SECTION V 



CHAPTER XVI 

 VERMIN : FURRED AND FEATHERED 



THE attention of all intimately connected with the 

 preservation of game is frequently concentrated 

 upon that vital question the destruction of vermin. The 

 following remarks bearing upon certain characteristics 

 of the winged and ground pests whose depredations are 

 to be guarded against may therefore be appreciated. 



The close of the game-shooting season frees the hands 

 of the gamekeeper and enables him to give increased 

 attention to the killing of the vermin upon his beat. It 

 is of the highest possible importance that this work 

 should be taken in hand as soon as possible in the year, 

 for by putting it off much may be lost and little gained. 

 Some gamekeepers especially those receiving a fixed 

 sum per head for vermin killed may be inclined to 

 reserve a portion of their energies until the breeding 

 season, when, as is well known, even the wildest and 

 most wary enemies of the game-preserver cast aside a 

 good deal of their habitual caution, and are then more 

 easy to circumvent. At that season, of course, a bigger 

 show of these miscreants may be nailed upon the vermin- 

 poles, the sum-total of kills being swelled fourfold, per- 

 haps, by the addition of the young. Still it must not be 



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