24 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



who preserve game extensively, and we do not hesitate to say 

 that they themselves are in a great measure to blame for their 

 own disasters in this respect There are a legion of pseudo 

 egg-dealers who parade a small egg " farm " as a cloak to 

 their practices, and who are, as regards nine-tenths of their 

 business, simply receivers of stolen eggs. Any customer who 

 would take the trouble to inspect one of these bogus farms 

 before committing himself to deal there would have small diffi- 

 culty in seeing for himself that the supplies for which he is 

 negotiating could not possibly be produced from the few small 

 pens and coops which the establishment discloses." 



" The result of this happy-go-lucky system is that a large 

 proportion of the eggs bought by or for game preservers are 

 proceeds of plunder from their own estates or from those of 

 their neighbours. Out of every thousand eggs paid for by 

 keepers or by short-sighted masters a large percentage, 

 possibly as much as two-thirds, are not in any way additions to 

 the resources of the district, but are simply passing through the 

 hand of stealers and dealers to return to the several estates 

 whence they were originally pilfered. The bona fide game 

 farms of the kingdom will barely yield a fourth, if so much, of 

 all the game eggs that are marketed in the May of any year. 

 The rest of the supply come from illicit sources, and in no 

 way swell the production of game in the country; they are 

 at best transfers from Peter to Paul and vice versa, through 

 the medium of thieves, who rob both in turn, and trade to their 

 victims the proceeds of their own or their neighbours manors." 



These are some of the serious objections to the system 

 we propose to abolish, but not the worst. The question 

 affecting owners of preserves most is the proportion which 

 the number of birds brought to the gun bears to the number 

 of eggs collected or bought, set and hatched, and the expense 

 involved in their rearing. It is difficult to get at this problem 

 from keepers. One gentleman in Norfolk devised a book 

 that was to record everything from the setting of the eggs 

 till the birds were finally distributed in the coverts ; but he 

 reckoned without the keeper, and it was a failure. By diligent 

 enquiry from a number of estates where the artificial rearing is 

 relied upon, we ascertained correctly the number of eggs put 

 down and the number of birds shot over a series of years, 

 from the same coverts, and we are within the mark when we 

 state that the a.verage proportion of birds brought to the gun 

 amounted to from two hundred and fifty to three hundred for 

 every thousand eggs, and no deduction was made for wild 



