EGG STEALERS. 209 



quadruped which is not included in the game- 

 list. It cannot be denied that the guilty suffer 

 on these occasions as well as the innocent, and 

 where the intention of the proprietor is to raise 

 an unnaturally large head of pheasants, the de- 

 struction of magpies and carrion crows, as well 

 as of stoats and weasels, will tend to promote 

 that object : but there are one or two points of 

 importance which seem to have escaped the atten- 

 tion of these gentlemen and their myrmidons, 

 in the neglect of which they ' strain at the gnat 

 and swallow the camel.' In the first place, while 

 it is freely admitted that a predilection for new- 

 laid eggs the natural food at this season of some 

 animals which have been placed by Providence 

 as a check upon the excessive increase of others 

 will cause many an overt act of petty larceny on 

 the part of certain feathered bipeds, yet it is 

 to man himself that the most serious and whole- 

 sale depredations, at this time of the year, are to 

 be attributed. Of all the varieties of the genus 

 poacher and their name is legion the egg- 

 stealer is at once the meanest as well as the most 

 mischievous and difficult to detect. Without a 

 spark of the mere brute courage that animates 

 the night-shooter, or the skill, and talent for 

 evading discovery, which characterize the suc- 

 cessful wirer or trapper, he possesses not a single 



