Society for the Protection of Birds. —No. 29 . [ 1 st to 5 th Thousand.] 
THE KEEPER S GIBBET. 
By the Rev. M. G. WATKINS, M.A. 
(Reprinted by permission from “Longman’s Magazine,” February, 1886.) 
T HE wood-pigeons moan from the centre of the forest, as a sharp turn 
from the main road running through it leads us down a “ ride ” to the 
keeper’s cottage. It is a low house, with several sheds abutting on it, 
and at the top of its little garden, bright with sunflowers, a large mastiff bays 
from his kennel. Passing a little further, we descry a small lawn on the other 
side of the cottage covered with coops, each of which encloses a hen full of 
self-importance. She either sits upon a set of pheasant’s eggs, or displays 
much solicitude as her little brood will wander too far into the wicked world 
from her maternal care. Beyond this again, somewhat removed from the road, 
is a long wooden framework covered with the hapless bodies of birds and 
beasts which are considered offenders against the game laws. On this gibbet, 
in every stage of decay, hang hawks, owls, jays, weasels, even moles. How 
crestfallen, woe-begone, and shattered are most of the creatures which form 
this sad assemblage of offenders against the code of modern forest laws ! 
The human victims of the Conqueror’s severity, who wandered about maimed 
and blinded, could scarcely have appeared so miserable. Here are kestrels— 
an innocent hawk which almost entirely subsists on field mice—next their more 
marauding brethren, sparrow-hawks. Grave, wise-looking owls come next, 
both barn and grey owl alike condemned to death for one or two trifling 
indiscretions of some traditional ancestors when their young broods had been 
more than usually clamorous for food. Jays, with their intensely blue feathers, 
the joy of the artificial fly-tier, dabbled in gore, succeed. Next them hang 
several magpies—a bird perhaps not very scrupulous in its diet, and wholly 
unable to resist a dinner off young partridges and pheasants—but a pleasant, 
party-coloured, cheerful bird withal, a kind of ornithological Micawber, and a 
bird which any game preserver with a sense of the picturesque in a landscape 
would, it might be thought, be glad to spare. Three or four emaciated weasels 
are nailed up among these birds. They swing in the wind, like the murderers 
of old who used to be hung in chains at the cross-roads. 
Only those who have carefully looked into the question are aware what 
enormous numbers of our quadrupeds and larger birds are annually destroyed 
on the plea that they are injurious to game. Some years ago Mr. Knox gave a 
list of the so-called vermin thus remorselessly put to death on a large Highland 
property in three years. It includes wild cats, martens, badgers, otters, and 
weasels, as veil as eagles, hawks, kites, owls, ravens, magpies, and others. 
The total numbers, however, were, of quadrupeds, 1055 creatures; of birds, 
3829. Many of these hapless enemies of the game preserver were even at 
that time rare and interesting to the naturalist : such as the osprey, of which 
eighteen were destroyed, and the golden eagle, fifteen of which perished.* At 
present the case is reversed. These birds are cherished, and now that they 
are scarce, owing to constant persecution, are much prized. Even the wild cat 
is protected in Sutherlandshire. The kite has passed away altogether from 
many districts, and is in a fair way of extinction. Turning, however, from the 
extensive Highland moors to the preserved covers of English sportsmen, no 
* Game Birds and Wild Fowl , by A. E. Knox (Van Voorst), 1850, p. 116. 
