Pheasants.

[boatman]

Here is some evidence I have just found

http://archive.org/stream/pheasantstheirn00tege#page/n3/mode/2up

Read the introduction that helps to date driven pheasant shooting. changes happened as described in an eleven year period between one edition of the book and another. Certainly the changes recorded seem to have happened in the second half of the nineteenth century.

(copy of an Amazon record of the editor's foreword)
By Eric Parker. Eleven years have passed since the publication of the last edition of this book, which has long been the standard work on its subject, and during this period much has happened to alter the conditions of pheasant-shooting. But the change is in reality only part of a long development spreading from a much earlier date. When the late W. B. Tegetmeier first set out to bring into the compass of a single book the accumulated experience of himself and of others in the matter of rearing pheasants in covert and in confinement, the science necessary for conducting a days shooting, as the sequence to a seasons breeding and feeding, was very little understood. On many estates birds were being shot very much as in the days of Peter Hawker, who, if he caught sight of a cock pheasant in the Longparish woods, would turn out the staff of garden and farm to put the bird on the wing. Wild birds were the rule rather than the exception ;the First of October was a day to be looked forward to, like the First of September ;and if a pair of spaniels could bustle a bird out of a spinney or a hedgerow it was enough if he could be made to %there was no thought that he should fly better.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

 

[British Red]

<sigh> no, I'm not mistaken, it is arguable, but undocumented and unproven that Romans introduced pheasants - they are first documented in the 11th century.

http://www.thefield.co.uk/features/433314/The_history_of_the_pheasant.html

As far as post-Romano Albion is concerned, the first documentary evidence of the pheasant's existence is an order of King Harold who offered the canons of Waltham Abbey a "commons" pheasant as an alternative to a brace of partridges as a specific privil-ege of their office in 1059. A record exists relating to the monks of Rochester who, in 1089, received from Bishop Randulfus 16 pheasants, 30 geese, 300 hens, 1,000 lampreys, 1,000 eggs, four salmon and six sheaves of wheat.


Pheasants may have been esteemed for their gastronomic potential in pre-Norman England, but it is clear that they were not yet that widely distributed. The Normans and their gaulieters were notable pheasant fanciers, nevertheless, and passed stringent laws to protect these and many other species. These evidently worked to a degree, with pheasants appearing on the menus of many medieval banquets. Henry I granted the Abbot of Amesbury near Stone-henge the right to kill pheasants in 1100, shortly after the abbey was founded. Thomas Becket famously dined on pheasant the night before his infamously violent death in 1170.

Please don't put words into my mouth either. You said

Not sure that shooting to driven game can be called a traditional country pursuit as it only really came in with cartridge firing shotguns​

If you meant pheasant, say pheasant. You said "game".

Game includes deer. From the time of the Norman conquest deer were driven into huge funnel like deer traps and killed with bows to harvest meat. The process is well described in Rutherfurds "The Forest". Very much driven game. What you said was and remains untrue. Now if you take exception because you meant something different to what you wrote (again), that is your problem with the lack of accuracy in what you wrote, not mine in responding accurately to your statements.

Here is some history

The Deer Hunt

The deer in Sheffield Park were carefully farmed. We know that as late as 1637 it still held a herd of a thousand fallow deer, of which 200 were &#8216;deere of antler&#8217; or bucks. The killing of park deer for venison was principally carried out by the Lord&#8217;s servant. On occasions such as the funeral of the 5th Earl in 1560, when a great dinner was held at the castle, 50 fallow and 29 red deer were cooked. The fallow deer would have come from the park and the red deer from Rivelin Chase. In Sheffield deer park there was also an unusual tradition whereby once a year some 200 deer were corralled into an area near the town and the &#8216;apron men&#8217; or artisans invited to come in and kill them for meat.

There is no actual documentary evidence of hunting in Sheffield deer park. In the form that most people think of medieval hunting, whereby a single animal was chased for a long way until exhausted, red deer were pursued across the wilds of Rivelin and Loxley Chase. Within parks like Sheffield deer park, however, a more ritualised form of hunting, called &#8216;bow and stable&#8217; was generally adopted whereby fallow deer were driven towards carefully positioned nets by highly trained hunting dogs, to be finally dispatched by the lord or lady by bow and arrow.

http://www.manorlodge.org.uk/1_66_156_

I hope you agree that that form of driven game shooting predates the cartridge firing shotguns.

I will concede that shooting game with cartirdge firing shotguns probably started with the invention of the cartridge firing shotgun! However has game in various forms always been driven? Of course - before effective projectile weapons it was driven over cliffs.

As for William Rufus, please don't state facts that are not known - many historians now believe he was in fact murdered - there is certainly no proof of the "accident" that was claimed - what is certain is that the location of the Rufus stone is erroneous.

http://www.newforest.hampshire.org.uk/history1.html


Red

 

[boatman]

Pointless to carry on as one set of facts can be trumped by another especially if the words are interpreted to suit your peculiar world view Red. As, to be fair, I reinterpret them as well.

 

[Camel]

Boatman,

I have read through the thread and I'm a little confused.

Is your position that driven pheasant shooting specifically is not a traditional country pursuit as it only really became popular from the later half of the 19th century on?

 

[Elen Sentier]

On my part please be assured it is not class hatred. It's based on my experience living in rural Scotland, where, there are well run shoots that do provide gainful employment for Gamekeepers and adhoc work for beaters. The scenario I describe at the top of the post is accurate.

I walked my (black labrador) dog down a single track road last year opposite my house. The great white hunters were lined up in the fields and woods adjoining the road. Then some of their chums in the aforementioned fancy dress careered through the woods. Up went the birds and I almost dropped to the deck as guns whirled round like demented daleks trying to shoot. The dog and I were showered by shredded leaves and spent shot.

Windy

My fellings precisely. I've no objection to shooting for the pot but those kind of idiots are not on.

 

[Camel]

My fellings precisely. I've no objection to shooting for the pot but those kind of idiots are not on.

Unsafe shots are certainly idiots.

A properly run shoot brings in a lot of money to the farmer. Certainly more than a few of the farmers I know in the home counties would not be able to remain afloat without the extra income that running a shoot brings.

It may not be everyone's cup of tea but it's certainly not the rather class-obsessed picture painted by those basically against all forms of shooting who weigh in on discussions like these.

 

[Toddy]

This is a most rancourous thread.

There are disputes, accusations, and irritating assumptions of character and opinion spouted as though fact.

The gentleman who started the thread lives in an area where it's not farms that are the shoot bases, but estates. There's an enormous difference.

The estates sprawl over the moors and hills, blanket bog like employ few but declaim their 'priority' for access to the land. Supposedly they bring in thousands of pounds, millions even..........to line whose pocket exactly ?? because it's no' the gamekeeper or the ghillies, or the beaters. They work damned hard for minimum wages while their employers whine about impoverishment, while the rest of us thole the braying voices and the despoiled tracks from off road Chelsea tractors getting their annual reality check.

Aye, right. ...........and yes, that is Scottish sarcasm. The sporting estates were established in Scotland in the Victorian era. Hunting forests were an entirely different thing before the advent of 'sport' to take out bird, beast and fish.
It's why to this day the UK has some of the most stupid laws regarding efficiently, and skillfully, killing an animal for the pot.
In the main, you can't.

It's apparantly illegal to guddle a fish, yet you can rip it's mouth apart with a hook, so long as you pay the riparian fees first, of course; if I'm not skillful enough at the former the fish goes free unhurt; is it because they don't squeal and cry that folk think the latter is okay ?

It's illegal to walk up to a pheasant and drop a jacket over it as it coories down and pretends that it's not seen. A quick twist and it's neck's wrung. Alive one moment, dead the next.
Not illegal to frighten it into flight and then blow it apart with explosive propelled lead balls though...............and I have seen some total abominations of shot rabbits, hares, pheasants, duck, goose... and deer, come to that. I know enough beaters, gamekeepers and ghillies who 'clean up' afterwards to know just how pathetic many 'shots' really are.

I am not agin hunting for the pot. I am not agin the skillful tracking and capture and kill of an animal for food, or for pest control.
The pursuit of the inexcusable chasing the inedible though, that's barbaric. (deliberate distortion of the quote, before anyone starts )

Class conscious ? Moi ? no, I have friends and family in all spectrums of society. I generally like people I do dislike the patronising suggestion that those who object to an objectionable 'sporting' (sic) performance, are only using such a petty basis for their reasoning though.

Laws are not immutable, they are not static, they are only the status quo of the time. In Scotland the laws are already different from England and Wales on some aspects of hunting/shooting/fishing. We're kind of hoping you lot will hurry up and catch up but then maybe your society is so stranded in the tangles of 'tradition' that it excludes rational thought and development.

Have I been blunt enough ? Have I prodded the stuffed shirt sensibilities enough ? Do we wait on the Col Windbag Blunderbus retorts ? or do we say, we're fed up with this thread ?

For every Hugh (funnily enough my closest poacher's name too) British Red who takes a pride in doing a good job of a shot and kill, there are too many glaikit eejits trying to be 'man the hunter'.....with a big gun

Demented daleks filterhoose called them Brilliant sums them up nicely


atb,
Toddy

 

[boatman]

Boatman,

I have read through the thread and I'm a little confused.

Is your position that driven pheasant shooting specifically is not a traditional country pursuit as it only really became popular from the later half of the 19th century on?

What do I know Camel? It seems we must defer to British Red for all pronouncements on country matters. But, it is your judgement if something stemming from the second half of the 19th century with the introduction of cartridge firearms is a country tradition. Especially as game laws and restrictions through the ages militated against the ordinary country dwellers taking game. So, is the tradition one of traditional deference to those who could shoot rather than a tradition of shooting by ordinary (poor as they worked in the country) people? Obviously according to BR I am not fit to have an opinion so you must make up your own mind.

 

[Robbi]

i suspect a little bit of trolling going on here.

 

[Camel]

What do I know Camel? It seems we must defer to British Red for all pronouncements on country matters. But, it is your judgement if something stemming from the second half of the 19th century with the introduction of cartridge firearms is a country tradition. Especially as game laws and restrictions through the ages militated against the ordinary country dwellers taking game. So, is the tradition one of traditional deference to those who could shoot rather than a tradition of shooting by ordinary (poor as they worked in the country) people? Obviously according to BR I am not fit to have an opinion so you must make up your own mind.

Well I'm not sure about rights to an opinion or deference to some group of folk or another.

I will note that if driven game shooting is on shaky ground chronologically speaking then so must be steam fairs and other events with their roots in the Victorian era.

I'm not sure that a chronological arguments stacks up.

 

[Camel]

This is a most rancourous thread.

There are disputes, accusations, and irritating assumptions of character and opinion spouted as though fact.

The gentleman who started the thread lives in an area where it's not farms that are the shoot bases, but estates. There's an enormous difference.

The estates sprawl over the moors and hills, blanket bog like employ few but declaim their 'priority' for access to the land. Supposedly they bring in thousands of pounds, millions even..........to line whose pocket exactly ?? because it's no' the gamekeeper or the ghillies, or the beaters. They work damned hard for minimum wages while their employers whine about impoverishment, while the rest of us thole the braying voices and the despoiled tracks from off road Chelsea tractors getting their annual reality check.

Aye, right. ...........and yes, that is Scottish sarcasm. The sporting estates were established in Scotland in the Victorian era. Hunting forests were an entirely different thing before the advent of 'sport' to take out bird, beast and fish.
It's why to this day the UK has some of the most stupid laws regarding efficiently, and skillfully, killing an animal for the pot.
In the main, you can't.

It's apparantly illegal to guddle a fish, yet you can rip it's mouth apart with a hook, so long as you pay the riparian fees first, of course; if I'm not skillful enough at the former the fish goes free unhurt; is it because they don't squeal and cry that folk think the latter is okay ?

It's illegal to walk up to a pheasant and drop a jacket over it as it coories down and pretends that it's not seen. A quick twist and it's neck's wrung. Alive one moment, dead the next.
Not illegal to frighten it into flight and then blow it apart with explosive propelled lead balls though...............and I have seen some total abominations of shot rabbits, hares, pheasants, duck, goose... and deer, come to that. I know enough beaters, gamekeepers and ghillies who 'clean up' afterwards to know just how pathetic many 'shots' really are.

I am not agin hunting for the pot. I am not agin the skillful tracking and capture and kill of an animal for food, or for pest control.
The pursuit of the inexcusable chasing the inedible though, that's barbaric. (deliberate distortion of the quote, before anyone starts )

Class conscious ? Moi ? no, I have friends and family in all spectrums of society. I generally like people I do dislike the patronising suggestion that those who object to an objectionable 'sporting' (sic) performance, are only using such a petty basis for their reasoning though.

Laws are not immutable, they are not static, they are only the status quo of the time. In Scotland the laws are already different from England and Wales on some aspects of hunting/shooting/fishing. We're kind of hoping you lot will hurry up and catch up but then maybe your society is so stranded in the tangles of 'tradition' that it excludes rational thought and development.

Have I been blunt enough ? Have I prodded the stuffed shirt sensibilities enough ? Do we wait on the Col Windbag Blunderbus retorts ? or do we say, we're fed up with this thread ?

For every Hugh (funnily enough my closest poacher's name too) British Red who takes a pride in doing a good job of a shot and kill, there are too many glaikit eejits trying to be 'man the hunter'.....with a big gun

Demented daleks filterhoose called them Brilliant sums them up nicely


atb,
Toddy

Well I'd never make colonel but if I may...

The majority of driven shoots are farmer's shoots, at least in my experience. For every big estate putting on 400 bird days or visiting "Sportsmen" there are a dozen small shoots run by groups of friends, often as a "Walk one, stand one" admix of rough shooting and driven shooting proper.

I will freely admit that the big days are not my thing, but it's worth noting that at the last estate shoot I was invited to share a peg with my host on ( a 300 bird day no less) I shot with a builder, a vet, a civil servant and an artist amongst others. Not quite the Chelsea tractor brigade of popular legend perhaps.

It is also true that birds are wounded and in some individuals the standard of shooting is not commensurate with their own opinion of the same, This is indeed regrettable and amongst my shooting friends at least, one is certainly "encouraged" not to take shots beyond one's ability. An estate shoot will have teams of picker-uppers and it is rare on a well run shoot to lose many birds wounded.

Personally I'm a deer stalker and pest shooter, everything i shoot is either eaten by myself or my friends or goes to the game dealer. It is not a case of wanting to be the "Great White hunter" in my case or that of my shooting friends, rather something more similar to your desire to be out in nature and not in some dreary office staring at the walls.

I think there is a slight disservice being done here to the average driven shooter and felt compelled to comment. He is not a toffee-nosed, Range Rover driving, partially-sighted, gun-toting genocidal maniac; I know as I've shot with him up and down the country.

On a thread below this is a young man excited by his purchase of his first nice gun, he says he'll save it for driven days and take a less nice gun out rough shooting. This is my experience of the average shooting man, spends his year shooting for the pot and pest control and treats himself to a day or two a year of a traditional British country sport. It's not fair to paint that man as something like this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wVqfUNJb_Q

Regards,

C

 

[johnnytheboy]

Camel, that post is spot on and concurrent with my experince!

Great post that man!!

 

[boatman]

Steam fairs and other things of that era had their roots in Victorian times are not traditional. When revived they may make people feel nostalgic for a past that never existed. A fair is enjoyable in its own right and the fair is a traditional place, to meet,trade and have fun but it has always changed and evolved. They have always been closely regulated and many that were perceived to be too riotous have been closed down. Essentially if in the eyes of the establishment the peasants were enjoying themselves too much with drink and fornication, not to mention lack of respect for their betters, the worse crime, the fair was finished or emasculated.

Many traditional activities have been suppressed or taken over by the Church, annual "Feasts" in Cornwall and "Mock Mayor" celebrations in towns, Newbury, Berkshire, for example. So much for regarding the priesthood, gentry and landowners as upholders of tradition.

 

[Toddy]

Camel you were the one to declaim any protest as classist. Not those who objected and nor was that their basis for objection.
Most of those I know who hunt do so to put food on the table They do so very efficiently, very capably, but very, very few ever take part in it as a 'sport'.
They enjoy their hunting, fishing, etc., but that's not the discussion; is it ?

Our 'sporting' laws are archaic; they belong in some purported halcyon time that no longer exists.

Isn't change wonderful ?

Toddy

 

[Camel]

Steam fairs and other things of that era had their roots in Victorian times are not traditional. When revived they may make people feel nostalgic for a past that never existed. A fair is enjoyable in its own right and the fair is a traditional place, to meet,trade and have fun but it has always changed and evolved. They have always been closely regulated and many that were perceived to be too riotous have been closed down. Essentially if in the eyes of the establishment the peasants were enjoying themselves too much with drink and fornication, not to mention lack of respect for their betters, the worse crime, the fair was finished or emasculated.

Many traditional activities have been suppressed or taken over by the Church, annual "Feasts" in Cornwall and "Mock Mayor" celebrations in towns, Newbury, Berkshire, for example. So much for regarding the priesthood, gentry and landowners as upholders of tradition.

At this risk of taking this thread even further away from it's original strand, it seems that you are rather fixated with the oppression of peasants by the monied classes and see the demise of driven pheasant shooting as some sort of payment in kind for those historical wrongs.

I must confess I find that sort of attitude slightly puzzling, preferring to live and let live myself; except where dinner is concerned.

Is the issue one of public safety, animal cruelty or historical injustice?

 

[santaman2000]

Camel you were the one to declaim any protest as classist. Not those who objected and nor was that their basis for objection.
Most of those I know who hunt do so to put food on the table They do so very efficiently, very capably, but very, very few ever take part in it as a 'sport'.
They enjoy their hunting, fishing, etc., but that's not the discussion; is it ? .......

And yet most of those I know who hunt so so exactly for the "sport.' That's to say for the chance to either go out alone hunting or in many cases to get together with other hunters. In ether case the vast majority are those "peasants" that boatman seems to claim don't hunt.

Agreed, you're game laws are archaic in that they seem to actually discourage hunting rather than to provide more opportunities. But it would seem that the majority of your population doesn't really want to hunt so why is it really a problem?

 

[santaman2000]

At this risk of taking this thread even further away from it's original strand, it seems that you are rather fixated with the oppression of peasants by the monied classes and see the demise of driven pheasant shooting as some sort of payment in kind for those historical wrongs.

I must confess I find that sort of attitude slightly puzzling; preferring to live and let live myself, except where dinner is concerned.

Is the issue one of public safety, animal cruelty or historical injustice?

I have a bit of confusion understanding why the "estates" aren't considerred farms? They're raising a crop (the pheasant) and apperently making a profit by charging to allow others to harvest that crop. What's wrong with that? Isn't that what farms do? Make a profit from a crop or livestock?

 

[Camel]

Camel you were the one to declaim any protest as classist. Not those who objected and nor was that their basis for objection.
Most of those I know who hunt do so to put food on the table They do so very efficiently, very capably, but very, very few ever take part in it as a 'sport'.
They enjoy their hunting, fishing, etc., but that's not the discussion; is it ?

Our 'sporting' laws are archaic; they belong in some purported halcyon time that no longer exists.

Isn't change wonderful ?

Toddy

I must apologise in that case, perhaps clarity was the victim of brevity. It was not my intention to say that any criticism of driven shooting is rooted in Classist thinking, rather that a surprising ( To me ) amount of the criticism on this thread seems rather class obsessed.

I am used to hearing arguments for and against shooting of one form or another along the lines of animal cruelty, vegetarianism and what seemed to boil to down to basic distaste for killing animals unless in an abattoir but not one advanced on the basis of the people that take part.

As I said, the majority of the shooting men I know, even members of this forum that i don't, are not the Chelsea tractor brigade that multiple posters on this thread have made them out to be.

Just above this post will be an essentially Marxist analysis of the evolution of the country fair. Fair enough and interesting in an almost obiter dictum way but in my humble submission not a reason to ban driven shooting.

 

[Toddy]

That's it exactly Santaman2000. If you don't have money, or land, your opportunities to hunt are severely restricted; and it's serious money for most shootings up here.
Small syndicates are the only way that many manage.

Even rabbits and such like are supposed only to be taken with the landowners permission, and since the vast majority of Britons own no more land than the footprint of their homes and curtilege, there's a limiting factor right away.

Change comes but passing slow, we're told. It's a modern world, regardless of the 'traditionalists'

cheers,
M

 

[Toddy]

Camel I'm a good vegetarian, but I will skin, gut, process and cook meat. It's just not 'food', iimmc.
I do decry poorly skilled shooting, fishing, slaughtering that causes unnecessary suffering, but I have no issues with taking meat for food or to kill vermin that despoil food and homes.

I think a seachange is needed in the sporting aspect of game laws and conservation, but that leads us into political topics and those we don't do here.

Toddy