198 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



old, I had a look at all his birds. I told him he was 

 lucky to have lost so few, and that those he had 

 looked wonderfully well. Shortly afterwards I met 

 the infallible lifelong keeper. He began to slander 

 as usual, going on to revel in, and to multiply, the 

 former groom's losses ; so I gently reminded him 

 that 1897, his fi rst year in the district, was a 

 capital year for pheasants, but that the following 

 season, when he ought to have had over two thousand 

 birds, he came off the field with a doubtful six 

 hundred. And this was the end of his backbiting. 

 Another trait in the slandering type of keeper's 

 character is shown (to those behind the scenes) 

 by the furious energy in all he does within sight 

 of the c gents.' Out of their sight and hearing 

 he does little but curse them up and down each 

 beat. 



Though there are scores of excellent keepers who 

 have never followed any other calling, it does not 

 follow that they are superior to men who took to 

 the work comparatively late in life. It is the most 

 natural thing in the world that a boy, the son of a 

 keeper, should follow in his father's footsteps, but 

 he is quite likely to possess no special qualifications 

 for the calling. He may become a keeper only 

 because his father was a keeper. Personally, I 

 have come to the conclusion that gamekeepers 

 who started to earn their living in other ways 

 generally make the best keepers, because the special 



