PHEASANT 233 



places where but one bird might be killed formerly, fifty 

 or more may be shot without difficulty at the present day. 

 Pheasant-shooting has been described by some whose 

 views, by the way, are strangely warped or unenlightened, 

 as being a selfish sport, a sport of the few. But, surely, 

 very little first-hand inquiry into the economics and 

 general conduct of pheasant-rearing and shooting would 

 serve to convince that few field-sports in England, or for 

 that matter in any country, confer greater benefits upon 

 the community at large. Truly, the pheasant, from 

 egg-shell to dining-table, proves a continuous source of 

 revenue to a considerable section of the populace. First, 

 we have a large body of keepers and casual hands em- 

 ployed in the protection, gathering, and setting of the 

 eggs, and in the rearing of the young birds. Then when 

 the shooting comes on, at a season when work in the 

 country is at its lowest ebb, you have only to look to- 

 wards the village shop and the cottage hearth to learn 

 what an amount of happiness, good coin of the realm, 

 and of good cheer the week's covert-shooting on the 

 adjoining estate has brought in its train. Next, look 

 at the busy workshops in London, Birmingham, and 

 elsewhere in the provinces, where hundreds of hands 

 are constantly employed in the manufacture of guns, 

 cartridges, and the rest of the shooter's accoutrements. 

 Look at those towering chimney-like structures by the 

 Thames side, in Derby and in Newcastle, employed for 

 the manufacture of lead shot ; also at those factories 

 dotted here and there throughout the country, and which 

 are employed solely in the production, by British brains 

 and British labour, of those skilfully-devised nitro-com- 

 pounds that have proved themselves second to none in 

 the universe. This does not by any means exhaust the 



