PHEASANT REAEING. 183 



the people we know belong to one or the other 

 of these classes. And surely the more that are 

 hatched the better for the pheasants them- 

 selves. Whether a pheasant Hves six months 

 or six years there exists no happier bird. Can 

 it be ignorance of the natural history of foxes 

 and pheasants which makes so clever a writer 

 as Mr. Hughes advocate their extermination, in- 

 advocating the abolition of field sports ? And 

 he does this, he states, on the grounds of hu- 

 manity on account of what they sometimes- 

 suffer when hunted or shot. ' Save us from our 

 friends ! ' must be these creatures' cry. He 

 would act more logically, we think, if he advo- 

 cated the extermination of the human race on 

 account of what so many suffer when they die 

 of such diseases as ' cholera.' 



And he has another reason — ' So many men 

 are imprisoned because they steal pheasants.' 

 But, as has been often observed in answer to this, 

 argument, we do not close our butchers' shops 

 lest the hungry hundreds in our towns should be 



