48 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



lavished so ungrudgingly, but unnecessarily, on 

 pheasants. By way of publishing how much he 

 observes, he actually will go so far as to make some 

 pretence at restraining the trespassing proclivities 

 of his dog when he passes through a wood, lest 

 the fiend disturb the pheasants just as if they were 

 neurotic individuals ordered the rest-cure. Two 

 minutes later he fails to take the slightest notice 

 when partridge after partridge flies up from under 

 his brute's nose from nests, of course. I never 

 can make out why this man call him what you 

 will ; I've called him several things ! so dearly loves 

 to be considered superior to the townsmen in 

 sporting science, or why he will persist in con- 

 sidering that pheasants alone constitute ' disturbable ' 

 game. I wonder on how many occasions, when I 

 have been asked whether people might take strolls 

 in certain parts of a shoot, and I have answered 

 that I had no objection provided that they did not 

 tread in the hedge-sides, or hold rollicking picnics 

 in certain dells, or take with them a dog guaranteed 

 innocent of malice aforethought and everything else, 

 have I heard the remark : ' Why ? Will it disturb 

 the pheasants ?' 



Slowly, but none the less surely, partridges will 

 forge their way to the top of the pole not only as 

 the most popular game-birds in the country, but as 

 the cheapest to produce, and in many other ways 

 the most desirable. There is only one fault that the 



