The first day of August is the most important of the gamekeeper's minor
festivals, for the close time under the Wild Birds Protection Act has
come to an end; duck-shooting begins to be a legal if not a difficult
pastime, and hares, which, unfortunately, may be harassed all the year
round, can now be sold openly. The time has come for the cutting of the
first cornfields; and this is ever an important event to the keeper,
for it allows him to make a shrewd estimate of the quantity of game.
The opening of the duck-shooting season finds the early broods of wild
duck strong on the wing; happily, the old practice of shooting the
immature birds is dying out. In the barley-fields where the wild duck
resort at dusk, the cool passing of an August day makes requital for
the heat of noon. Sport, if an object, will at least be unsullied by
the modern taint of wholesale slaughtering; apart from shooting, there
is the quiet of the fields to be enjoyed, the cool breeze that sets the
barley rippling, the perfumes of corn crops, charlock, clover, turnips,
and swedes. In a duck country, barley-fields, left standing as they
are until dead ripe and after wheat and oats have been harvested, may
suffer severely from their nocturnal visitors.
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