FRANCE 



125 



cares about fishing can get salmon, trout, and other freshwater fish in 

 the streams of that neighbourhood. 



To sum up, the north of France, consisting of great plains and 

 forests, is full of game, particularly of partridges, pheasants, hares, 

 rabbits, red and roe deer, and boar, but almost all the land is either 

 rented or preserved by the owners themselves. The same may be 

 said of the central departments and of part of the north-east, while 

 the departments of the south are utterly depleted of their game. 

 They only furnish, in fact, migratory birds at certain seasons of the 

 year. In my opinion, Brittany alone, although denuded of most 

 of its game, can delight the sportsman with its vast resources of 

 migratory game, as well as quantities of such vermin as badgers, 

 foxes, and martens, with a few roedeer and wild boar ; and there is 

 not only the excellent fishing of its rivers for the sportsmen enchanted 

 with the wild life, but also sea-fishing, which is first-rate on that coast. 



A law like that which obtains in neighbouring countries would 

 soon have restored to France her wealth of game, and the provinces 

 we lost after the war of 1870 have undeniably shown in how very 

 few years it was possible, under German legislation, to recover their 

 sporting prosperity. Where will the mischief stop .^ It is hard, 

 indeed, to foresee, for poaching is by now organised, and the remedial 

 penalties inflicted by the courts cannot, as far as suppressing the 

 practice goes, have any result. 



At the same time, it is only fair to mention the inception of 

 numerous syndicates, associations of sportsmen, clubs having for their 

 object the restocking of the great estates and the preservation of the 

 game. The French nation loves sport, or rather the pursuit and 



