168 WITS NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



its travels reversed from outwards to inwards, and 

 passes away with the excreta, thus rendering the 

 bird's chances of discovery by a prowling enemy 

 materially less. 



When young pheasants are hatched off they are 

 placed out in a clean field in coops, along with 

 their foster-mothers, and watched night and day 

 by the keepers in charge. In spite of this, how- 



PHEASANT ON NEST. 



ever, they are sometimes stolen, and I know one 

 keeper in the Home Counties who had nearly all 

 his young birds taken away in a single night, al- 

 though they were being guarded by two watchers, 

 who had unfortunately had too much beer and 

 gone to sleep, and a retriever dog. 



The life of a gamekeeper who knows his duty 

 and does it conscientiously is by no means the 

 sinecure some people imagine. For, in addition to 

 destroying troublesome vermin of all kinds, he has 

 to circumvent the plans of men who often know 

 quite as much as himself. With the genuine poacher, 



