78 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



vermin flying from wood to wood, or soaring in the air : kites, 

 buzzard hawks, that worst of all winged vermin the sparrow- 

 hawk, kestrels, hobby s, carrion crows, ravens, magpies, and jays, 

 were passing every moment, and I saw a fund of useful amuse- 

 ment in destroying them and preserving what few heads of 

 game there were till hunting commenced. How a head of game 

 contrived to exist with the fine show of foxes I found there, 

 combined with the smaller vermin, I can scarcely comprehend, 

 for there were not three rabbits in the whole place for them to 

 feed on. The farmers'" hen-roosts from the foxes, and their 

 broods of chickens, young ducks, and eggs from other vermin, 

 suffered in proportion. The most extraordinary amount of 

 damage was done by the jays ; along the headlands abutting 

 the great woods, the ears of wheat over acre after acre were cut 

 from the stalk at the top and carried clean off, so that it really 

 looked as if the wheat-stalks had been cleanly clipped as they 

 stood by a scissors. On seeing this amount of vermin and these 

 depredations, which the farmers complained not of, because the 

 jays had no responsible owner, I beheld before me not only an 

 amusement in killing them, but also, as I thought, a means of 

 being serviceable to the tenantry ; so, rising by seven in the 

 morning to inspect the progress of the kennel, the whole day 

 found me given to the woods, returning perhaps in time for a 

 few casts with the net, to catch a dish of white fish for dinner. 



I soon taught my keeper, William Savage, new and sharper 

 ideas, giving him to understand that when he came to report to 

 me that he had seen a marten cat, 1 stoat, or weasel, he was not 

 to drawl it out as a misfortune of no moment, but to tell me of 

 it in a breathless state of anxiety for their destruction, and that 

 he was to pursue all the lesser vermin, winged and four-footed, 

 with an unrelenting hate; while, at the same time, he trans- 



1 It must be many years since the pine marten (Mustela martes) dis- 

 appeared from these woods. Were it not that the author was such a close 

 observer of nature, one would suspect that the allusion here is to the pole- 

 cat (Mustela putorius}, now almost as rare as the marten. But the allusion 

 on the following 1 page seems to leave no doubt in the matter. ED. 



