With the harvest comes the great sporting festival of the countryman,
in whom alone survives the instinct to hunt for food--though the
days have gone when every man killed his own game. This sport of the
harvest-field is the countryman's by custom, courtesy, tolerance,
favour, and not by law. It is sport for the sake of food, and not for
the sake of sport. The quarry is rabbit. Only two people have a real
right to rabbits, and that a concurrent right--the farmer in occupation
of the land, and the holder for the time being of the sporting rights.
But during the cutting of the corn few farmers or sportsmen deny their
local workers the privilege and pleasure of catching rabbits. Where
permission is withheld it is usually by a small farmer, who looks to
the rabbits to help with the rent. The keeper is the last to make
objection to the catching of the rabbits, provided that the hares and
the winged game are not only spared, but given a chance to escape. He
even finds it a profitable policy to help catch the rabbits, and hand
over what he catches to be shared out to those who have failed in the
scurry and scramble of the sport. If there is any rule or custom about
possession of the spoil it is that he who kills a rabbit keeps it. This
may be a good rule for those who are lucky--those whose work brings
them into each field as it is cut, who excel with stick and stone, or
are better runners than their fellows. But it is a bad rule for those
who are unlucky; while a carter who sits on a binder from daylight to
dark for a month has perhaps the best chance, another who must spend
his time drilling turnips, or ploughing a distant field, will never so
much as see a rabbit.
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