76 



GAMING 



GANGES 



law, prevails singularly enough in the popular 

 mind contrary to the constant practice of centuries. 

 The game-laws are, on the other hand, defended 

 on the ground of vested proprietary interest, to 

 which great commercial value now attaches, and as 

 affording protection against trespass, which would 

 lessen the agricultural value and the amenity of 

 property. But the strongest plea in favour of the 

 laws affording protection to game is that without 

 such protection game would soon cease to exist. 

 In an enclosed and thickly-settled country, amidst 

 a crowded population devoted to sport, game would 

 soon become extinct if the public enjoyed a free 

 right to pursue it. In Switzerland, where the only 

 protection is a close time, notwithstanding the 

 numerous natural retreats for wild animals, game 

 is all but extinct ; indeed, it is considered a good 

 day's sport for a large party if a single hare is 

 killed. Again, the concession to the occupier of an 

 inalienable right to ground-game by the Act of 1880 

 has already led to the hare becoming virtually 

 extinct in many parts of Great Britain. In the 

 opinion of some, no doubt, the total extirpation of 

 game would be a benefit to the country ; but, on the 

 other hand, it is urged that not only does the pur- 

 suit of game give zest and variety to rural life, and 

 afford healthful enjoyment in the autumn to a con- 

 siderable section of the community, many of whom 

 are engaged in sedentary occupations for the greater 

 part of the year, but that it also leads to the diffu- 

 sion of much wealth throughout the poorer districts 

 of the country, and keeps a great deal of money at 

 home which would otherwise be spent abroad. 



In the United States any one is free to capture or 

 kill wild animals, subject to the laws of trespassing ; 

 save where, as in several states, laws have been 

 passed protecting game during certain seasons, so 

 as to prevent its extirpation. 



Perhaps the most feasible suggestion which has 

 yet been made for a reform of the game-laws with- 

 out withdrawing protection from game is that all the 

 statutes against poaching should be repealed, and 

 a simple provision substituted whereby game should 

 be declared to be the property of the person on whose 

 lands it is found. The effect of this would be to 

 render the taking of game theft, and trespass in 

 pursuit of game an attempt to steal. It is urged 

 in favour of this change that it would simplify the 

 law, remove many harsh and anomalous provisions 

 from the statute-book, and tend to disabuse the 

 popular mind of that theory of the common 

 right to take game which creates disaffection 

 with restraining law. In an unenclosed and 

 sparsely-peopled country wild animals roam at 

 freedom and care for themselves, and they are not 

 therefore appropriate subjects of private ownership. 

 But in an enclosed, highly-cultivated, and thickly- 

 peopled country, game is just as much dependent 

 for its existence as are flocks and herds upon the 

 protection and care of the owners or occupiers of 



the soil, and may 

 therefore, it is said, 

 appropriately be 

 made the subject of 

 private property of 

 those who maintain 

 it. See Alex. Porter, 

 The Gamekeeper's 

 Manual (2d ed. 

 Edin. 1889). 



Gaming. See 



GAMBLING. 



Fresh-water Shrimp (Gammarus Gam'marilS, a 



pulex), magnified. genus of Amphipod 



Crustaceans, includ- 

 ing numerous fresh-water and marine species. 

 One species ( Gammarus pulex ), sometimes called 



the 'fresh- water shrimp,' is extremely common 

 in quickly-flowing brooks. It is a tiny creature, 

 about half an inch long, but so abundant that few 

 can have missed seeing it. It generally keeps near 

 the bottom, swims on its side, with a kind of 

 jerking motion, and feeds on dead fishes, &c. In 

 quiet water G. fluviatilis is common, and G. 

 locusta is very abundant among seaweeds along all 

 European coasts. Blind species of the allied genus 

 Niphargus are found in many caves and wells. 



Gamrun. See GOMBROON. 



Gamut, a name for the musical scale see 

 Music, SCALE (MUSICAL). Guido of Arezzo, in 

 the llth century, marked the last of the series of 

 notes in his musical notation with a g or the Greek 

 letter 7 (gamma], the name of which came to be 

 used for the whole scale often in a French form 

 gammc. Gamut is compounded of this word and 

 ut, the beginning of a Latin hymn used in singing 

 the scale. See SOLFEGGIO. 



Gand. See GHENT. 



Gandak (the Great Gandak; the Little Gandak 

 being an unimportant tributary of the Gogra), a 

 river of India, rises in the Nepal Himalayas, in 

 30 56' N. lat. and 79 7' E. long., flows south-west 

 to British territory, and then south-east, forming 

 for some distance the boundary between the North- 

 west Provinces and Bengal, and enters the Ganges 

 opposite Patna. Its banks rise above the level 

 of the plains it passes through, and inundations are 

 frequent. 



Gandamak, a village of Afghanistan, between 

 Cabul and Peshawar, where, during the retreat 

 from Kabul in 1842, the last remnant of the British 

 force was massacred, only one man making his 

 escape. Here also a treaty was signed with Yakub 

 Khan in 1879. See AFGHANISTAN. 



Gandersheim, a small town of 2507 inhabit- 

 ants in Brunswick, 30 miles N. of Gottingen by 

 rail. Its famous abbey, dating from 852, con- 

 tinued even after the Reformation to give the 

 title of abbess to the daughters of German princes, 

 and until 1803 was itself a principality. Its abbess, 

 Hrotswitha or Roswitha ( c. 932-1002), wrote a series 

 of curious dramatic works. See DRAMA (p. 83), 

 and an article by Hudson in the English Historical 

 Review (1888). 



Gandia, a walled town of Spain, on the Alcoy, 

 2 miles from the sea, and 47 miles SSE. of Valencia 

 by rail. It contains the old palace of the dukes of 

 tiandia, and has some coast trade. Pop. 7604. 



Gando, a Fulah state of the western Soudan, 

 lying west of Sokoto (to which it is tributary), and 

 on both sides of the Niger north of Borgu ; it is now, 

 like Sokoto, and the minor states of Ilorin, Nupe, 

 &c., included in (British) Northern Nigeria. 

 GANDO, 50 miles SW. of the town of Sokoto, is 

 the capital ; the chief trading town is Egga (q.v. ). 



Gaiidolfo. See CASTEL GANDOLFO. 



Ganesa, the most popular among the Brah- 

 manic gods of the second rank, the special deity of 

 prudence, invoked at the commencement of every 

 enterprise, and with whose name every book begins 

 ( namo Ganegdya, ' honour to Ganesa ' ). He is the 

 son of Siva by Parvati, and the leader of his 

 father's train. He is represented with an elephant's 

 head, riding upon a rat, and his figure is found in 

 almost all temples, and also in houses where he has 

 taken the place of the Vedic Agni as domestic 

 guardian. GANESA is also the name of the author 

 of a 19th-century commentary to the Lingapurana 

 (Bombay, 1858). 



Ganga. See SAND-GROUSE. 



Ganges, the great river of northern India, pro- 

 minent alike in the religion and in the geography 



