SHOOTING AS IT WAS, AND AS IT IS. ol 



sliglitest clue to the cause of death, and to the 

 day of tlie publication of this work, I know no 

 more about the cause of this ravao^ins; disease 

 than the child unborn. Of this I am convinced, 

 that in manors where this pestilence exists, if it 

 still exists, there ought to be no partridge shooting 

 for a vear. I should abstain from it at home, and 

 I advise all my friends to do the same, or that 

 best of all game will become extinct. 



I am told that a similar disease has been and 

 still is rife in some of the moors and momitains of 

 Scotland, and that red and black grouse and ptar- 

 migan have been and are dying by thousands. If 

 this is the case, and if, according to Lord Radnor, 

 the '^ foot and mouth disease," hitherto confined to 

 cattle, has broken out or breaks out in our kennels 

 of hounds and sporting dogs, there will be an end 

 to the sylvan joys of what once was called Merry 

 England, and we shall be driven abroad to seek for 

 those amusements for which the United Kinoxlom 

 ]iad been famous. 



