

SELECTION OF PRESERVE OR SHOOTING. 365 



game there is by running a brace of good dogs over it. It 

 will not do to depend upon accounts given in the previous 

 season of the head of game killed, for it may have been 

 killed down too closely; nor should there be an agreement 

 to take it in the spring after the season has concluded, 

 because here the incoming tenant is in the hands of the one 

 outgoing. So also, whenever the agreement is made, it 

 should be arranged that the ground should be at once given 

 up, for I have known a wonderful difference between the 

 head of game, on an extensive beat, in the first and that in 

 the last week of September. Keepers, we all know, can 

 poach if they like, and if they are not to be retained by their 

 new masters it is to be expected that many of them will 

 take advantage of the knowledge acquired during their 

 previous term of office. Wherever, therefore, you have 

 decided upon taking a manor, make up your mind either to 

 retain the keeper, if you think him trustworthy, or to dis- 

 place him at once, if otherwise; although you are likely 

 even then to lose a considerable quantity of game. It is 

 evident that a strange man cannot compete with one who 

 knows all the haunts of the game, as well as of the vermin 

 attacking it; the old hand has the opportunity of robbing 

 you if he likes, or if he does not do so directly, he can indi- 

 rectly, through some of those half-poachers, half-keepers, 

 with whom so many are in league. The best time to make 

 choice of a moor or partridge manor is in the month of 

 February or March, when you may, by a little perseverance, 

 have ocular demonstration of nearly every head of winged 

 game on the beat. By taking out a brace of strong and fast 

 pointers or setters you may easily beat over a couple of 

 thousand acres of arable land, or double that quantity of 

 moor land, and you will thereby find at least three-fourths 

 of the birds. In this proceeding you must take care not to 

 let the keeper palm off the same birds upon you two or three 

 times over, which he may easily do if you are not on your 

 guard. To avoid this trick, observe the line which the birds 

 that have been put up take, and instead of following that 

 line, which the keeper will most probably try to induce you 

 to do, just keep to the right or left of it. In beating, also, go 

 straight a-head, if the manor is extensive, and do not follow 



