On the "War-path."--Rabbit-shooting.--Flapper-shooting.--
Duck-shooting.--Wood-pigeons.--Life in an Oak-tree.--
Burying-beetles.--Lace-wing Fly.--Stag-beetle.--Hair-worm.
It was a curious sight to see the boys on the "war-path." Frank
generally led the way, with his eyes fixed on the hedge or tree-tops.
Jimmy followed closely at his heels, and Dick brought up the rear. As
their eyes were generally too much occupied in looking out for objects
of interest, to take care of their feet, they lifted the latter up from
the ground with an action like that of a thorough-bred colt, so as to
avoid any obstacles in their path. While going along one day in this
style, Frank said,
"I tell you what we have nearly forgotten, and that is to go
flapper-shooting."
Flappers are young ducks only just able to fly, and in July it is great
fun following them along the side of a dyke, the short flights of the
young ones making them easy shots for a beginner.
"Let us go to-morrow," said Jimmy.
"You two shoot, and I will look on," said Dick, who cared very little
for shooting.
Dick was not by any means an enthusiastic gunner, as the following
anecdote will show.
He had taken the gun, saying that he was going to shoot rabbits by the
Home Copse, a wood which belonged to Mr. Merivale. In a convenient spot
the boys had fixed a hurdle close by a hedge-bank, and twined some
brushwood through the bars. Between this and the hedge they used to take
their seat, and watch for the rabbits coming out of their burrows in the
evening. On a warm July evening Dick went to this spot alone, with a
parting injunction from Frank not to shoot at the young ones, but to
pick out the old bucks. Frank was busy with something or other, and
Jimmy was away at Norwich. When Frank had finished what he was about he
went in search of Dick. When he came to the edge of the field at the
foot of which lay the wood, he saw numbers of rabbits skipping about
close by Dick's shelter, and after waiting for some time he grew
impatient, and wondered why Dick did not fire.
[Illustration: WILD RABBITS.]
"He must have fallen asleep," he thought; and so with infinite care and
cunning he crawled down the hedge-side, and came upon Dick from behind.
"Dick, why don't you shoot?" he said in a whisper.
"Hush!" said Dick, "they look so pretty, I don't like to disturb them.
Look at the young ones frisking about."
"Give me the gun," said Frank.
Dick passed it to him through the hedge, and Frank, taking aim at two
fine rabbits which happened to be in a line, shot them dead.
"I have had more pleasure in watching them than you have had in shooting
them, Frank," said Dick.
It must not be thought that Dick was mawkishly sentimental, but he had
not the organ of destructiveness that Frank had, and it was, as he said,
quite as much sport to him to see and watch birds and animals as to
shoot them. Therefore, when the others went flapper-shooting their order
of going ranged in this wise:--
Frank, armed with his double-barrelled muzzle-loader (for breech-loaders
had not yet come into general use), took one side of the dyke, and
Jimmy, with a single-barrel he had bought second-hand, took the other
side, while Dick took the punt along the dyke ready to act the part of a
retriever.
It was one of those still, hot days when the distant woods lie brooding
in a blue haze. The labours of the breeding-season over, the birds were
resting silently, and there was no sound but the monotonous hum of
insect-life. On the wide marshes all objects were distorted by the
quivering of the evaporating moisture, and the long straight dykes and
drains gleamed back defiantly at the sun. Frank and Jimmy trudged
valiantly through the rustling flags and reeds by the water-side, and
Dick pulled the punt along a little behind them.
"Shooting is no fun this weather," said Frank, stopping to wipe the
perspiration from his brow.
Just then a wild-duck rose from the reeds, followed by half-a-dozen
young ones. They rose on Frank's side of the dyke, so it was his turn to
shoot. He dropped his hat and handkerchief and fired, but in his hurry
he missed with the first barrel, and Jimmy, fearing they might escape,
let off his big single, and one of the young ducks fell to the ground
with a flop which told how fat he was. Frank winged another with his
second barrel, and it fell into the water, where it was despatched by a
third shot from Jimmy, who had hastily loaded. The old duck flew far
away, but the young ones only flew short distances, and then settled on
the dyke and hid in the reeds, one here and another there; and then for
an hour or so they had good sport beating about the dykes, and flushing
them one by one until they had disposed of the whole brood.
"There," said Frank, as he handed the last of them to Dick in the punt,
"it is too hot to shoot any more to-day. We have done enough to be able
to say that we have been flapper-shooting, and that is all I care for
this hot weather."
"I am glad you are leaving off;" said Dick, "that villanous saltpetre
smoke hangs in the air so that one can see nothing."
"Then let us have a bathe, and leave the ducks until the winter-time,"
said Jimmy.
"Yes, but we won't leave them quite yet. We must shoot them when they
come to the corn-fields in August."
[Illustration: WOOD-PIGEON.]
And as we are now writing about wild-duck shooting we will just advance
a short time in our story, and take a glance at the boys shooting wild
ducks when the fields are yellow with harvest.
Frank and Jimmy are perched in an oak-tree, which after many years of
wrestling with the winds and storms, has assumed a very quaint and
picturesque shape. Its mighty stem is riven and has great hollows in it,
and its low, wide spreading branches shade more of the field than the
Norfolk farmer likes. It stands in a hedge which separates the
corn-field, where the stems are bowing with the weight of the ears and
are ready for the scythe, from a meadow which slopes down to the marsh
and the broad.
Frank and Jimmy both have their guns, and Dick has been sent to the
other side of the field with an old pistol, which he has been charged to
let off.
"Cock your gun, Dick is raising his pistol," said Frank.
A puff of smoke from out the shadow of the hedge, and a few seconds
after, a report, show that Dick has fulfilled his mission; and as the
report reaches them, first come a number of wild-pigeons, which fly past
with whistling wings. Jimmy fires and brings one to the ground. Frank
has reserved his fire, and wisely, for with slow and heavy flight come
four wild ducks right towards the tree. Frank gets two of them in a line
and fires his first barrel. Two of them fall, and with his second barrel
he wings another, which Jimmy despatches.
[Illustration: SUSPENDED LEAF-TENTS.]
"Come back to the tree, Dick," shouted Frank, and Dick came back. "Now
if we wait here a little while, the wild-pigeons will come back, and
some more ducks may come from the marsh." And so, having loaded their
guns, they laid them in a hollow and made themselves comfortable, and
began to chat.
"Did you ever notice how much insect-life there is in an oak-tree?"
said Dick. "Just watch this branch while I tap it."
He struck the branch as he spoke, and immediately there fell from it
scores of caterpillars, which let themselves fall by a silken thread,
and descended, some nearly to the ground, others only a little distance.
"I was reading the other day," said Dick, "of the immense quantity of
moths which lay their eggs on the oak. There are caterpillars which
build little houses of bark to live in. Others roll up the leaves and so
make tents for themselves. Others eat the surface of the leaves, and so
leave white tracks on their march. Others, when they are frightened,
will put themselves into such queer postures: they will stretch
themselves out as stiff as a twig, holding on by one end only, and you
would think they were twigs; and these, when they walk, loop themselves
up. They don't crawl like other caterpillars, but have feet only at each
end, and so they loop up their bodies in the middle till they form the
letter omega, and then stretch out their heads again and bring up their
tails with another loop. And then there are cannibal caterpillars, which
eat other caterpillars. Look at these little spots of bright green. See,
if I make them fly, they are seen to be pretty little moths with green
wings. They are called the green oak-moth."
"An oak-tree seems to be a regular city," said Frank.
"Look at this marvellously beautiful fly, with lace-like wings," said
Jimmy. "What is that?"
"That is a lace-wing fly," answered Dick. "Just put your nose as close
as you can to it and smell it."
Jimmy did so, and said,--
"Why it is nearly as bad as a stink-horn fungus."
No more ducks came back that day, but three more wood-pigeons fell
victims to their love of corn, and the boys descended, by and by, and
walked home.
As they were sitting on a stile, Dick pointed to the carcase of a mole
which lay on the path, and to two little black beetles with yellow bands
on their wing-cases, which were crawling over it.
"I think those are burying beetles. Let us watch them. They lay their
eggs in dead bodies of beasts or birds and then bury them, and the grub
of the beetle lives on the carcase in its babyhood."
They lay down on the ground by the beetles, watching them. The process
of egg-laying by the female was just about being completed, and the two
soon buried themselves in the earth beneath the carcase, and presently
appeared at one side with a little mound of earth which they had
excavated from under it. This process was repeated again and again, and
very slowly the mole began to sink into the ground. The boys watched it
for nearly an hour, and in that time the mole was about half-buried. One
observer once kept four of these beetles in a place where he could
observe them, and supplied them with carcases of small animals and
birds, and in twelve days they had buried no less than fifty!
[Illustration: LACE-WINGED FLY. (Manner of depositing Eggs.)]
"Have you ever seen those huge stag-beetles with long horny mandibles
like stag's horns?" said Frank.
"Yes," replied Dick, "I caught one yesterday, and looked up all about
it in my books. Its caterpillar takes four years to arrive at maturity,
and it burrows in the wood of oak and willow trees. I showed the beetle
I caught to our housekeeper, and she nearly went into hysterics over it.
I tried to make her take it into her hand, and she said she would not
have done so for 'worlds untold.'"
[Illustration: STAG-HORNED PRIONUS AND DIAMOND BEETLE.]
Frank stooped down to wash his hands in a small pool of water by the
road-side, and he cried--
"I say, do look here. Here is a living horsehair. Look at it swimming
about. It ties itself into ever so many knots in a minute, and unties
them again. Is it a hair-worm?"
"Yes, I have no doubt it is," said Jimmy. "Do you know that I expect
that the common notion of eels being bred from horsehairs has arisen
from country people seeing these long worms, and thinking they were
horsehairs just come to life."
The hair-worm in the first stage of its existence passes its life in the
body of some tiny animal or insect. Although it lives afterwards in the
water, yet it will, if put into a dry and hot place, dry up to nothing
as it were; and then after a long exposure to the heat, if it is put
into water again, it will swell out and resume its old proportions, and,
live seeming none the worse for being baked.