26 THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



rather of new conditions which have come about, ex- 

 cessive game preservation and the general use of barbed 

 wire are the most important, because they have in a 

 very great degree altered hunting all over the kingdom. 

 And first game preservation must be considered, and 

 it will not be going wide of the mark to say that the 

 extraordinary increase in the preservation of pheasants 

 and partridges has practically ruined the hunting in 

 many countries, while it has had a bad effect almost 

 everywhere, a few favoured districts, such as the Shires 

 and one or two other localities, alone excepted. Time 

 was when game preservation and fox preservation went 

 hand in hand ; when the landowner, whether he was 

 hunting man, or shooting man, or both, preserved 

 foxes and game alike. He set just as much store on 

 his coverts as does the biggest pheasant rearer of to- 

 day ; he preserved as strictly as the law allowed him, 

 and to have his coverts drawn blank when hounds 

 came was the biggest misfortune that could befall him 

 — even if he did not hunt. But of the hand-reared 

 pheasant he was entirely ignorant, while he had prob- 

 ably never heard of the foreign partridge. Such 

 game as he had was well looked after, and so too were 

 the foxes. But in those days men thought and felt 

 differently about sport, and the ridiculous spirit of 

 emulation, which tempts men to vie with each other in 

 the matter of big bags, had not arisen in the country. 

 Gradually, however, the tame or hand-reared pheasant 

 was introduced to every corner of the kingdom where 

 there was sufficient covert to shelter a brood, and at the 

 moment the breeding of pheasants is nothing more or 

 less than a craze, the chief victims of which are the 

 hunting men and women of certain localities. 



Not for a moment are we going to suggest that the 



