378 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTER 



grouse, or partridges; and is for this reason, I always 

 feel glad to think, a source of amusement to numbers 

 of sportsmen who would otherwise seldom have occa- 

 sion to wipe out their guns. 



Though hares have so sadly diminished since the 

 passing of the unpopular Ground Game Act, rabbits 

 have in many localities rather increased than the 

 reverse. 



This result is caused by the landlords encouraging 

 rabbits in their woods to show sport for the gun, and 

 by the farmers allowing them to multiply in the 

 fences for profit. 



There is no doubt the Ground Game Act has 

 resolved itself into an unwritten agreement between 

 landlord and tenant, in that the landlord may ferret 

 the rabbits only that are to be found in his woods, 

 and the tenant may, without any interference, ferret 

 the fences and fields on his farm. This understand- 

 ing is now so common on estates, that many tenants 

 imagine a landlord has no legal right to kill rabbits 

 with trap or ferret in the open, and that he can only 

 lawfully do so in his woods, or on land in his own 

 hands, or maybe when he happens to be out with his 

 gun. This feeling is so strong in parts of England 

 that, where it is prevalent, a landlord might as well 

 shoot the sheep on a farm as venture to send his 

 keepers to ferret the rabbits out of its tenant's fences. 



Though the farmer will always grumble at the 

 rabbits that emerge from his landlord's woods to feed, 



