236 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



amends by endeavouring to dissuade others from 

 a habit so mischievous yet so easily corrected. 

 With this view I have occasionally, during the 

 last few years, preserved a specimen of a pheasant 

 or partridge, which at some period prior to its 

 death had been mutilated or disfigured by a ran- 

 dom shot, and whenever a youthful visitor to my 

 museum shows symptoms of sporting propensities 

 by a marked admiration of the game birds, I 

 generally venture to read him a lecture on the 

 subject, and to draw his attention to my assem- 

 blage of cripples which I call the ' Chelsea Hos- 

 pital ' of the collection. I also tell him that it is 

 a bad practice to fire at a pheasant the moment 

 it rises from the ground, if it springs within a few 

 yards of him ; for the shot not being spread until 

 it reaches a certain point, the bird in all like- 

 lihood receives the whole charge or none of it ; 

 and the consequence is that it is either woefully 

 mangled or missed altogether. On the other 

 hand, if a bird should rise out of distance, it 

 is essentially wrong to let fly at it on the chance 

 of a stray shot bringing it down ; for the probabi- 

 lity is very great that, if hit at all, it will only 

 be wounded and lost. 



Most of my specimens furnish examples of the 

 former error. There is one miserable looking 

 hen pheasant in particular which never fails to 



