252 THE NEW FOREST 



previous season, and in the following March I 

 could not have been persuaded that in a couple 

 of years' time I should have been resorting to 

 all kinds of devices in order to keep down the 

 rabbits, which were amounting by then to a 

 positive danger to our plantations. 



Certain new regulations which I made, and 

 have alluded to on a previous page, soon told a 

 tale, and I went at once to the Office of Woods 

 and told them that, if we were to pretend to 

 make a shooting revenue out of the Forest, we 

 must necessarily, as other people in the same 

 position have to do, rear some game to replenish 

 our stock. 



The Forest is a fine country for wild pheasants 

 (allowing for foxes), and in a good year they 

 thrive wonderfully well. In a bad wet season, 

 they do no better than in other places; but, as 

 a rule, the district suits them very well. My 

 object, seeing what a drain there was upon the 

 game, since the ground was so hardly shot over, 

 was to produce each year such a number of young 

 hen pheasants, which under our rules were pro- 

 tected, that, if the following spring were a 

 favourable one, we should be secure of an ample 

 breeding stock and a good show of wild game. 



On the whole, this has succeeded well enough. 

 In all years now, good or bad, there are ten 



