Packing Game. 535 



allow them to shake, while at the same time permitting 

 a very free draught of air. We never thought well of 

 hops or paper. The spruce failing, heather, wheaten 

 straw, or broom may be substituted. Boxes made with 

 partitions are often used, but, as each bird requires some 

 packing in these, the divisions seem superfluous. In large 

 boxes or hampers, small laths to separate each layer 

 of birds may be advantageously employed. Furred game 

 are best sent in hampers, strung together in couples, and 

 slung over small sticks passed through the hamper. It 

 is necessary that the game be paunched and left to hang 

 sufficiently long to get thoroughly cool and stiff. If the 

 hampers be found to be turned upside down in the transit, 

 some wire or twine nooses fixed in the bottom may be 

 found useful to keep the contents straight. Both hares and 

 rabbits, it is almost needless to add, gain greatly in appear- 

 ance by careful packing. 



Besides these matters, there are many other little duties 

 of the gamekeeper too numerous to specify, much less to 

 detail, but which must be ascertained from personal ex- 

 perience. The business of game preserving is one beset 

 with difficulties some serious most of them verging on 

 the trivial, but which, nevertheless, have to be met ; and 

 in this respect does the good game preserver exhibit his 

 superiority over another possessed of less invention or less 

 capability. 



Every day will bring forth some new experience, and the 

 experience suggest some new " wrinkle/' some special 

 expedient for extrication from a dilemma, some new mode 

 of meeting a difficulty. 



M M 



