247 



364 brace, in one of which he knocked down in 23 minutes 95 bra je, 

 or over eight birds a minute. He had three guns and two men 

 loading for him. 



The great bag of the season 1882-83 was made at Croxteth, Lord 

 Sefton's seat in Lancashire, where six guns killed 7,674 head in five 

 days, averaging 1,279 a gun. Of the lot 5,543 were pheasants, 1,25Q 

 hares, 440 wild ducks, besides snipe, rabbits, etc. ; of woodcocks only 

 eight were shot in the five days. 



1,313 brace of grouse were shot in one day by a party at Bromhead. 

 1,100 brace were bagged by another party in a single day on the 

 Wemmergill grouse moor ; and 1,000 brace in one day by a shooting 

 party at Studley Koyal. Unfortunately I have not the date or further 

 particulars of these shoots. 



On his Blubberhouse moor, in Yorkshire, on August 30, 1888, Lord 

 Walsingham made the largest bag of grouse ever made in a day to 

 one gun. It totalled J, 058 birds, and was made between 5.15 a.m. and 

 7.30 p.m. He had twenty drives, which occupied seven hours and 

 twenty-nine minutes, the rest of the time being spent in waiting for 

 the drivers or in picking up the birds. From 7 to 7.30 was spent in 

 walking home, during which fourteen birds were shot. Deducting 

 these, and the half-hour occupied in shooting them, 1,044 birds were 

 shot in 449 minutes' actual shooting — ^.e., for seven hours and a half — 

 an average of one bird in every twenty-five seconds ! Four guns were 

 used, and two loaders employed. Not a shot was fired by anyone 

 but Lord Walsingham. 



I find that " 70,000 partridges and 125,000 pheasants are the ap- 

 proximate estimate of the number of these birds annually sent to 

 London markets, coming mainly from jSTorfolk and Sufiblk, and these 

 numbers have probably been exceeded during the last few years." 



It is also stated that "in 1884 the number of pheasants killed every 

 season in the United Kingdom was estimated at 335,000, but this 

 calculation is probably much below the mark." 



I next find " figures taken from the accounts kept on an estate of 

 10,000 acres of preserved land in Norfolk which will give some idea of 

 the rate of increase in the number of pheasants during the present 

 century, and of ttie substantial advantage to the proprietor and his 

 friends as well as to the community in general." I quote the years 

 only in decades as nearly as they appear. Doubtless the rate of 

 increase has been maintained to the present time, but the return ends 

 in 1881. 



