ii6 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



gun on each side of the hedge. A stick flung up awakes 

 the birds ; they rise with a rush and clatter, and in the 

 wildness of their flight and the dim light are difficult to 

 hit. There is a belief that pigeons are partially deaf. If 

 stalked in the daytime they take little heed of footsteps or 

 slight noises which would alarm other creatures ; but, on 

 the other hand, they are quick of eye, and are gone directly 

 anything suspicious appears in sight. You may get quite 

 under them and shoot them on the bough at night. It is 

 not their greater wakefulness but the noise they make in 

 rising which renders them good protectors of preserves ; it 

 alarms other birds and can be heard at some distance. 



When a great mound and hedgerow is grubbed up, 

 the men engaged in the work often anticipate making a 

 considerable bag of the rabbits, whose holes riddle it in 

 every direction, thinking to dig them out even of those 

 innermost chambers whence the ferret has sometimes been 

 unable to dislodge them. But this hope is almost always 

 disappointed ; and when the grub-axe and spade have 

 laid bare the ' buries ' only recently teeming with life, not 

 a rabbit is found. By some instinct they have discovered 

 the approach of destruction, and as soon as the first few 

 yards of the hedge are levelled secretly depart. After a 

 * bury ' has been ferreted it is some time before another 

 colony takes possession : this is seemingly from the intense 

 antipathy of the rabbit to the smell of the ferret. Even 

 when shot at and pressed by dogs, a rabbit in his hasty 



