INTRODUCTION 5 



game laws went, and we are now, as shown in the French article, 

 confronted with the results of a century of licence that might have 

 been anticipated from the period when, in 1789, the then Bishop of 

 Chartres so intelligently foresaw the way of the wind as voluntarily 

 to surrender his droit de chasse. In the British Isles, the strict code 

 established under the early Plantagenets appears first to have lapsed 

 under a succession of sovereigns little interested in sport, and then 

 to have been revived in its worst form by the Stuarts. Whereas, 

 however, sport has been hopelessly democratised in the Latin 

 countries, some suggestions of the old feudal relations survive in 

 Central Europe, with the result that Austria, Hungary and the 

 German Empire nowadays afford the finest bags of both large and 

 small Q-ame. It would seem as if, takin^ a medium course between 

 over-severity to poachers and total abandonment of the game, our 

 own game laws bear at any rate favourable comparison with those of 

 any other European country. In France, on the other hand, sporting 

 legislation has apparently been thrown to the winds, and M. Caillard's 

 article is one long indictment of the present Government of that 

 country for its neglect of the most simple measures for restoring the 

 former wealth of game. Other Latin states show the same ground 

 for complaint. Count Scheibler condemns, in the same uncompromis- 

 ing fashion, the privilege accorded to all Italians to kill game wherever 

 they please ; the Duke of Frias sighs for the time when Spain's 

 legislators shall realise that the game of a country, properly protected, 

 is a source of wealth ; and Count de Arnoso opens his article with the 

 frank avowal that "in Portugal there are really no game laws.'" 



Turning to other lands, we find poachers and poaching severely 



