VERMIN 79 



ferred whatever love he bore to his wife and children, to the 

 vixen fox, her cubs, the pheasant, the partridge, and the hare. 

 Rabbits for the present were to be tolerated to a certain extent, 

 and, therefore, he was to let his gun off at nothing but the lesser 

 vermin. Then came a host of steel traps of various sizes, the 

 use of which I taught him. The false nest with the egg-shells 

 from the kitchen, the unbroken side of the egg-shell turned 

 uppermost, and three or four put in a nest against the butt of a 

 tree ; a small trap set about four inches from it, with twigs on 

 either side the nest, to guide the vermin over the trap, was the 

 first snare in requisition. Winged vermin never pitch at once 

 on the nest the eggs of which they intend to suck, but alight 

 on the ground a yard from it, and then walk or hop up ; a few 

 thorny twigs to fence either side the nest, and to leave open no 

 other passage than that over the trap, ensures a capture. When 

 this trap is used among a large head of pheasants, it should be 

 set on broad pollard trees, or stumps of trees, natural or arti- 

 ficial, or on wattled hedges made capable of holding it ; for, if 

 on the ground, young hen pheasants will sometimes get caught 

 in an inclination to lay to the eggs. In these egg-traps I have 

 taken the honey-buzzard hawk, 1 magpies, jays, and carrion 

 crows ; and rooks, who more or less are guilty of sucking eggs, 

 very frequently get into them, occasionally a stoat, and once 

 an old vixen marten cat. In a fox-hunting country, the smallest 

 rat-trap should be the engine, incapable of holding or injuring 

 a fox, in case, by any accident, he should come to it. 



On taking a jay, the prisoner should be carried to some 

 ambush in the woods, the gunner selecting a good place to hide, 

 with a large tree within distance, some of the top limbs of 

 which are bare. The jay, which is a very garrulous bird, held 



1 This bird (Pernis apivora) is neither a buzzard nor a hawk, but the 

 type of a separate group, the Pernince. It visits the South of England 

 every year in order to breed, but seldom is permitted to do so, as it is 

 supposed to be destructive to game. This, however, is a deplorable 

 delusion. Its favourite food consists of wasps and bees ; but it also 

 devours other insects, mice and a few small birds. It is said even to eat 

 berries and small fruit in autumn. ED. 



