CHAPTER VI 



VERMIN 



What the real enemies of game are, and how they should 

 be dealt with What animals and hirds are unjustly 

 included in the list of proscription. 



SINCE the dim and distant age when our 

 primitive ancestor first won the mastery 

 over those monstrous forms of early life, 

 whose uncouth lineaments we may still 

 outline in shadowy fashion from the grim 

 bony structures in our natural history 

 galleries, Man has advanced from a 

 precarious supremacy to a complete 

 dominion over all the beasts of the field. 



That the heavy weight of responsi- 

 bility, which such power over his fellow- 

 creatures must of a necessity involve, has 

 lain lightly on the soul of man in the 



past, let the shades of the vanished gare 



177 12 



