CRUELTY TO WOUNDED GAME 383 



It is, of course, possible to frame an excuse for 

 anything and everything. I do, however, earnestly 

 desire to draw attention to the gross and inhuman 

 cruelty which wounded game so frequently suffers 

 at the hands of keepers and their assistants, and 

 it is high time that all sportsmen should combine 

 to suppress it with the most resolute and unsparing 

 hand. Birds which have not been killed outright 

 are not infrequently placed on the game-stick 

 while yet alive and fluttering, or, if any attempt 

 is made to put them out of their misery, it is 

 probably effected by the keeper, or one of the 

 beaters, biting their heads. Hares and rabbits 

 are not always quite dead before they are 

 * harled.' This is no exaggeration ; I merely 

 state facts which anyone who is in the habit of 

 shooting can witness for himself, if he takes the 

 trouble to watch the disposal of wounded game. 

 Nor is my experience limited or confined to 

 any particular places. I assert that these inhuman 

 practices are not merely occasional, but frequent ; 

 and, since we are human, it behoves us to be 

 humane, and to suppress their longer continuance. 

 The power to do so is in the hands of the owners 

 of shootings, and they need but use their eyes to 

 see the necessity which exists for their exerting 

 that power. A guest can but remonstrate with 

 the offending individual. 



Crippled game is often left to die, and no really 

 energetic attempt made to recover it ; and this is, 

 I take it, due in a great measure to the scarcity 



