204 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



such a hare the skin is found to be green. There is 

 good cause to be suspicious of disease whenever a 

 thin hare is seen in autumn or winter. 



Too many starlings in a given place are likely to be a 

 serious trouble in fact they make a place almost 

 impossible for other inhabitants. Starlings 

 h aunt man y kinds of roosting-places the 

 high reeds, the woods, and the shrubs about 

 a house. The keeper finds small pleasure in the 

 thunderous noise of their wings in his coverts. To- 

 wards the end of October the sales of underwood take 

 place ; thereafter the underwood is cut, and this often 

 drives the starlings from an old roosting-haunt to 

 fresh woods, where their presence is far from desirable, 

 in view of the approaching covert-shooting. Natu- 

 rally, people hesitate to take preventive measures, 

 such as shooting or lighting fires of green wood, for 

 the shots or the smoke would drive away pheasants 

 as well as starlings. Yet it is wiser thus to drive away 

 one season's pheasants than to have the wood made 

 impossible for many years to all save starlings. 



While we have never met any one who actually hated 

 honeysuckle, if there is a man who curses it occasion- 

 ally it is the copse- worker chopping underwood. A 

 honeysuckle trail will turn a well-aimed blow from its 

 true direction, and so may cause the copser to cut 



