30 GAME PRESERVERS AXD BIRD PRESERVERS. 



by disease, we see none who survive so injured 

 by wounds as to be likely to give birth to sickly 

 cliildren. 



Can we fancy a grouse telling bis mate 

 on a spring morning, ' My dear, I feel very 

 poorly to-day ; that No. 5 in my spine is 

 troubling me dreadfully ' ? It would remind one 

 of the story the old Brighton boatman told the 

 schoolboys of the dreadful battles he used to 

 fight when he was a smuggler, as narrated in 

 ^ Punch ' — how on one occasion, ' he received 

 three balls in his stomach and two in his head, 

 and he felt them still sometimes in the winter, 

 that he did.' 



Our sickly poultry do not lay, and we do 

 not believe sickly grouse do either, though they 

 may be smitten by disease after they have 

 paired. Let anyone creep near a pair of 

 grouse in the spring ; he mil find the cock the 

 picture of health, as he walks along with his 

 impertinent jerky swagger. He only wants 

 :a hat and feather well on one side of his 



