THE IDEAL KEEPER 15 



graciously changes which it would have been his 

 wisdom to anticipate." 



On the whole, it must be admitted that very little 

 has been learned in regard to sport that was not known 

 by our progenitors as to the habits and habitats of game, 

 but much has been discovered as to their care and pre- 

 servation, and more as to the best ways of bringing 

 game to the gun ; and it is in dealing with these latter 

 problems that the keeper should show himself amenable 

 to ideas and try to keep in touch with the newest views 

 and profit by them, not by blindly accepting each new 

 theory as gospel, but by testing it carefully by the light 

 of his own experience in other words, by giving it a 

 fair trial. One has only to use one's eyes to observe 

 how the old-fashioned and discredited practices of the 

 past are still followed on some of our best shootings. 

 The prehistoric butts on the skyline, the indiscriminate 

 burning of heather, the smoking out of rabbits, the 

 bands of yelling beaters advancing in a straight line 

 to the guns all remain as persistent monuments to 

 the conservatism of the keeper, despite all that comes 

 to his ears of greater success achieved under newer 

 methods. As far as some keepers and their masters are 

 concerned, Lord Walsingham, Sir R. Payne Gallwey, 

 Mr. Stuart Wortley, Mr. Lloyd Price, Mr. Harting, 

 Mr. Tom Speedy, and The Mackintosh of Mackintosh 

 might never have made an experiment nor written 

 a word. They seem to forget that sport is not a form 

 of theology, final and irrevocable, but a branch of 



