We met, by chance, an old keeper who, on first acquaintance, seemed a
remarkable specimen--for he informed us that his orders were to set
not a single trap anywhere on his ten thousand acres. Thinking that we
saw a movement of his eyelid, we put the blunt question to him: How
many traps did he usually set? And he replied unblushingly, "Forty
dozen." He kept no record of his bag of vermin; but as he trapped on
such a wholesale scale (remembering that the estate is supposed to
be trapless), no doubt his employer would be startled if he knew the
numbers of vermin killed; his vermin bag must be exceptional. The
old-fashioned keeper is stubborn; the kestrel, as we have said before,
is seen too often on his gibbet, and he has no respect for the useful
wood-owl, which he ruthlessly exterminates. A record of a year's bag of
vermin on one big estate reads thus: Jays, 350; magpies, 160; crows,
150; squirrels, 140; weasels, 80; cats, 70; stoats, 60; hedgehogs, 40;
hawks, 30; total, 1080. This record says nothing of rats, rooks or
owls, though no doubt numbers of rats and rooks were sacrificed.
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