144 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



meadows, the farmer's gamekeeper (it is sport exactly to his 

 taste) stalks it from behind the line of willows and kills it as 

 it stands there. He will probably get a shilling for it from 

 the birdstuffer, and that is quite enough reason to him for 

 destroying the heron. It is a great pity these miserable men 

 are allowed to fire anything but blank cartridge. On the 

 larger estates the head-gamekeeper is often a man of intelli- 

 gence and a sound naturalist, and owds and kestrels are not 

 murdered, and the heron, of course, goes free. But on either 

 side of him may be a farmer who keeps a "gamekeeper" who 

 steals eggs and young birds from his aristocratic neighbours, 

 so that his master may let his "shooting" to some "city 

 gents from London," and who, though there maybe a heronry 

 on the adjoining estate, kills the birds when he gets the 

 chance, because, as he says, he has to "preserve the 

 fishing," but really because he can get a few pence for 

 its skin. Sometimes a heron appears in a poulterer's 

 shop and finds a purchaser who is curious in matters of 

 eating "^ and wishes to taste a fowl that once was so highly 

 prized as to be the dish of honour in the game course at 

 banquets of State. 



But there are not, I fancy, many men, except farmers' "game- 

 keepers " and their confederates the so-called "naturalists," 



* The proper sauce for it, by the way, was samelyn or cameline, which, we are 

 told, was " a dainty ItaHan sauce, composed of nuts, bread-crumbs, ginger, 

 cinnamon and vinegar." 



