The Sportsman Part 8

VIII

The time to track hares is after a fall of snow deep enough to conceal the ground completely. As long as there are black patches intermixed, the hare will be hard to find. It is true that outside these the tracks will remain visible for a long time, when the snow comes down with a north wind blowing, because the snow does not melt immediately; but if the wind be mild with gleams of suns.h.i.+ne, they will not last long, because the snow is quickly thawed. When it snows steadily and without intermission there is nothing to be done; the tracks will be covered up. Nor, again, if there be a strong wind blowing, which will whirl and drift the snow about and obliterate the tracks. It will not do to take the hounds into the field in that case; (1) since owing to excessive frost the snow will blister (2) the feet and noses of the dogs and destroy the hare's scent. Then is the time for the sportsman to take the haye nets and set off with a comrade up to the hills, and leave the cultivated lands behind; and when he has got upon the tracks to follow up the clue. If the tracks are much involved, and he follows them only to find himself back again ere along at the same place, (3) he must make a series of circuits and sweep round the medley of tracks, till he finds out where they really lead. (4)

(1) Lit. "I say it is no use setting out with dogs to this chase."

(2) {kaei}. Cf. Arrian, xiv. 5.

(3) Reading {ekonta} sc. {ton kunegeten...} or if {ekonta, kuklous} (sc. {ta ikhne}), transl. "if the tracks are involved, doubling on themselves and coming back eventually to the same place."

(4) Or, "where the end of the string is."

The hare makes many windings, being at a loss to find a resting-place, and at the same time she is accustomed to deal subtly (5) in her method of progression, because her footsteps lead perpetually to her pursuit.

(5) {tekhnazein}. Cf. Ael. "N. A." vi. 47, ap. Schneid. A fact for Uncle Remus.

As soon as the track is clear, (6) the huntsman will push on a little farther; and it will bring him either to some embowered spot (7) or craggy bank; since gusts of wind will drift the snow beyond such spots, whereby a store of couching-places (8) is reserved (9); and that is what puss seeks.

(6) "Discovered."

(7) "Thicket or overhanging crag."

(8) {eunasima}, "places well adapted for a form."

(9) Al. "many places suited for her form are left aside by puss, but this she seeks."

If the tracks conduct the huntsman to this kind of covert he had better not approach too near, for fear the creature should move off. Let him make a circuit round; the chances are that she is there; and that will soon be clear; for if so, the tracks will not trend outwards from the place at any point. (10)

(10) L. Dind. emend. {oudamoi}, "the tracks will not pa.s.s in any direction outwards from such ground."

And now when it is clear that puss is there, there let her bide; she will not sir; let him set off and seek another, before the tracks are indistinct; being careful only to note the time of day; so that, in case he discovers others, there will be daylight enough for him to set up the nets. (11) When the final moment has come, he will stretch the big haye nets round the first one and then the other victim (precisely as in the case of one of those black thawed patches above named), so as to enclose within the toils whatever the creature is resting on. (12) As soon as the nets are posted, up he must go and start her. If she contrive to extricate herself from the nets, (13) he must after her, following her tracks; and presently he will find himself at a second similar piece of ground (unless, as is not improbable, she smothers herself in the snow beforehand). (14) Accordingly he must discover where she is and spread his toils once more; and, if she has energy still left, pursue the chase. Even without the nets, caught she will be, from sheer fatigue, (15) owing to the depth of the snow, which b.a.l.l.s itself under her s.h.a.ggy feet and clings to her, a sheer dead weight.

(11) Al. "to envelop the victims in the nets."

(12) Lit. "whatever the creature is in contact with inside."

(13) Cf. Aesch. "Prom." 87, {Poto tropo tesd' ekkulisthesei tukhes}.

(14) Or, "if the creature is not first suffocated in the snow itself."

(15) See Pollux, v. 50. "She must presently be tired out in the heavy snow, which b.a.l.l.s itself like a fatal clog clinging to the under part of her hairy feet."

IX

For hunting fawns (1) and deer, (2) Indian dogs (3) should be employed, as being strong, large, and fleet-footed, and not devoid of spirit; with these points they will prove well equal to the toil.

(1) See Hom. "Il." xxii. 189, x. 361; "Od." iv. 35; Aelian, "N. A."

xiv. 14; xvii. 26; Geopon. xix. 5.

(2) {e elaphos} (generic, Attic) = hart or hind, of roe (Capreolus caprea) or red (Cervus elaphus) deer alike, I suppose. See St.

John, "Nat. Hist. and Sport in Moray."

(3) Of the Persian or Grecian greyhound type perhaps. See Aristot. "H.

A." viii. 28; Aelian, "N. A." viii. 1; Pollux, v. 37, 38, 43; Plin. "H. N." vii. 2, viii. 28; Oppian, "Cyn." i. 413.

Quite young fawns (4) should be captured in spring, that being the season at which the dams calve. (5) Some one should go beforehand into the rank meadowlands (6) and reconnoitre where the hinds are congregated, and wherever that may be, the master of the hounds will set off--with his hounds and a supply of javelins--before daylight to the place in question. Here he will attach the hounds to trees (7) some distance off, for fear of their barking, (8) when they catch sight of the deer. That done he will choose a specular point himself and keep a sharp look-out. (9) As day breaks he will espy the hinds leading their fawns to the places where they will lay them severally to rest. (10) Having made them lie down and suckled them, they will cast anxious glances this way and that to see that no one watches them; and then they will severally withdraw to the side opposite and mount guard, each over her own offspring. The huntsman, who has seen it all, (11) will loose the dogs, and with javelins in hand himself advance towards the nearest fawn in the direction of where he saw it laid to rest; carefully noting the lie of the land, (12) for fear of making some mistake; since the place itself will present a very different aspect on approach from what it looked like at a distance.

(4) See above, v. 14. I do not know that any one has answered Schneider's question: Quidni sensum eundem servavit h.o.m.o religiosus in hinnulis?

(5) "The fawns (of the roe deer) are born in the spring, usually early in May," Lydekker, "R. N. H." ii. p. 383; of the red deer "generally in the early part of June," ib. 346.

(6) {orgadas} = "gagnages," du Fouilloux, "Comment le veneur doit aller en queste aux taillis ou gaignages pour voir le cerf a veue," ap. Talbot, op. cit. i. p. 331.

(7) Or, "off the wood."

(8) It seems they were not trained to restrain themselves.

(9) Or, "set himself to observe from some higher place." Cf. Aristoph.

"Wasps," 361, {nun de xun oplois} {andres oplitai diataxamenoi} {kata tas diodous skopiorountai}. Philostr. 784.

(10) See Pollux, v. 77; Aristot. "H. A." ix. 5. Mr. Scrope ap.

Lydekker, "R. N. H." ii. p. 346, states that the dam of the red deer makes her offspring "lie down by a pressure of her nose,"

etc.

(11) Lit. "when he sees these things."

(12) Or, "the features of the scene"; "the topography."

When his eye has lit upon the object of his search, he will approach quite close. The fawn will keep perfectly still, glued (13) as it were to earth, and with loud bleats suffer itself to be picked up; unless it happen to be drenched with rain; in which case, it will not stay quiet in one place. No doubt, the internal moisture of the animal congeals quickly with the cold (14) and causes it to s.h.i.+ft its ground. Caught in that case it must needs be; but the hounds will have work enough to run the creature down. (15) The huntsman having seized the fawn, will hand it to the keeper. The bleating will continue; and the hind, partly seeing and partly hearing, will bear down full tilt upon the man who has got her young, in her desire to rescue it. Now is the moment to urge on the hounds and ply the javelins. And so having mastered this one, he will proceed against the rest, and employ the same method of the chase in dealing with them.

(13) {piesas}, "noosling, nestling, buried."

(14) "The blood runs cold."

(15) Or, "but it will give them a good chase; the dogs will have their work cut out."

Young fawns may be captured in the way described. Those that are already big will give more trouble, since they graze with their mothers and the other deer, and when pursued retire in the middle of the herd or occasionally in front, but very seldom in the rear. The deer, moreover, in order to protect their young will do battle with the hounds and trample them under foot; so that capture is not easy, unless you come at once to close quarters and scatter the herd, with the result that one or another of the fawns is isolated. The effort implies (16) a strain, and the hounds will be left behind in the first heat of the race, since the very absence of their dams (17) will intensify the young deer's terror, and the speed of a fawn, that age and size, is quite incredible. (18) But at the second or third run they will be quickly captured; since their bodies being young and still unformed cannot hold out long against fatigue.

(16) Lit. "after that violent effort."

(17) Or, "alarm at the absence of the herd will lend the creature wings."

(18) Or, "is past compare"; "is beyond all telling."

Foot-gins (19) or caltrops may be set for deer on mountains, in the neighbourhood of meadows and streams and wooded glens, on cross-roads (20) or in tilled fields at spots which they frequent. (21) These gins should be made of twisted yew twigs (22) stripped of the bark to prevent their rotting. They should have well-rounded hooplike "crowns" (23) with alternate rows of nails of wood and iron woven into the coil. (24) The iron nails should be larger, so that while the wooden ones yield to the foot, the others may press into it. (25) The noose of the cord which will be laid upon "the crown" should be woven out of esparto and so should the rope itself, this kind of gra.s.s being least liable to rot.