182 GAME PRESERVERS AKD BIRD PRESERVERS. 



wlien in different fields, or different corners of a 

 large field. 



You will see but little of them after Sep- 

 tember, and in the briUiant cock pheasant who 

 comes straight at you on a winter's day, at the 

 rate of a thousand miles an hour, cro^viug 

 defiance all the time, you will no more recog- 

 nise the brown bright-eyed little bird which 

 used to feed at your feet, than he will recognise 

 in you, as you so wickedly try to stop Mm with 

 both barrels, the amiable biped who used to 

 throw him ants' eggs in the summer mornings. 



And whether you succeed, and he finds his 

 way to your friends' tables, or you fail, and he 

 finds his way to your neighbours' woods, per- 

 haps to have another year of happy hfe, the 

 game has been fairly played out between you. 

 Some writers seem to wish pheasants were ex- 

 terminated. We think that the more which 

 are reared in England the better for those who 

 like to see them, those who like to shoot them, 

 and those who like to eat them ; and most of 



