his stronghold, the difficulty of making good shooting will naturally be consider- ably enhanced, for there is no standing still whilst the birds are driven to you, and you have to look out for two things, your safe footing in a treacherous bog and your game. Snipe frequent queer places at times, places that border so closely on civilization and trafic that one would hardly expect to find such essentially wild birds in them. I can, as I write, recall several such incongruous localities, notably one spot on the Possil Estate near the Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow, where one day, but a few years ago, I bagged twelve couples of Snipe besides a teal. The place was an old flooded coal-pit, and abutted on to manufactories, coal-pits and a railway—whilst there were many buildings almost within gun shot. Probably by now it is drained and built over, but even at the time I mention it was sufficiently unlikely looking ground. Another capital bit of snipe ground was a strip of marshy land covered at SNIPE SHOOTING. 23 high tide, which lay between the River Clyde and the railway that runs between Bowline and Dumbarton Castle. It was not more than about 500 yards wide, if as much, and extended—I speak from memory—about three-quarters of a mile. Trains and river steamers were constantly passing and re-passing, and yet Snipe during August and September used to frequent this spot in con- siderable numbers, and many was the day’s sport I had there. In Snipe shooting many men affect an indifference as to how they work their ground, and this indifference affects their success in a very marked degree. If you walk p-wizd you give the Snipe an advantage. At first sight this may appear an absurdity, for most birds take advantage of the wind and fly with it, or dowz wind. There are two birds, however, that do not do this—blackgame and Snipe. They aéways rise against the wind. Let the sports- man bear in mind that if he wants to get the better of Snipe—and what is woodcraft but approaching your game under the most favourable circumstances to yourself ?—he must approach the bird’s haunt down wind. Then, when the bird rises he will try to face the wind and give a crossing shot, which will naturally expose more of his body than if he went straight away. Besides, the bird has then little chance of indulging in those corkscrew twists which make so many otherwise good shots miss him. As to the moment when a Snipe going straight away should be fired at, opinions differ. Some hold that you should fire directly he rises, others that you should wait till he has ended his rapid twists. On this point I will offer no advice, but merely observe that, by adopting the latter plan, you may four times out of five wait too long, and allow your bird to get out of range before the trigger be touched. 24 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. Really good Snipe shooting in Great Britain is now difficult to find, and the bags of some thirty years ago or more are difficult to make. Drainage has, no doubt, had much to do with this, and the man who now kills his twenty couples of Snipe looks on the achievement as a great one; and yet there are places where such bags, and even better ones, may still be made. Two or three couples of Snipe make a very agreeable addition to any bag—and there are, I fancy, few men who, when it is suggested during a day’s shooting that, ‘‘ we will just try a field or two for Snipe,” do not feel their blood warm, and experience a sensation that the probability of any number of shots at pheasants and partridges will have failed to arouse. How anxiously on such occasions we scan every little patch of rushes in a badly drained field! How cautiously we approach the spot, and then, when the Snipe rises with his strange, familiar cry and twisting flight, how pleased we feel when we artistically cut him down ! Snipe shooting has certainly great charms, and if, after a day devoted to it, you return home wet and cold, you will not return dissatisfied, for even though your bag be a modest one, you will know that you have had a difficult bird to shoot, and a very wide- awake one ; and, if you be a gourmet, you will look forward to a bonne bouche in the shape of Snipe trail on toast. FANUARY., WILD SWAN SHOOTING. By Georce LINDESay. A coupLe of evenings ago old Bob, the keeper, came in from one of his moorland excursions to inform me that there were wild swans on the Black Lochs, and that, therefore, we were in for severe weather. He and the swans were right, for it is now blowing a whole gale from the north-east, accompanied by a heavy snowstorm, and I know that the wild fowl will be coming in by thousands, and that before long Bob and I will be among them. The Black Lochs are five in number, and are distant from my home a good ten miles. There is an abominably bad peat road as far as a lonely uninhabited cottage, where we occasionally sleep when shooting the outlying beats. As far as this we can drive— at any rate, we can progress on wheels—for the remaining five miles we have to tramp it through desolate swampy flats, inter- spersed here and there with low hillocks. Severe weather may with safety be predicted when the swans are seen on these most unattractive-looking tarns, but when they do arrive they are never in a hurry to leave (there being plenty of feeding), and before they do go we generally manage to get two E 26 A VEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. or three. It is now three years since they paid their last visit, and then we had one of the heaviest storms known in the north for many years; but the duck shooting was grand, and besides the smaller birds we got a good many geese and swans. After blowing with unabated fury for thirty-six hours, the gale has suddenly dropped, and at an evil hour on a bitter February morning, I begin the pleasures of the day by smashing, with the assistance of a boot-jack, the ice in my bath. Breakfast is not a lengthy meal, for Bob has been putting the pony in the cart and is now waiting at the door, as keen now for sport as he was in the days of his youth, nigh forty years ago. Each of us is indulged with a cup of steaming hot coffee with a strong admixture of brandy, and, muffled from head to foot in wraps, we emerge from the warmth of the cosy parlour into the darkness of the night. Jenny, the pony, does not at all like being dragged from her warm stable at such an unearthly hour, and exhibits her disapproval by various antics. At last, however, she discovers that she has to go, and we start off along the road with such sudden speed that ‘‘Garry,” the retriever, is shot out behind with a dismal yell, and has to foot it alongside until we get a pull at our steed at least a mile further on. Ere long the grey dawn begins to cast a little light on the desolate scene. A lot of snow has fallen, but, except under the lee of certain hillocks where the drifts lie deep, there is but little on the ground, and what there is is flattened out by the force of the wind. Some three miles from home the road approaches the head of an inlet of the bay, and here we can distinctly hear the calls of the wildfowl out at sea, the whistling of the widgeon, the “ quack, quack, quack ” of the mallard, the wild cry of the geese, and the “DNILOOHS N¥YMS dCTIM WILD SWAN SHOOTING. 29 clear and bugle-like note of the swans. As the light increases we ever and anon catch glimpses of the fowl circling in clouds above the sea, and when we reach the cottage there is about as much light as we are likely to have so long as the dull and leaden clouds, which look full of snow, remain. Much to her satisfaction, Jenny is made comfortable in the little stable, the guns are carefully seen to, and the creature comforts removed from the dog-cart, and, with pipes in our mouths, Bob and I start on our tramp across the moors and swamps. , Even with our local knowledge of the country, great care has to be exercised, some of those bog holes being very deep, and as they have a thin layer of ice over them, the snow hes unmelted there as on the more solid ground. Not long ago one of the shepherds got in, and would most certainly have perished, had it not been for his dog, who, seeing its master’s danger, started off for the cottage, where, fortunately, we happened to be spending a few days. The dog’s manner told us there was something wrong, and when we showed signs of following it exhibited unmistakable delight. When we reached the spot there was nothing to be seen of the unhappy man but his head and neck: the bog had very nearly secured a. victim; even his arms, which he had very wisely stretched out when. he first went in, were invisible, and certainly in another ten minutes all would have been over. As it was, we managed to rescue him in a greatly exhausted condition, and with no small difficulty, from his perilous position, and the collie’s delight when at last we dragged his master on to firm ground was a sight to see. We ascend a certain low sandy hillock, which commands a fair view of the Black Lochs, and, with the glasses, proceed to inspect 30 A VEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. the water. As luck will have it, on the nearest loch, the shore of which is not two hundred yards from us, are some thirty swans and an immense number of ducks—mostly widgeon—all mixed up together, and deeply intent on making a meal off the grass and weeds with which the tarn abounds.