Poachers and Poaching

There are many insects which one would little suspect being furnished with apparatus suited to swift and more or less continuous flight. House flies frequent the insides of our windows, buzzing sluggishly in and out of the room. But what different creatures are they when they accompany your horse on a hot summer's day. A swarm of these little pests keep pertinaciously on wing about the horse's ears; quicken the pace up to ten or twelve miles an hour, still they are there; let a gust of wind arise and carry them backwards and behind, the breeze having dropped, their speed is redoubled, and they return to their post of annoyance to the poor horse, even when urged to its fastest pace. But this example gives only a partial proof of the fly's power of flight, as the following will show. The writer was travelling one day in autumn by rail at about twenty-five miles an hour, when a company of flies put in an appearance at the carriage window. They never settled, but easily kept pace with the train; so much so, indeed, that their flight seemed to be almost mechanical, and a thought struck the writer that they had probably been drawn into a kind of vortex, whereby they were carried onward with little exertion on the part of themselves. But this notion was quickly dispelled. They sallied forth at right-angles from the carriage, flew to a distance of thirty or forty feet, still keeping pace, and then returned with increased speed and buoyancy to the window. To account for this look at the wings of a fly. Each is composed of an upper and lower membrane, between which the blood-vessels and respiratory organs ramify so as to form a delicate network for the extended wings. These are used with great quickness, and probably six hundred strokes are made per second. This would carry the fly about twenty-five feet, but a seven-fold velocity can easily be attained, making one hundred and seventy-five feet per second, so that under certain circumstances it can outstrip the fleetest racehorse. If a small insect like a fly can outstrip a racehorse, an insect as large as a horse would travel very much faster than a cannon-ball.

Bees and wasps are even swifter than flies. Here is another actual incident. The present writer has sprinkled individual wasps and bees with rose-coloured powder, and has found that thus handicapped they could with ease keep up with the fastest trains when speeding down "Shap Summit," one of the steepest gradients in the country. Nor were these carried along in the rush of air caused by the train. They would come in and out of the window, sometimes disappearing for a minute or more, but frequently returning again and again. At distances of from five to ten miles they dropped behind, when others took their places. All of us have seen the flagging, lazy butterfly, flitting from flower to flower in our gardens—not quite so lazy, however, if goaded on by some urgent motive. For when this little flutterer, touched by some strange and mysterious feeling which we cannot read, mounts on sportive wings, "through fields of air prepared to sail," she hurries onwards and onwards to some new haven of real or fancied delight and happiness. Such were the thoughts which occurred when one of these wanderers accompanied the writer by the roadside for a couple of miles, never flagging a yard behind, nay, sometimes being before a horse that was travelling at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour. What could all this speed and earnestness of the little creature mean? It is not easy to explain how the butterfly, with its broad, soft, feathery wings, should be able to accomplish the feat of speed just recorded.1

In the tropics countless swarms of locusts sometimes suddenly make their appearance, and as suddenly vanish. They cover every leaf-bearing thing, and occasionally completely denude whole districts of greenery. So great are their powers of flight that they have been seen at sea nearly four hundred miles from nearest land. In Natal the farmers, rightly or wrongly, believe that the locusts introduce injurious seeds upon their grass-lands, and the following would seem to show that their belief is well founded. A Mr. Weale, who was of their way of thinking, collected a packet of dried pellets and sent them to England. When closely examined under the microscope they revealed a number of tiny seeds, from which plants of seven kinds of grasses were ultimately raised.

Among animals, those which have been longest under the care of man have attained to the greatest degree of perfection in all those qualities it has been deemed wise to develop. With his mind bent on utility, man has striven to improve the staying and flying power of pigeons; the strength and swiftness of horses; and has himself proved to be a marvellous instance of speed and endurance. To observe the differences of locomotion, both as regards structural contrivance and speed among animals—the term "animal" being extended to every member, high or low, within the province of the animal kingdom—is one of the most fascinating of out-door studies. It is not an easy matter, however, to compute the speed or mileage of quick-moving animals. Among quadrupeds, the horse perhaps may be considered the fleetest. "Hambletonian" covered a space of four miles in eight minutes, which is but thirty miles an hour, if it could be continued. "Firetail" ran a mile in one minute and four seconds; and the famous "Eclipse" is said to have gone at the rate of a mile in a minute for a short distance. But it is difficult to form any exact estimate of his speed, as he never met with an opponent to put him to the test. During one of his trials, an old woman, according to Youatt, was asked if she had seen a race. Her reply was that "she could not tell whether it was a race or not, but she had seen a horse with a white leg running away at a monstrous rate, and another horse, a great way behind, trying to run after him; but she was sure he would never catch the white-legged horse, even if he ran to the world's end." The above records refer of course to horses galloping; but trotting, which is more or less an artificial mode of horse progression, has, with regard to speed, almost been reduced to an art. For facts concerning it we must look mainly to America, and perhaps no records are more interesting than those of the famous trotting mare "Maud S." On September 1st, 1884, Maud ran a mile over the Hartford track in two minutes twenty-eight seconds; and every fourth day she trotted over the same distance, the first being the slowest, and the fourth the fastest—two minutes twenty seconds. At the end of eight days her training consisted of trotting over two or three mile journeys, with the result that the time was brought down to two minutes thirteen seconds; and three days later to two minutes eleven and three-quarter seconds. Resting some days, Maud was again tried, and among other times succeeded in trotting the mile in a fraction of a second over the above, but went marvellously in the last half-mile. Subsequently to this she was shipped to Lexington, Kentucky, and when she had covered the mile distance in two minutes sixteen and a half seconds, it was decided that three days hence she should endeavour to beat her own great record. This she succeeded in doing by trotting a mile in two minutes nine and a half seconds; and a year later Maud made the world's record—two minutes eight and three-quarter seconds. This is what no other horse ever accomplished, and the interesting phase of the situation is that the mare is even now in training to beat her own splendid record given above.

As compared to the rate of speed in animals, those attained by man are interesting. A hundred yards has been run in ten seconds; two hundred yards in twenty and two-fifths; three hundred yards in thirty-one and a half; and a quarter of a mile in forty-eight and four-fifths seconds, by Messrs. A. Wharton, J. Shearman, C. G. Wood, and L. E. Myers respectively. Mr. W. G. George holds the championship for one mile and up to ten miles; his time for the former distance being four minutes eighteen and two-fifths seconds, and for the latter fifty-one minutes twenty seconds. For fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five miles Mr. G. A. Dunning holds the record; the first distance being covered in one hour twenty-four minutes and twenty-four seconds; the last in two hours thirty-three minutes forty seconds. The same gentleman is champion at forty miles. Mr. J. A. Squires has run thirty miles in three hours seventeen minutes thirty-six and a-half seconds; and Mr. J. E. Dixon is fifty-mile champion with six hours eighteen minutes and twenty-six and one-fifth seconds—all truly marvellous performances.

CHAPTER V.

THE SNOW-WALKERS

This morning—

We looked upon a world unknown,On nothing we could call our own.Around the glistening wonder bentThe blue walls of the firmament;No cloud above, no earth below,A universe of sky and snow.

The sun shines, and a rosy suffusion is over the landscape. All the fences are buried deep, and the trees stand starkly outlined against the sky. Millions of snow-crystals glint athwart the fields. Birds swarm in the garden—the home birds more confiding and the wild birds tame. Tits hang to the suet bags, and a general assembly flock to the cornsheaf. A ring-ouzel flies wildly from the rowan-tree, and four or five species of thrushes are among the berries of the shrubs.

So softly winnowed is the falling snow that it scarce bends the few grasses and dead plants that now appear above its surface. The kindly snow obliterates the torn and abraded scars of nature; but it not the less effectually reproduces the prints of her children. To the light the snow reveals the doings of the night. Does a mouse so much as cross, she leaves her delicate tracery on the white coverlet. Away from the homestead rabbits have crossed and recrossed the fields in a perfect maze. That ill-defined "pad" tracks a hare to the turnips. Pheasants and wood-pigeons have scratched for mast beneath the beeches, and we find red blood-drops along the fence. These are tracked to a colony of weasels in the old wall. Last night a piteous squeal might have been heard from the half-buried fence, and the little tragedy would be played out upon the snow. Five wild swans cleave the thin air far up, and fly off with outstretched necks. The tiny brown wren bids defiance to the weather; darting in and out of every hole and crevice, usually reappearing with the cocoon of some insect in its bill. These delicate footprints reproduce the long toes of the lark, and those are the tracks of the meadow pipit. The hedge-berries are almost gone; and here the redwing and fieldfare have run along the fence bottom in search of fallen fruit. Those larger tracks by the sheep troughs show that the hungry rooks have been scratching near, and the chatter of magpies comes from the fir-tree tops. Scattered pine cones betoken a flock of incessantly chattering crossbills; and once in the fir wood we caught a glimpse of the scarlet appendages of the rare Bohemian waxwing. The gaudily-coloured yellow-hammer shows well against the snow, and bathes its orange plumage in the feathered rain. How our British finches seem to enjoy the frost and snow! Certain it is that now their stores of food become scant; but then they throw in their lot with the sparrows of barn-door and rick-yard. The bright bachelor finch stands out from his pure setting, and the daws look black against the snow. "Tweet," "tweet," comes through the cold thin air, and is startling in its stillness; and now we may hear as well as see the flight of a flock of linnets and goldfinches. Here observe a tall, nodding thistle-head, its once dark green leaves shrivelled up and turned to grey, its purple flower-rays to russet brown. They contain ripened seeds. A goldfinch hangs to the under surface, and a rose-breasted linnet clings to the topmost spray. The two frail things are not unlike in form, though the goldfinch is by far the handsomer bird. His prettily-shaped beak is flesh-coloured, as are also his legs. His head has patches of scarlet, white, and black, each well defined and setting off the other. The breast and back are of varying tints of warm russet brown, and the feathers of the wing are picked out with orange. His tail is alternately elevated and depressed as he changes his position; and the patches of golden yellow are well brought out as he flutters from spray to spray. Thus do the linnet and the goldfinch go through the winter, together ranging the fields, and feeding upon the seeds they can pick up.

Along the meadow brook a stately heron has left its imprints; the water-hen's track is marked through the reeds; and there upon the icy margin are the blurred webs of wild ducks. A bright red squirrel runs along the white wall. In its warm furs it shows sharply against the fence. Naturalists say that the squirrel hibernates through the winter; but this is hardly so. A bright day, even though cold and frosty, brings him out to visit some summer store. The prints of the squirrel are sharply cut, the tail at times just brushing the snow. The mountain linnets have come down to the lowlands; and we flush a flock from an ill-farmed field where weeds run rampant. When alarmed the birds wheel aloft, uttering the while soft twitterings, then betake themselves to the trees. The seeds of brook-lime, flax, and knapweed the twite seems partial to, and this wild-weed field is to them a very paradise. Just now, walking in the woods, the cry of the bullfinch is heard as perhaps the most melancholy of all our birds, but its bright scarlet breast compensates for its want of cheeriness. A flock of diminutive gold-crests rush past us, and in the fir wood we hear but cannot see a flock of siskins.

Higher up the valley, towards the hills, tracks of another kind begin to appear. On the fells we come across a dead herdwick, trampled about with innumerable feet. We examine these closely, and find that they are only of two species—the raven and the buzzard. Further in the scrub we track a pine-marten to its lair in the rocks. The dogs drive it from its stronghold, and, being arboreal in its habits, it immediately makes up the nearest pine trunk. Its rich brown fur and orange throat make it one of the most lithely beautiful of British animals. A pair of stoats or ermines, with their flecked coats just in the transition stage, have their haunt in the same wood. From the snow we see that last night they have threaded the aisles of the pines in search of food. This clear-cut sharp track by the fence is that of a fox.

Another fascinating aspect of nature in winter are the woods. When snow-covered there is a grandeur and majesty about them such as they never wear at other times. The giant limbs of the trees stand starkly outlined against the sky, and nought but sound silence possesses the aisles of plumed pines. Except the faint trickle of the stream, it would seem almost as though the pulse of nature had ceased to beat. Of course, this only applies to the interior of the woods, and the suggestion is emphasised by the thick soft carpetings of pine needles where these have dropped for many tree-generations.

Once again we are enjoying the pleasure of wild shooting in winter, but now in the open glades. Again there has been a slight fall of snow, and, sure, morning was never more beautiful. The feathered rain is crisp to the tread, and the warm sun converts the air to that of summer. The sea is blue, the hills rose-tinted, and the snow-crystals make the landscape gloriously, dazzlingly bright. A coating of snow will always arrest the eye of the observant sportsman, more especially if he have a penchant for natural history. There are the tracks and trails of birds and animals, and what zest is added to the search in the possibility of finding a new one! Only those who follow the tracks of the snow-walkers know really how rich is the land in all animate nature. Be the stitching on the white coverlet never so faint or so delicate, it is always rendered faithfully. In the snow we read out the history of the wild creatures immediately about us, the existence of which we never even suspected. In our home fields there are two or three mice, as many shrews, and a couple of voles. These latter leave their tracks in the hedge-bottoms, or along the stream sides, and we see not only where they have burrowed, but what they have eaten. The shrews and mice are on dryer ground, and their delicate feet have pencilled the prettiest patterns upon the snow. The tracks of the partridge are pretty, too, and from them we read what ceaseless runners the birds are. A depression shows where they have roosted last night, and then their tracks may be followed through the stubble and seed fields. By the brook-side are the hair-like tracings of innumerable small birds; and the water margins here record the fullest registering. This may be owing to the soft brook banks and their aquatic life, when the rest of the fields are icebound. Then many of the spawning fish are still on the redds, and the prospect of these may be an additional inducement to some of the fish-feeding creatures. Here, clutching a tuft of couch-grass is a dead barn-owl, for which the intense cold has proved too much—one enemy less to the shrews and field mice, whose hasty tracks here and there show that more than once last night they have had to beat a hasty retreat. Once during the day, as the ferrets were turned into a burrow, some one pointed out a brace of ermines that had doubtless been looking after the rabbits on their own account. They were still in their brown summer fur, and made their way over the snow and out of harm's way at a remarkably rapid rate. This little incident reminds us of a brown owl which emerged from a rabbit-hole just as the ermines did, and curiously enough these birds had a couple of eggs and a young one even in December, with the ground snow-covered. The heavy blurred tracks of grouse were at first difficult to determine, and the key to them was only to be found in the birds themselves, as they rose with a startling whirr. They had been driven from the higher to the lower ground in search of food. One of the terriers disinterred a spiny hedgehog from its warm, leafy retreat, and "Prickles" probably felt much mystified to find himself in a world of dazzling whiteness.

There was one other track which it would be long and devious to follow—one which had been abroad under the moon and stars, and from its trail would seem to have known the ways and the haunts of both furred and feathered game by heart—and that was the old poacher. The snow is a great tell-tale, but it causes the poacher's eye to grow keen and his step firm; and nothing but the gaol walls will prevent his being a snow-walker. His life has been one long protest against the game laws; and whatever he is, or is not, he believes them to be unjust.

CHAPTER VI.

WHEN DARKNESS HAS FALLEN

A time of absolute quiet can never be observed in the country. It matters not as to time and season; there seems to be no general period of repose. There is always something abroad, some creature of the fields and woods, which by its voice or movements is betrayed. Just as in an old rambling house there are always strange noises that cannot be accounted for, so in the by-paths of nature there are innumerable sounds which can never be localised. To those, however, who pursue night avocations in the country—gamekeepers, poachers, and others—there are always calls and cries which bespeak life as animate under the night as that of the day. This is attributable to various animals and birds, to night-flying insects, and even to fish. Let us track some of these sounds to their source.

"When comes still evening on, and twilight grey hath in her sober liv'ry all things clad," then it is that the white owl comes abroad. Passing the remains of an old baronial hall, its piercing screech comes from the dismantled tower. Here the owls have lived time out of mind, and we have seen and heard them, asleep and awake, through every hour of the day and night. It is unnatural history to assert, as Mr. Gray does, that the barn-owls ever mope or mourn or are melancholy. Neither are they grave monks nor anchorites nor pillared saints. A boding bird or a dolorous! Nonsense, they are none of these. They issue forth as very devils, and like another spirit of the night, sail about seeking whom they may devour. The barn-owl is the "screech" owl of bird literature; the brown owl the true hooting owl. This species is found in heavily-timbered districts, and it particularly loves the dark and sombre gloom of resinous pine woods. But the barn-owl is only the precursor of new life—life as animate under the night, as that of the birds and butterflies under the day. We follow the path by the river, and on through the meadows. Among the nut-bush tops a bat is hawking for night-flying insects. Great white moths get up from the grass and go looming away through the darkness. A bend in the stream brings us to a quiet river reach with brown pebbles and a shallow.

A sentinel heron that has been standing watchful on one leg rises, and flaps languidly away down the river reach. The consumptive figure of the gaunt bird stands by the stream through all weathers. He knows not times nor seasons, and is a great poacher. In the wind, when taking his lone stand, his loose fluttering feathers look like drift-stuff caught in the bushes. He reminds one of the consumptive, but, unlike him, has wonderful powers of digestion, and withal an immense capacity for fish. Woe to the luckless mort or trout that comes within reach of his formidable pike, or to the attacking peregrine that he attempts to impale on his bill. The heron is essentially a wanderer, and, like Wordsworth's immortal leech-gatherer, he roams from pond to pond, from moor to moor. Herons come and go by the same routes; and night after night have we flushed our fisher from the selfsame shallow.

The peculiarly wild whistle of the curlew comes from out the night sky, and swifts screech for an hour after darkness has fallen. We are now by the covert side, and a strange churring sound comes from out the darkened glades. Waiting silently beneath the bushes, it approaches nearer and nearer until a loud flapping is heard in the bushes. The object approaches quite closely, and it is seen that the noise is produced by a large bird striking its wings together as they meet behind. Even in the darkness it may be detected that each wing is crossed by a definite white bar. The bird is a goatsucker or nightjar. Had we it in our hand, we should see that it was a connecting link between the owls and the swallows, having the soft plumage and noiseless flight of the one and the wide gape of the other. The object of the noise it produces is probably to disturb from the bushes the large nightflying moths upon which it feeds. The name goatsucker the bird has from a superstitious notion that it sucks goats and cows—a myth founded probably upon the fact of its wide gape. It is certain that these birds may often be seen flitting about the bellies of cattle as they stand knee-deep in the summer pastures. The reason of this is obvious, as there insect food is always abundant. Unless disturbed, the nightjar rarely comes abroad during the day, but obtains its food at twilight and dusk. Upon the limestone-covered fells it conforms marvellously to its environment, it being almost impossible to detect its curiously mottled plumage as it basks upon the grey stones, not more still than itself. Here it lays its two eggs, often without the slightest semblance of a nest, frequently upon the bare rock. Quite a peculiar interest attaches to the bird, inasmuch as it is furnished with a remarkable claw, the use of which is guessed at rather than known. This claw is serrated on its inner edge, and from actual experiments made upon nightjars in captivity, we should surmise that its use is to free the long whiskers from the soft, silvery dust which usually covers the bodies of night-flying moths. Certain it is that this substance gets upon the whiskers of the bird, and that the long hairs referred to are combed through the serrated claw. About the mouth the goatsucker is very swallow-like. It has a bullet-shaped head, large eyes, and a wide gape. Like the swallows, too, it has a weak, ineffective bill, and weak feet. This is explained by the fact that the bird, except when nesting, is rarely seen on the ground, and that it captures its insect prey on the wing. From twilight till grey does the fern-owl "churr" and fly through the night.

As we proceed, a splash comes from the river, and some large-winged fly has been sucked under. The night food comes on, and the reach boils. Water-rats, voles, and shrews are busy among the stones searching for insect larvæ, or gnawing the stalks of water-plants. The wafting of wings overhead betokens a curlew flying through the darkness to its feeding ground. The peculiarly lonely wail of the summer-snipe comes down stream, and a teal stretches her neck low over the sand. The river here resolves itself into a gorge, and runs deep betwixt shelving rocks. The water ceaselessly moans and chafes down there in the darkness. Badgers have their haunt deep in the brambles, their tortuous burrows running far out among the boulders. From the tree-tops we may watch them digging for roots and wasps' nests, and now and then snapping at flies. Passing the deep dub by the "Force," we find old Phil, the fisher, plying his silent trade even thus into the night. Phil leads his own life, and is contemplative as becomes his craft. Nature's every sight and sound he has, as it were, by heart, and he makes friends even with the creeping things. As we watch, a salmon, fresh from the sea, leaps from the silvery foam and flashes in the moonlight.