LIFE OF TEGETMEIER 



mental alertness and physical activity he pre- 

 served. When far advanced in the 'eighties he 

 was still as keenly interested in matters relating 

 to game and poultry as he had been in his prime, 

 and was capable of physical exertion which 

 might have been envied by men twenty-five 

 years younger. 



I recall an incident which serves to illustrate 

 his mental and bodily activity in his eighty-fifth 

 year. Shooting men will remember the unusual 

 mortality among the young pheasants during 

 the summer of 1901. Disease was rife all over 

 the kingdom, and Tegetmeier, at the Field office, 

 was overwhelmed with dead chicks and inquiries 

 concerning cause and remedy. At Elsenham we 

 had enjoyed comparative immunity from disease ; 

 there had been the usual mortality but nothing 

 of which to complain, and Tegetmeier, in search 

 of an estate where the birds were healthy, 

 proposed one of his ever-w r elcome visits ; his 

 purpose being to investigate the system pursued 

 by my then head keeper. 



He arrived in the evening, sat up late with 

 the rest, and after breakfast next morning set 

 out with the keeper to go round the coverts and 

 rearing grounds, returning to lunch, and spending 

 the afternoon in the same way as in the morning. 

 He must have spent at least seven hours walking 

 and scrambling about the woods, examining the 

 keeper on his methods of management and 



▼iii. 





