134 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE-BOOKS. CH. XXVIII. 



indulge their taste, without being held up to public 

 censure by those whose taste happens to be different, 

 as is so frequently the case. 



It is not the farmers who complain of the game : 

 they have a fair and I believe a legal right to com- 

 pensation for all the mischief it does them ; and I 

 do not think that this claim is often, if ever, refused 

 to be acknowledged by the game-preserver. In 

 fact, it is his interest to keep on good terms with 

 the occupier of the land, even if his sense of justice 

 did not induce him to do so, as the farmer and 

 tenant are able to destroy more game, in the shape 

 of eggs and young birds, during the breeding 

 season, than the proprietor and all his friends could 

 shoot in a twelvemonth. They can do this, too, 

 without exposing themselves to any risk of paying 

 penalty for infraction of the game-laws. As far as 

 my own experience extends, I have never found 

 tenants looking upon the preservation of game as 

 so great a nuisance and source of loss as they are 

 represented to do by many writers on the subject, 

 who for the most part advance as facts statements 

 which are either utterly untrue, or, at the best, are 

 twisted and exaggerated to serve their own pur- 

 poses. Leases are always entered into by farmers 

 with their eyes well open to every chance of loss 

 which they are likely to sustain from the game, 



