222 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



When their favourite does not shoot up to his usual 

 standard, the beaters are ready with some such 

 excuse as, ' He isn't hisself or summat ; you could 

 tell that by the looks on un.' For the useless 

 shooter who is continually giving trouble about 

 game that there is no immediate prospect of picking 

 up, and every trifle he can think of to worry other 

 people unnecessarily, the scorn of beaters is beyond 

 description. One old beater, having stated the bag 

 of a party of shooters, made this quaintly significant 

 comment : ' But they doan't 'its 'n every time they 

 shoots 'n off.' A man took a shoot in my neighbour- 

 hood, but gave it up after one season, though it was 

 said to have yielded him bags that averaged rather 

 more than a beater a day, besides other game. It 

 so happened that the skeleton of a suicide was 

 found during the first day's covert-shooting by the 

 succeeding tenant. No one seemed to know any- 

 thing about it, but a local sportsman, who had shot 

 with the previous tenant once and once only 

 suggested that it was the last of So-and-so's beaters. 

 For covert-shooting, beaters are not of much use 

 without stops ; and stops are worse than useless 

 unless they are carefully placed, and stay where 

 they are placed. There is a very golden rule for 

 the management of stops that they should be 

 placed, and not be allowed to place themselves, no 

 matter how well they know the ground. An old 

 woman taught me the value of this rule. I had told 



