ODDS AND ENDS 285 



There is only one risk in giving the keeper game 

 that he will reproduce it in the next day's bag ; but 

 the trick may be excused, since he thereby denies 

 himself a good dinner, to flatter the game-book. If 

 a keeper is given no game, he is apt to infer that he 

 is credited with helping himself; perhaps that he is 

 supposed to help himself. One keeper, fearing that 

 he might entirely forget the taste of game, made so 

 bold as to ask for a brace of pheasants. ' Whatever 

 do you want them for ?' he was asked ; and answered, 

 4 To eat.' 



Reluctance to use poison is another point to the 

 credit of keepers. They feel that it is not playing 

 the game ; they love to know that they have out- 

 witted the cunning of vermin ; and so, apart from 

 other considerations, keepers prefer the exercise of 

 the true spirit of woodcraft, unsullied by exclusion 

 of the sporting chance. Of course, where rats are 

 numerous, it seldom is possible to deal with them 

 by trapping and so forth only. An old keeper, who 

 scorned the use of poison where trap and gun would 

 serve, told me of a poisoning venture in the days of 

 his youth. His beat was about seven thousand 

 acres, in a district where carrion crows and magpies 

 were so numerous that, in spite of devoting most of 

 his time to trapping and shooting them, he seemed 

 to make no impression on their numbers. He had 

 been given a powder called ' hog's-bean/ and though 

 he told me it could be got in the form of a bean, 1 



