70 PARTRIDGES 



quality, and the reduction in their cost 

 placed them within reach of almost any 

 one, the necessity for game being pre- 

 served first became a matter of importance. 

 So long as shooters were but few in the 

 land, and their means of destruction so 

 faulty, game contrived to take care of 

 itself, little preservation was necessary, 

 and sportsmen thought it no crime to 

 wander on to other folk's ground and 

 sample the game there. But with an 

 ever-increasing horde of shooters, it soon 

 became a question of either game becom- 

 ing extinct or measures being taken for 

 its preservation, and thus, of necessity, 

 came the game laws and their enforce- 

 ment. With the sixties came further 

 advance, Laing introducing the breech- 

 loader from France, a weapon of some- 

 what uncertain results at the time, but 

 which fifty years of steady improvement 

 has developed into the hammerless ejector 

 of to-day. 



However superficially the history of 

 shooting in this country be considered, 



