SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



property of Lord Westmorland, who has kindly 

 lent the writer the game book, which contains 

 particulars of the shooting obtained there since 

 1880. 



The year 1882 would appear to have been 

 a very good one for partridges at Apethorpe : 

 1,107 birds were killed during the season, and 

 on two days bags of over 100 brace and of 

 85 brace, respectively, were made. These are 

 exceedingly good bags measured by the standard 

 of the county. Lord Westmorland has been 

 ffood enough to give some interesting details 

 relating to other branches of shooting. In 

 one year, for example, 13,000 rabbits were 

 killed ; this must be the ' record ' for North- 

 amptonshire. In 1 90 1, Lord Westmorland 

 and his friends killed 1,110 pheasants in a 

 wood named Jack's Green ; and averaged just 

 100 brace of partridges a day on four days' 

 driving. This latter bag affords striking proof 

 of the results that may be accomplished with 

 care and good management in a locality which 

 is not naturally endowed with the advantages 

 that go to make good partridge ground. 



The Biggin estate, near Oundle, at one 

 time aflPorded wonderfully good partridge 

 shooting. When the late Mr. David Watts 

 Russell lived there the writer saw more birds 

 on the Biggin estate than on any land over 

 which it has been his fortune to shoot. The 

 estate, however, has latterly been laid to grass 

 to a great extent, and it is therefore to be 

 feared that its amenities, as far as partridge 

 shooting is concerned, must have been some- 

 what impaired. Adjoining the Biggin estate 

 is Farming Woods, to which we have already 

 referred. 



Mention must be made of the wood-pigeon 

 shooting to be enjoyed in Northamptonshire. 

 In years when acorns are plentiful the large 

 woodlands are visited by thousands of these 

 birds, the vast majority of which are migrants, 

 locally called ' travellers.' These arrive in 

 October and remain as long as the supply of 

 acorns holds out. The ' travellers ' may be 

 readily distinguished, being of slighter build 

 and somewhat darker on the back than the 

 home-bred birds. Pigeon shooting in these 

 woods, where birds are numerous and when 

 a high wind is blowing, is, in the writer's 

 opinion, second to none as a sport. The late 

 Mr. George Hunt, of Wadenhoe House, near 

 Oundle, one of the finest shots in England, 

 brought wood-pigeon shooting to the level of 

 a fine art. One March evening several years 

 ago he shot seventy birds in one of the Lilford 

 coverts in under two hours, and followed this 

 with a bag of forty on the following day. 

 Excellent sport may be obtained among the 

 wood pigeons in the fields which they frequent 



after the harvest has been carried ; for this, 

 decoys, either a dead pigeon or the wooden 

 model sold by gunmakers, must be used. A 

 remarkable, and as yet unexplained, feature of 

 this form of shooting is that many more old 

 birds than young are picked up ; the natural 

 assumption is that the young birds would be 

 more readily deceived by the decoy than the 

 veterans. 



The foes of game in the county are many 

 and various, and some are almost entirely 

 overlooked by game preservers and sportsmen 

 who profess themselves keen. The average 

 keeper, as a matter of course, attributes all 

 losses to the fox ; and while it cannot be 

 denied that a vixen with cubs is not, strictly 

 speaking, a friend, anyone who has practical 

 knowledge of the subject is well aware that 

 there are enemies of game whose depredations 

 are quite as serious as those of the fox. First 

 and foremost among them are the human 

 loafers and thieves ; these sometimes, but by 

 no means so often as could be wished, receive 

 their deserts. Among the furred and feathered 

 poachers the rook and jackdaw are the cleverest 

 and most mischievous : their very presence in 

 or about the coverts is frequently overlooked, 

 and their depredations are far less widely recog- 

 nized than they should be. They are not 

 merely casual egg thieves who yield to temp- 

 tation only when accident brings a nest in 

 their way ; they belong to the ' professional 

 criminal ' class ; their search for eggs is con- 

 ducted with systematic regularity, and, thanks 

 to their acute powers of vision, the most care- 

 fully concealed nest is not safe from them. 

 These egg thieves do not receive in the county 

 the attention that should be bestowed upon 

 them ; young rooks, here as elsewhere, are 

 shot during May, but the jackdaws, which are 

 quite as mischievous, are generally granted 

 undeserved immunity. On the Lilford estate 

 in the neighbourhood of Pilton are a number 

 of old hollow trees which have for many years 

 been the favourite nesting resort of the jack- 

 daws, and a regular jackdaw-shooting season 

 has been established in the spring. A con- 

 siderable number of jackdaws are killed off in 

 this way, but vacancies are only too speedily 

 filled up by birds from neighbouring estates. 

 Were the multiplication of these birds regu- 

 larly checked on all shootings, game preservers 

 would be able in time to regard the alleged 

 depredations of foxes with far more equanimity 

 than they do now. Of other game foes — 

 sparrow-hawks, stoats, and rats — this county 

 has its share, but the mischief done by 

 these is well recognized, and on all properly 

 preserved estates their numbers are kepi 

 down. 



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