32 REMINISCENCES OF A SPORTSMAN. 



their neighbours. This is not doing as you would be 

 done by. It was ascertained by a society formed for 

 the protection of game that not less than 50,000 dozens 

 of partridge and pheasant eggs were consigned to London 

 annually, more than half of which became absolutely 

 rotten, and not more than five per cent, produced birds 

 if attempted to be hatched. It was also discovered as 

 an indubitable fact, that an average of 5000 grouse, 

 15,000 partridges, and 5000 pheasants were openly ex- 

 posed for sale in the metropolitan markets after the close 

 of the shooting season. The great difficulty in this case 

 is to be able to ascertain the game that has been killed 

 the last two or three days of the season, which in cold 

 weather will keep at least a fortnight, and to find out 

 what game has been brought to the London market from 

 poachers, destroyed by them after the 1st of February. 

 A present of half-a-crown now and then given to your 

 woodmen who are employed in the winter in cutting 

 down timber or fells of ten or twelve years' growth, to 

 keep a sharp look out, and to give information to the 

 gamekeeper when they see persons trespassing with dogs 

 and guns, or suspicious persons lurking about the covers 

 — perhaps known to be poachers — frequently assists 

 considerably in getting up your game, for it is quite im- 

 possible for a gamekeeper to be everywhere, more espe- 

 cially if the property should be of considerable length, 

 and not broad in proportion. 



An active gamekeeper should be able, with the above 

 assistance, to preserve the game on an estate of fifteen 

 hundred or two thousand acres ; but beyond that 

 quantity of land, I think there should be a head keeper 

 and one under him, and in the moonlight nights of 

 November, December, and January, three or four men 

 should be employed to assist the gamekeepers, when 



