PRESERVATION 103 



in a strictly preserved hunting country is 

 not altogether a happy one ; his cares and 

 anxieties are very sensibly increased, and 

 the uncertainty of reaping any fruit of his 

 labours, one of the most trying features 

 of a keeper's work at any time, is now 

 doubled by the ever-present snake which 

 he must cherish in his bosom. 



Of course it may be said that the 

 keeper's duty is to carry out his master's 

 wishes, and that he should be as pleased 

 when foxes are found in plenty as he was 

 the year when mange had decimated their 

 numbers, and two hundred brace figured 

 in the game-book as the product of a 

 single day for the first, and probably the 

 last, time. Such a nice sense of propor- 

 tion is, however, denied to human nature, 

 and for the most part you will find the 

 keeper either very much in earnest about 

 his partridges, in which case the foxes 

 remain a permanent thorn in the flesh, or 

 else keen about hunting, the partridges 

 then taking a second place in his estima- 

 tion and suffering accordingly. 



