PARTRIDGES AND PHEASANTS. 147 



of trespass and opportunities of collecting faggots of other 

 people's wood, or gathering mushrooms or hazel-nuts, are 

 trivial gains to compare with what he would lose. 



As for the farmer, what could he gain by doing away 

 with shooting. Ground game is in his own hands (and little 

 good it has done him !) and for every peck of wheat pheasants 

 take along the wood-sides it is the fashion now to over- 

 compensate the grower. Is it possible he does not gene- 

 rally appreciate those magic dates, September 1st, August 

 12th (if he is a dales' man), and October 1st, and perceive 

 the economic value and boon of a fashion and a health- 

 giving pastime which calls back peer and commoner from 

 Norwegian trout streams, from the soft seductions of yachting 

 in southern seas, and from every quarter of the globe to 

 consume his beef and mutton, to buy horses, and to send up 

 the price of his seed and grass ! In Ireland the want of 

 resident landlords (they shoot the few they have) is half the 

 trouble of the land, and in England matters will be even 

 worse when the gentry have been brought to spend half the 

 year in town and the other half at Monte Carlo or the 

 Riviera. 



Sydney Smith often thundered against the game laws 

 in the press, and that amiable bigot, George Grote, thought 

 he might rise to notoriety in the parliament of our grand- 

 fathers by adopting a like line. Since then this bone of 

 contention has been well wittled ; yet there are some pariahs 

 in politics still intent on it ! 



As far as I can see, their aim and object is to do away 

 with pheasants and partridges, for, infatuated as they are, 

 I can hardly think them so misguided as to suppose these 

 birds would remain amongst our fauna half a dozen years 

 as fera naturae. And were the obnoxious laws abolished 

 to-morrow, sterner enactments against trespass would be 

 essential, as pointed out in Mill's " Essay on Government." 

 As an example of the aims of this new school of thought, 

 it may be mentioned that under the Ground Game Act of 



