SHOOTING AT ELVBDEN 3 



quantities of game he saw there. He was with difficulty 

 dissuaded from enforcing a dormant proclamation, 

 which would have had the result of making the whole 

 country a royal game preserve, but contented himself 

 by claiming all the sporting rights over the country 

 within twelve miles of Thetford and appointing a royal 

 gamekeeper at a salary of two shillings a day. The 

 same course was followed by his sport-loving successors, 

 Charles I. and Charles II. 



In the early days of the nineteenth century, before 

 the breech-loading gun had been invented, and when 

 pheasant-rearing was yet in its infancy, the bags obtained 

 at Elveden were not to be compared with the " records " 

 of later years, but the sport there must have been as 

 good as at any place in the kingdom. 



A bag which I believe had never been exceeded was 

 made at Elveden in my father's time, 331 or 332 pheasants 

 in one day, of which over 300 were cock birds, and not 

 one of them reared by hand. This was in the " twenties," 

 before I was born. 



It seems, too, that in those times game was less care- 

 fully preserved and the boundaries of neighbouring 

 estates were not so strictly marked as is the case now- 

 adays. 



I have heard my father say that when he first went 

 to Elveden, it was a common thing for a " gentleman " 

 going from one country house to another to " shoot his 

 way over," sending his servant and luggage by road, and 

 that in particular in the autumn race meetings at 

 Newmarket guests invited thence to stay at Euston 

 made a habit of doing this, and he once found some 

 distinguished persons pursuing a covey of Partridges on 

 the Great Heath at Elveden. If anybody but a " gentle- 

 man " had tried this on he would have found the custom 

 very different. It was also customary for officers in the 



