282 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



as much a feather in the eap of one keeper as the 

 bagging of the thousand by another. Keepers are 

 not given to exaggerating the number of birds turned 

 into covert ; it would be cutting their own throats. 



No keeper appreciates bad guns, unless he is 

 anxious to spare his stock. Keepers, as a class, are 

 not what some people are pleased to call 'dead 

 shots.' Now and then I have met one who was 

 very good indeed so far as his experience went, but 

 the majority of keepers would be useless if set to 

 deal with driven birds. The head-keeper on one of 

 the largest estates in Hampshire was a dreadfully 

 bad shot ; he was so bad that he was obliged to 

 trap or snare, or otherwise poach, the greater part 

 of the game which he was supposed to shoot for his 

 employer's larder. After a time it began to be 

 noised abroad by the ladies of the kitchen that shot- 

 marks seldom were to be found on the game. This, 

 of course, did not help the keeper to shoot any 

 better ; but to protect himself he hit on the plan of 

 blazing at each head of game after he had trapped 

 it. Another keeper was a still worse shot, but he 

 openly confessed that though he had tried hard for 

 many long years, he had succeeded in hitting only- 

 one object while it was moving a rook when he 

 wasn't trying. I have made my share of misses, 

 but, curiously enough, I do not remember ever to 

 have missed a poaching cat, and I have shot at 

 well, several. 



