225 



pheasants which, up to then, were usually small to 

 improve with steady and wonderful rapidity, and it is 

 only in very recent years, and in a very few places, 

 that, in spite of the advantage of the breechloader, 

 these bags of partridges have been ever equalled. 



Does not this appear to corroborate the view, 

 expressed in the last chapter, that in proportion as a 

 keeper's time is occupied with pheasants, so will his 

 partridges suffer? Of course, the reduced shelter. to 

 the birds afforded by more modern farming and the 

 reclaiming and clearing of all waste or rough land, 

 has a good deal to do with it, as no doubt has the 

 ill-feeling on the subject of gajne which has been 

 engendered in places among the tillers of the soil 

 by injudicious and greedy landlords, as well as by 

 agitation for political objects. But the re-increase of 

 partridges in many places appears to show that these 

 evils will right themselves, and the farmer may cease 

 to look upon the gamekeeper as a natural enemy 

 whom he only sees on the rare occasions when a few 

 hard words pass between them in the neighbourhood 

 of a covert overstocked with ground game. 



I here append the totals of the best weeks at The 

 Grange, Lord Ashburton's place in Hampshire, be- 

 fore spoken of, in 1887, the Jubilee year, as well as 

 in 1891 and 1892, this estate having in those years 



Q 



