PARTRIDGES, PHEASANTS, HARES, ETC. 89 



unreasonable on the part of the keepers to expect large, oft- 

 repeated tips from the same hands, and moreover they do 

 not do so. 



In fixing on the amount of a tip, we always take into con- 

 sideration the number of guns out, and should be more liberal 

 to a keeper on a shooting where five gendemen had bagged a 

 thousand head, than if a like total had been realized by ten. 

 Also, we think the keepers on small shootings, where the staff 

 is not strong, and the difficulties of preserving great, and all 

 for but two or three days' cover-shooting in the whole season, 

 should receive more liberally than the keeper who has seven 

 others under him, with twenty to thirty days at the longtails 

 each season. 



We have heard of a tip being given before the shooting 

 began, so as to ensure a good place all the day ; but sincerely 

 glad are we to say we have never known of such a disgraceful 

 thing being done. The few words said on the subject must 

 not induce our readers to think we object to or would curtail 

 tips to keepers, for that is not at all the case ; we do not even 

 regard them as a necessary evil, ever having "parted" with 

 pleasure, as a well-deserved acknowledgment of many days 

 and many nights of hard work. The only tips we ever do 

 grudge are those bestowed on idiotic footmen, who put out 

 some other fellow's black trousers for us to dress with, or 

 send us off from a country house with the kit of a stranger 

 packed into our portmanteaus. 



I cannot refrain from relating a piece of unexpected luck 

 which happened to me one day when shooting with Sir 

 George Faudel Phillips at Balls Park, Hertford. We had had 

 a first-rate day up to lunch time, so much so that I had got 

 rid of all my cartridges, something just over three hundred. 

 On resuming work, I found my reserve-bags had missed the 

 ammunition cart, and that I was quite cleared out. Sir George 

 Prescott kindly came to the rescue, by lending me a hundred to 

 go on with ; at this moment, my host, who is a very old friend. 



