QUILLS AND FEATHERS. 245 



wildfowl, particularly those of the Western States of 

 America ; instructions concerning guns, blinds, boats, and 

 decoys ; the training of water retrievers, etc. ; the true 

 history of choke-bores, the theory of their action on the 

 charge, construction, loading, etc., with a correct method of 

 testing the shooting powers of shot-guns. 



English game preserving has of late become a fine art. 

 There was a time, and painfully remote it seems at present, 

 when the only necessaries for a day's shooting, provided, of 

 course, you kept off the king's manors and respected the 

 abbot's fat bucks, were the implements of your craft with due 

 skill. Now, alas, a day's shooting is a matter of solemn 

 preliminaries, to which banker, solicitor, understrappers, and 

 government licences are all accessories before the fact. 



On game preserving as a means to a practical business- 

 like result, Mayers, in his " Park and Gamekeeper's Com- 

 panion," wrote in 1828; there is also Rawstorne's "Art 

 of Preserving Game," and method of making plantation 

 covers explained and illustrated, with 15 coloured drawings 

 of shooting scenes, etc. (1837). 



"Practical Game Preserving," containing directions 

 for rearing and preserving both winged and ground game, 

 and destroying vermin, with other information of value to 

 the game preserver, by William Carnegie, is well known. 

 " Mr. Carnegie gives a great variety of useful information as 

 to game and game preserving, with many valuable sugges- 

 tions. The instructions as to pheasant rearing are sound, 

 and the chapters on poaching and poachers, both human 

 and animal, are particularly to the point, and amusing 

 withal." 



Johnson's "Gamekeeper's Directory," with instructions 

 for preservation of game, destruction of vermin, prevention 

 of poaching, etc., is useful; and the author of the "Amateur 

 Poacher " opens our eyes to many an artful device and 

 ingenious wile. 



