38 EEMIXISCENCES OF A SPORTSMAN. 



her table or to send to her friends ; but now that game 

 can be purchased, the present is not so highly valued 

 as when it was unlawful to sell it; although I must 

 confess I am not at all displeased when I receive a 

 hare and a brace of pheasants from a friend. 



I cannot approve of gentlemen emplo3dng a game- 

 keeper to supply him with game at so much per head. 

 In this case the gamekeeper requires to be looked after 

 narrowly lest he trespass on the adjacent manors; 

 for as his profits depend entirely on the quantity of 

 game he brings to the house, he has a strong temptation 

 to trespass when rmobserved on the adjacent estates. I 

 have heard of a man emj)loyed in this way killing eight 

 partridges at a shot ; of course, the covey must have 

 been collected together on the ground. A gamekeeper 

 should be particularly on the alert for a fortnight or three 

 weeks after the shooting season is over, for then the 

 poachers have an idea that the keeper may suppose that, 

 having no longer a market for the disposal of game, they 

 will for a time give up their unlawful practices. But it is 

 pretty well ascertained that this is not the case, for 

 many of those persons who have a licence to sell game 

 will purchase it of these men a fortnight or three 

 weeks after the 1st of February, pretending that the 

 birds are kept sweet for a considerable time in their 

 ice cellars, as many of them are fishmongers. A bro- 

 ther-in-law of mine has had on his table pheasants 

 perfectly sweet, nearly four weeks after they were shot. 

 On the last day of shooting the birds were hung up on 

 the side of a well a hundred yards in depth, which had 

 been dug out in a dry chalky soil. 



A gamekeeper, to understand his duty thoroughly, 

 should be a close observer of the seasons, for this is of 



