265 



is exactly the same as turning out a lot of fowls, and the rules as tc 

 liability for damage are precisely the same in each case, only the person 

 who kills the fowls would not be guilty of a criminal offence ; but the 

 person would be who killed the pheasants. Apart from this distinction^ 

 the cases are identical, and as the owner of fowls who injures a neigh- 

 bour's crops is liable to be sued for the damage his fowls do, or have 

 done, so is the owner of pheasants liable to be sued for whatever injury 

 his birds do or have done the farmer. We do not think that shooting 

 tenants fully recognise this fact or their position. They often think, or 

 act as if they seemed to believe, that the old times had returned ; that, 

 as in France before the Revolution, a seigoeur was legally entitled to 

 keep what number of pigeons he pleased to eat his tenant's crops, so 

 now the shooting tenant can keep what number of pheasants he pleases, 

 and so he can, with the trifling difference that the seigneur had not to 

 pay for the damage the pigeons did ; the shooting tenant has to pay, if 

 the tenant requires it, for the damage done by the pheasants. We do 

 not think that farmers as a rule — of course, there are churls every- 

 where — are inclined to grumble at a moderate supply of pheasants. 

 We never heard any objection to the birds that, are naturally bred on the 

 place, however numerous they might be, being considered as excessive. 

 Nor do we hear very much grumbling at a moderate supply of hand- 

 reared birds. What causes the complaint is the modern habit of 

 excessive breeding on one or two fields, from whence the birds stray in 

 a body to the nearest cornfield. The reasons are obvious when we read 

 that an exalted personage is going to honour Lord A. by shooting with 

 him. The guns are carefully picked so that only the best and most 

 reliable shots should be present, so that the bag may be as large 



as possible ; a bad shot is not tolerated however great his rank. 



********** 



"We confess we have little sympathy with the man, whether the 

 great landowner or the rich sporting tenant, who, to enable him to 

 swagger as to having had the largest bag of the season at his shoots^ 

 gets up an abnormal head of pheasants ; and we are not sorry to see 

 that the farmers are making a stand. Times are too bad for the farmer 

 to allow any part of his crop to suffer. If a man will swagger, he mus 

 pay for his swaggering, and we cannot say that the fact of his having 

 do so causes us any regret. We were never among those who ran down 

 covert-shooting, but covert-shooting is one thing, excessive breeding is 

 another ; even to turn out pheasants in moderation is not objectionable 

 if they can fly, and have not been kept for weeks in wire netting ; but 

 it is the indiscriminate turning out to kill a big bag that we feel to be 

 so very objectionable, because it is so very unsportsmanlike. The case 

 of the tenant who goes in for making shooting pay is rather different 

 from that of the swaggerer. He will never turn down pheasants unless 

 it pays to do so, and the dread of having to pay for compensa- 

 tion to the farmer will usually deter him. The cost of the pheasant& 

 alive is so out of proportion to the value when dead, that the stingy 



